Concert #2: Salon Edition

Yesterday marked both a national holiday and my second Parisian concert in the last month. While my first concert took place under somewhat rushed and harrowing circumstances, I had been preparing for yesterday's performance with Dominique Fournier (piano) and Anne-Chantal Carrière (soprano) since late fall. You can listen to our entire performance by clicking "play" below, or choose individual tracks by clicking "Les Sonorités du Salon." Click "download" on the player below to get the whole album in mp3 format. (If you're desperate to hear me play clarinet, skip to tracks 4-7.)

The concert took place in a private salon in the 9th arrondissement, just across the street from former residences of Chopin and Georges Sand. The salon, decorated in authentic Louis-Phillippe style, transported us to the era in which much of the music we performed was written. 

Playing chamber music is always a pleasure, but I especially enjoyed the "ethnographic" element this concert adds to my year of research. After all, I'm writing a dissertation about the period in French history that saw the last great flowering of salon culture, so I've spent a decent amount of time reading about concerts just like this one. To have participated in the planning and execution of a concert that could have easily taken place a century ago gives me a strange, almost cosmic sense of connection with the composers, performers, salon hosts, patrons, and audience members that I've been studying. It's fitting that this rich moment comes towards the end of a rewarding year.

I hope you enjoy listening to the recording. Let me know if you're interested in coming to a repeat performance of this concert, which will take place on May 30 in Longpont.

Release Party

For all those who couldn't make it to the concert on Sunday, Noël, Jake, and I are pleased to present a complete recording. Everything is available for free, high-quality download from a nifty music-hosting site (thanks for the tip, Margaret!) - click "download" on the player below to get the whole album at once, or click "Pour le plaisir de jouer" to get individual tracks.

Enjoy, and let us know what you think!

Concert Announcement

In case you're in Paris and haven't heard, Louis is performing in a concert tomorrow (April 25) with famed composer/pianist Noël Lee and up-and-coming cellist Jacob Saunders. Here's the program:

Beethoven - Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano in B-flat Major, Op. 11, 1st Movement

Noël Lee - Interstices for Clarinet and Piano

Debussy - Nocturne for Cello and Piano

Debussy - Première Rapsodie for Clarinet and Piano

(Intermission)

Brahms - Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano in A minor, Op. 114

Here's a free sample (the first movement of the Brahms), to get you hooked:

Finally, here are the deets:

Where: Rendez-vous d'Ailleurs, 109 Rue des Haies, 75020 Paris (Métro Avron or Maraichers)
When: 5 PM
Concert Length: approximately 1.5 hours
Cost: 15 euros (full), 12 euros (reduced)
Fun Level: High

Hope to see you there!

Cirque d'Hiver

In Paris, most of the historical "sights" are concentrated in the center and western third of the city. The Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, tons of other museums and monuments, they're all jam-packed in one fairly small area, at least relative to the size of the entire city. That's because these are the older and posher areas; more was preserved when Baron Haussmann took his wrecking ball to various "insalubrious" neighborhoods in the 1860s. The east of the city has always been poorer, has been (and still is) home to various waves of immigrants, and seems more susceptible to ambitious urban renewal projects (like Haussmann's) that destroy vast swaths of housing, businesses, and landmarks. All of this exposition serves to highlight the improbability and wondrousness of the preservation of the Cirque d'Hiver.

First of all, a permanent building that primarily houses a circus? Who ever heard of such a thing? Parisians circa 1851, apparently, for that's when the Cirque Napoléon (after the Emperor who inaugurated it) was built. We haven't been inside, but I'm very curious to see what it looks like, since the building played host to the first "popular" concert series in Paris. (Initially conducted by Jules Pasdeloup, for whom the series was named, the concert series survives to this day.)

The Cirque d'Hiver surprises me every time I see it. And it reminds me of the otherwise consistent lack of similarly old, epic landmarks in eastern Paris. Can anyone think of anything I'm missing? (Besides the Gare de Lyon, Parc des Buttes Chaumont, the Porte at Nation, and Père Lachaise, which is a collection of tiny monuments rather than one big one . . .)

If you're walking down Boulevard du Temple from Place de la République, the Cirque d'Hiver will be on your left, in the 11th arrondissement, right next to the Filles du Calvaire métro station. Check it out!

Outside the Opéra

Way back in September, during the Journées Européennes du Patrimoine, Maggie, Robert, and I happened upon a ragtag group of young musicians blasting pop and folk tunes from the steps of the Opéra Garnier.

