Flute Quartet Op. 106 - Florent Schmitt

Flute Quartet Op. 106 composed in 1949 in 4 movements by Florent Schmitt (1870 - 1958). "The French composer Florent Schmitt belongs to the legion of composers from the first half of the 20th century whose music, while important in its day, has fallen into obscurity, and is not well represented on disc. It is easy to point the finger at the historical caution of commercial record companies, but Schmitt’s demise in popularity extends back well into his own lifetime, and has sociological and cultural roots. Like Strauss, Rachmaninoff, and so many others, he refused to shed the skin of his particular musical tradition, and suffered the aspersions of those who felt at the time that not joining the ranks of the avant-garde was worthy of contempt. But Schmitt resists easy classification - a fact that he would have enjoyed immensely. He stoutly refused to acknowledge affinities between his music and other composers, saying that was the job of pedants and analysts. Although a traditionalist in many ways, he was hardly the reactionary that Stravinsky and others stigmatized him as in later life, and his music often employed surprisingly modern harmonic and rhythmic idioms. His reputation as a conservative who "lived to see the times outgrow him" is based on no stronger a premise than the fact that his music continued to adhere to traditional formal moulds, and Romantic sources of subject matter. A tinge of bitterness haunted his old age, acutely aware as he was of this stigma, in...