Presto Recording of the Week
17th May 2024

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Alain Altinoglu

Schmitt, F: La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50
Schmitt, F: Chant élégiaque, Op. 24

In 1907 Florent Schmitt composed music to accompany a 'mimodrame' danced by Loie Fuller, La Tragedie de Salome. His score is bursting with colour, energy and voluptuousness - and also with oriental influences stemming from his travels to Morocco and Constantinople, where he discovered the howling dervishes. The final scene features the heart-rending 'Chant d'Aica', an oriental melody sung by a soprano. This music, though bold and modern for the listeners of 1907, nonetheless aroused the admiration of another composer, Igor Stravinsky, to whom Schmitt dedicated the Symphonic Suite he subsequently derived from the work. However, Alain Altinoglu, at the helm of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra of which he has been Music Director since 2021, has chosen to record the original version of this landmark of early twentieth-century French music. The beautiful Chant elegiaque, in its 1911 version for cello and large orchestra, completes this programme.

"This outstanding new performance from Alain Altinoglu and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra joins an extremely small number of recordings of the original, full-length version, and it is most certainly a sumptuous treat. It's such a vivid score, all brought out beautifully by Altinoglu and his players." - James Longstaffe, Presto Music, 17th May 2024