Who were these musicians, we wondered, and what was their deal? We never found out.

Fast forward to last week, when I saw, in the same place, a strikingly similar group of young musicians blasting similarly pop- and folk-oriented tunes. Were they the same group? Answering this question requires a close-up comparison:

At first the orange and green threw me off - did they just change clothes? Then I realized that the line-up is slightly different, with clarinets in the second group, and a euphonium in the first group. This is the stuff that musicology is made of - doing that newspaper puzzle that asks "what are the 5 differences between these two images," just, you know, music-related.

Anyway, now that we've established they're probably not the same groups, we can pose further questions (this is also something musicologists love to do): just how many groups do play on the steps of the Opéra Garnier? Do you need a permit for that? When's the next time either of these groups will play, so I can be sure to bring my trusty audio recorder?

And finally, does either group need another clarinetist? I'd totally do it, if only to be able to say that I played at the Paris Opera . . .

Rehearsal Excitement

So as Maggie recently reported, I'm getting ready to perform in a few concerts in May, and yesterday I had a rehearsal/coaching session at the apartment of the piano teacher of our group's pianist. This teacher, Noël Lee, happens to be an American composer and concert pianist who's been living in Paris for more than 50 years, so it's always a pleasure and an honor to play for him.

As you'll hear in the clip below, we were in the middle of working on a section when I saw something strange through the window. (I've taken the liberty of amplifying the sound around 30 seconds in so you can hear the conversation better.)

Here's a little transcript of the beginning, showing just how much work my French still needs.

Me: Il y a un mec qui a, qui vient de . . . comment tu dis . . . he just climbed in the window over there
Noël: What?
Me: There's a guy who just climbed in the window. Il a . . . [Noël: Where?] grimpé, il a grimpé dans la fenêtre, juste en face . . .

There were two problems with my observation. First, no one quite believed me, since how crazy is it that someone would just climb in the window of a 2nd-floor apartment across the street? And second, I kept saying "greeempay" when I should have been saying "grampay" (as Noël quietly acknowledges around 1:07), so it's possible Dominique (my accompanist) didn't understand.

We all kind of laughed about it at the time - you can hear Noël say, "well, bravo!" at the end, and just after that, he wonders if maybe the guy just lost his keys. But today I got an email from Noël proving that what I saw was no laughing matter:

You might be interested to learn that the man you saw yesterday climb the building opposite was a thief; he got away with money, restaurant tickets, and such and left by the same route, but I guess you didn't see him go down.   My neighbor who lives underneath told me this morning.  If you have any details about what he looked like, let me know.

Oops. All I remember is that he was wearing a white jacket, he was skinny, and he had dark hair. That describes about a quarter of the guys in this city, so it probably won't be very helpful.

The rehearsal, on the other hand, was very helpful. Dominique and I are making good progress on a piece we're playing for fun, rather than for either of the concerts in May. Just in case you're curious, it's the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in F minor, Opus 120 No. 1 by Johannes Brahms, and so far we've gotten through the first and second movements. Below is a somewhat choppy cut-and-paste from our rehearsal/coaching yesterday so you can get an idea of what the two movements sound like.

Opéra de Compiègne

On January 31st, Maggie and I headed out of the city with my piano accompanist and friend, Dominique, who had invited us to go to the Opéra de Compiègne with him. Compiègne is a city of around 40,000 an hour to the northeast of Paris and boasts a fine château and forest, both of which have some historical importance (armistices ending WWI and ending the German invasion of France during WWII were signed in the forest). Napoleon III liked the château enough to tack on a sizable opera house in the mid-19th century, which became the Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne. It was there that we were to see a two-part production: Le Gendarme Incompris (1920), a play by Jean Cocteau and Raymond Radiguet with incidental music and songs by Francis Poulenc; and Les Mamelles de Tiresias, an opera bouffa by Poulenc based on Guillaume d'Apollinaire's 1903 play. This was a great pre-birthday present, since my dissertation focuses on all these early-20th-century artists, and since Poulenc is one of my favorite composers.

(Thanks to the Compiège Tourism Office for this shot of the Théatre Impérial.)

We had a hard time understanding Le Gendarme Incompris, what with the cross-dressing, affected Italian accents, and the lack of sub- or surtitles. In fact, I fell asleep partway through (I'm terrible!) and totally missed the following scene, which included one of Poulenc's songs. (This clip is from a 2009 production in Toulon.)

