The French composer Florent Schmitt was born in 1870, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, close to the German border. He studied music locally before
entering the Paris Conservatoire aged nineteen, where he studied with Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet, Théodore Dubois, and Albert Lavignac. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1900, Schmitt saw his post-romantic music regularly performed in France before the second world war, but subsequently his music became neglected and is now very rarely played (or recorded). This recording of his Symphonie concertante, featuring Peter Donohoe as soloist, is only the second commercial recording of the piece. Çançunik, ‘Suite in Two Parts’, was composed for a competition run by the Compagnie française de radiophonie which oversaw Radio-Paris. The suite won first prize, and here receives its première recording. The
other pieces on the album (Three Dances and Memorial) are orchestrations by the composer of his own works, originally written for solo piano.