Salle de l’ancien Conservatoire

Yesterday we attended a remarkable concert.  The reason why this was such a remarkable concert is described here: http://ensemble-palaisroyal.com/evenement-musical-historique/ .  However there is no English translation of the page, so I will provide one:

The Palais Royal, for the opening of its season of Paris concerts, offers an exceptional musical event.  Directed by Jean-Philippe Sarcos, the Palais Royal interprets, on period instruments, the works of Beethoven and Mozart.  The setting for this concert is a salle de l’Ancien Conservatoire. 

La Salle de l’Ancien Conservatoire is a historical monument, erected between 1806 and 1811.  It is one of the first concert halls in history constructed for concerts rather than opera.

Since its opening, the acoustic quality due to the materials of wood and painted tiles have been hailed has exceptional, and the hall has been named the Stradivarius of concert halls. 

This location is laden with a illustrious musical past, comparable to no other: it is here that the symphonies of Beethoven were heard for the first time in France, here that the Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique was created, as well as a very large part of the French music of the 19th century.

Unknown by tourists and a number of Parisians, this hall has survived fires and demolitions and exists still today in its original condition. 

For the occasion, the original concert decor, preciously conserved in storage, has been remounted. 

On the concert program: three works performed [in this hall] in 1828 during the very first season of the orchestra of la Société des concerts du conservatoire : the Beethoven's Fifth symphony, Beethoven's concerto for piano-forte and orchestra no. 2 and the overture of Mozart's magic flute.

The concerto for piano-forte and orchestra no. 2 will be interpreted on an original piano-forte made by Franz Baumbach (Vienne, circa 1780).  This piano-forte, recently discovered in an attic and restored for the occasion, had not been played for over a century.  It finds itself for this concert together with a hall and repertoire of the same age."

-- Le Palais Royal

There is some possibility that this was the first orchestral concert in this hall in seventy years, although that couldn't be established for certain.  Why so little use?  Well, for one thing, the hall is small.  With modern spacing for the seating, the hall accommodates an audience of 440.  There is no lobby to speak of, so of course no intermission is possible.  And there is no air conditioning.  So with all the people and the lights, the hall got quite hot.  My shirt was soaked through with sweat, and the orchestra had to retune between the second and third movements due to the increasing heat - and this is in winter!  Remarkably, at opening season in 1828, 1100 people were admitted.  Hard to imagine.  For one thing, at the time, there would be been no seating on the main floor - that was standing room. And the balconies must have been full to overflowing.  And all the women in their voluminous and elegant early 19th century gowns!  It must have been terribly hot and uncomfortable with 1100 people in that small hall.  No wonder the ladies had fans.

As for the music...  well this is the first concert I have attended where the orchestra had to play an encore - and then after the encore the audience still wouldn't cease, so they played part of the overture again.

Oh, I should note that the conductor, Jean-Philippe Sarcos, also conducts l'académie de musique, which is one of the two orchestras that Silke plays in.

The most chic mop store in Paris

The Carrousel du Louvre is an underground shopping centre connecting with the underground entrance to the Louvre, beneath the famous pyramid.  It is a very chic shopping centre, with brand name stores selling jewelry, watches, perfume and the like.  And, there is Perigot, a store which sells mops, buckets, dust pans, garbage cans, coat hangers, and so on.

The inverted pyramid inside the Carrousel du Louvre, mirroring the outside entrance pyramid to the Louvre.

Perigot - when only the finest mop will do.

The Cold Song from Henry Purcell's King Arthur

For Silke's formation musicale class at the conservatory, she has to sing the cold song from Henry Purcell's musical theatre work, King Arthur.  She had already learned it, but wanted to see some performances of it.  So we looked it up on youtube.  My goodness but there are wildly different interpretations!  Here are three of our favourites.  If you don't like Baroque opera music, and not everyone does, than skip this post.  You regularly-scheduled Paris-related posts will return after this interruption.

The first is the most straight-forward performance, by the countertenor Andreas Scholl.  The orchestra is playing on period instruments, in an authentic style.  Silke's comment on this one, "I can't believe how good that is."  She listened to it a lot.

