General rehearsal at la Madeleine

I obviously can't take pictures at the concerts, so I took a few at the rehearsal last night at la Madeleine.

Silke is not hard to spot, at least in a close-up.  Her stand partner, the concert master and one of the professional musicians in the mix, is Nguyen Nguyen.  The French expression is to say that it is an orchestra of students "framed" (encadré) by professionals.  Here is his biography: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.academie-de-musique.com%2FJean-Pierre-Lacour .

Besides me, there were only a handful of people sitting in on the rehearsal.  (Because Silke is so young, I have a pass that allows me attend rehearsals with her.  But mostly I don't, unless they rehearse somewhere new where she hasn't been before, as last week, or it's something special, like a rehearsal in la Madeleine.)  Those listening last night were outnumbered by the statues of saints around the walls.  Perhaps they were listening as well.  Here, Jean d'Arc:

La Madeleine is extremely reverberant.  It is a much more lively sound than Notre Dame.  Actually Notre Dame is kind of dead acoustically I find.  The interior of Notre Dame is cross-shaped, with many deep alcoves and galleries on all sides and at several levels - lots of spaces for sound to get trapped and lost.  La Madeleine, in contrast is simply a huge shoebox - Silke says "ginormous", with only a few shallow alcoves.  Ginormous being a roof at a height of 43 metres, and a hall 108 metres long.  That is longer than a football field.  I think those are the exterior dimensions, but the interior is not much smaller, being one huge open space.  Stone walls, stone ceiling, stone floor, and no interior pillars, except right along the walls.  When then orchestra cuts off suddenly on a loud note, you can still hear it reverberate for the longest time.  It goes on . . . and on . . . and on . . . and if you listen closely, you can still hear it.  When they play with an audience, there will be more sound absorption in the hall, and it won't ring quite that long.  It is actually a hard setting to play, according to the professional musicians.  They prefer la Trinité, where the other two concerts will be held.  Now I know why at the rehearsal last week, Jean-Phillipe Sarcos, when working on a fugue passage, had the chorus sing almost entirely the just attack of each note, and then back right off.  In a smaller hall, that had a somewhat coarse, overly rhythmic effect.  But in la Madeleine, it gives it some clarity.  Actually in walking around la Madeleine during the rehearsal, I found the sound best, and clearest, about 2/3 of the way back in the church.  Close up, the contrast between the direct sound and the delayed reflections was unbalanced.