Another month, another recording of Florent Schmitt’s La tragédie de Salomé. Anybody who already has the recent ATMA release by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his Montreal-based Orchestre Métropolitan will have good reason to be satisfied with that and will probably not need to investigate further – unless the appetite for Schmitt is insatiable. Nézet-Séguin coupled Salomé with César Franck’s D minor Symphony. Yan Pascal Tortelier and his Brazilian orchestra go all out for Schmitt, with the interesting inclusion in their programme of Le palais hanté and his setting of Psalm 47, giving the whole choir something to sing other than the female voices’ wordless lines in Salomé.

The haunted castle that Schmitt had in mind was the one of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, once “a fair and stately palace” adorned with “banners yellow, glorious, golden” but harbouring unspecified “evil things” that turn the idyll into something more macabre. It is this darker side that seemed to attract Schmitt for, although there are hints of pastoral tranquillity and princely gaiety, the creepy harmonies and images of foreboding suggest hidden threats. Tortelier relishes the rich Wagnerian colours and the fluidity of harmony and directs a radiant account of Psalm 47, with the chorus’s singing fully matching the music’s jubilation. If Nézet-Séguin brings more variety of atmosphere to Salomé, this one has strong dramatic impetus and the other two pieces definitely earn their place alongside it.