The next one, sung by Nanette Scriba, is what Silke and Jerome call the "Spaghetti Western" interpretation.  Not because of the visuals or the singing, but because the tangy guitar, especially in the intro, sounds like it could be the opening score for a Sergio Leone movie.  In this performance, the original English lyrics are translated (loosely) into German.

And the last one is wild and wacky and fun!  No credits on the youtube video (arg!), but your music sleuth (me) has identified it as a 2005 production by Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor.  The cold song starts at 2:15.

What all these performances have in common is that they are German productions.  (OK, the last is Austrian).  You can laugh at them - we did - in fact there may have been some danger of someone here dying of laughter - but at the same time they are three really great and daring performances that show what you can do with Baroque music today.  I don't think it's not just coincidence that these are German productions.  More than once now I've heard someone here introduce a musical project by way of explaining they were attempting something that exists in Germany, but up until now hadn't existed in France.  Who knows why that is?  Maybe it's something in the water, or maybe it's critical mass, or maybe it is, as I've heard ventured, that artists can actually afford to live in Berlin.

Addition: The New York Times recently printed this article about music in Berlin: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/arts/music/classical-musicians-too-make-berlin-their-capital.html?smid=pl-share .

The Abbey Bookshop

There is a Canadian bookstore in Paris.  Are there even still any Canadian bookstores in Canada?

Sunday mid-day queue at the bakery

Sunday in France is a day to eat with your family, or your friends.  But not all bakeries are open on Sundays.  So the ones that are, are busy.  This is a queue outside at our favourite bakery, Boulanger Erik Kayser.  It's not the closest one to us, but it is a short walk.  I myself am rarely inside it, since that responsibility is delegated to others in the family.  Either Silke or Jerome, or frequently both of them, go there every morning at 7am, and buy four croissants and two baguettes.  On Saturdays and Sundays, instead of croissants they get pains au chocolate.

And since I started on the topic of food - and what would be a blog without food shots? - here is a cream of parsley soup I made yesterday, served of course with a baguette from Erik Kayser.

And wild mushrooms, cèpes, from the market.  Because it is mushroom season.

Galleries of paleontology and comparative anatomy

Last weekend we went to the galleries of paleontology and comparative anatomy in the jardins des plantes.  The galleries are only one of many buildings in the jardins des plantes which are devoted to natural history and evolution.  There is even a small zoo in the gardens.  It would take a long time to see everything there.  I think the galleries, which along with the superb building they are in date to 1898, are one of my favourite places that we have seen so far.  There is a floor devoted to dinosaur skeletons, which is cool.  But what turned out surprisingly to be the most interesting were the modern skeletons.  Thousands and thousands of them.  You really can see the patterns of life.  For example, all mammals have more or less the same bones, different shapes for sure, but connected in the same order, and you can generally name the bones, whether it is a mouse or a giraffe or a gorilla or a porpoise.  This isn't news of course to anyone who has studied biology, but it's one thing to know a fact and see illustrations in a book, and another thing altogether to be looking at hundreds of real skeletons, of wildly different shapes, and yet all still a variation on a theme.

So, I have more photos for this post than usual.

Elephant

Whales

Performing on the Paris Metro

Here's a video from the New York Times about musicians playing on the metro.  http://nyti.ms/1fjwYSA  After three months, I still love taking the metro.  Everyone complains about it: it's crowded, dirty and bewildering.  But it beats the heck out of finding a parking spot.  And in a city crowded with cafés with outdoor tables where all the chairs are facing out for the purpose of people-watching, you can watch a heck of a lot more people in a short time on the metro.  They don't serve drinks, but, as the video shows, there is live music.

Vincennes

Today is the last day of school holidays.  It also happened to be a lovely crisp fall day - and the forecast for next week is rain.  So we went to the park de Vincennes on the edge of Paris.  It's the largest park in  Paris.  There is also a castle there, le château de Vincennes.  It's a 14th century castle, which served as a royal residence for a number of kings in the 14th and 15th centuries.  Medieval castles seem really rather small and uncomfortable compared with renaissance palaces.

What we were really there for was not the castle, but the park, so after a quick tour of the keep, we found a vélib station to get some bikes for a spin around the park.

Opening hour at le café Campana

Le café Campana is inside musée d'Orsay.

Eiffel Tower