ABSTRACT
Florent Schmitt was a direct contemporary of both Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. His total output exceeded that of each of those composers and a catalogue of his works compiled by his biographer Yves Hucher lists 138 opus numbers in every genre except opera. Schmitt himself said that he liked pianists to have their hands full. Ravel, then aged 14, had also been accepted by the Paris Conservatoire in the same year as Schmitt. Initially being placed in the preparatory piano class of Eugene Anthiome, Ravel advanced to the piano class of Charles de Beriot in the autumn of 1891. Schmitt’s work on the first two reductions for Clare Delius must have kept him fairly well occupied, for his own output is not terribly extensive. The amount of work which constitutes the several vocal score reductions of Schmitt cannot be underestimated, especially considering the sheer effort and concentration required for the amount of writing involved.