We still couldn't tell you exactly what Le Gendarme incompris is about, but c'est pas grave (it's no big deal), because Dominique couldn't explain it to us afterwards either.

On the other hand, I already knew Les Mamelles de Tirésias from reading about Poulenc, and from a recording I have. The basic premise of this so-called Surrealist work ("so-called" because it was written before the advent of Surrealism, and because there's no such thing as Surrealist music) is that Thérèse, a normally submissive housewife, rebels against femininity and spontaneously changes sex (her breasts turn into balloons and float away), not only leaving her husband to fend for himself, but becoming a famous general (Tiresias) who leads a successful campaign against childbirth. Her husband, put off by the whole affair and fearful for the future of the country, figures out a way to have children by himself, and manages to (re)produce 40,049 in a single day. At the end Thérèse/Tirésias comes back, repents of her errant ways, and joins the husband and the rest of the cast in singing the praises (literally) of childbearing. The last line of the opera, repeated over and over again in blatant symbolism, urges the French to make as many babies as possible. This was relevant during WWI (when Apollinaire's play was first performed), after WWII (when Poulenc's opera was premiered), and today (when European birthrates are dropping precipitously).

It's a great piece, with lots of catchy tunes and clever orchestration. For a post-war opera, it might be considered a little reactionary (it's a crowd-pleaser), but it's also typical Poulenc, which is what I like about it. For a snippet of the opera, I first offer Poulenc himself accompanying Denise Duval, who created the role of Thérèse/Tirésias in 1947, in a concert version of the beginning of the work. The second clip gives a glimpse of staging, costumes, and the silliness of it all (especially from 1:00 in), from a 2007 Prague State Opera production.

It's delicious stuff, and of course it's best savored live. Afterwards, thanks to Dominique's connections we were able to go backstage, meet the performers, and even go to the cast party! We truly live charmed lives here.

M is for Music

Last June, between coffee and Bingo, Louis strutted his stuff for the residents at the Friends Home in Woodstown, New Jersey. 

That's right, in addition to being a scholar, chef, and master blogger, Louis plays a mean Ravel (and Chopin and Debussy, etc.). And just as he did last summer in Woodstown, Louis will be demonstrating his musical talents this spring at a salon (literally, in someone's living room) concert here in Paris (he'll be playing the clarinet, though). He's been rehearsing with the two other musicians nearly every week for the past few months, and regaling our neighbors with his sweet sounds in the evenings before dinner. Listen to a preview here (scroll down to the bottom of the post).

Let us know if you'll be in Paris this May - we'll send you the deets!

The Choir Organ at La Trinité

Mostly, I divide our experiences in Paris into two types: "tourist" and "resident." Every time we go to the Eiffel Tower (four times so far this year) or the Louvre (I've been eight times since 2004) I check off the "tourist" box in my mind, whereas every walk through the Parc des Buttes Chaumont with Panda or carousel we ride earns a check in the "resident" box. 

But sometimes an experience is so unique I can't find a place for it in either category. Such was the case last Thursday, when my mom, Cathy, and I were treated to a private organ concert at La Trinité, a neo-Renaissance cathedral constructed in 1867.

For you 20th-century musicologists out there, you might recognize La Trinité as kind of a big deal for organ music, since Olivier Messiaen was the titulaire (official performer) of the grand organ there from 1931 to 1992. Alas, we didn't get to hear the grand organ, but what we did hear on the choir organ (made by Cavaillé-Coll, installed 1867) was more than grand enough.

Audio Challenge #1: Name that piece

Our benefactor at La Trinité was Carolyn, whom I met at the BN in September, and with whose husband I'm preparing a concert for a Parisian salon for May 13 (you're invited!). Carolyn is the titulaire of the choir organ, and she invited us to hear her play after meeting my mom and Cathy Wednesday afternoon at a rehearsal for the salon concert. (Apparently my mom and Cathy made a strong impression!)

César Franck, "Prelude" from Prelude, Fugue, and Variations (excerpt)

At one point, Carolyn suggested we go to the Chapel of the Virgin Mary to listen, as the acoustics were supposed to be perfect there. So we went, and contemplated beautiful stained glass and neo-renaissance architecture as she thundered through Messaien's Transports de Joie, a piece that church must have already heard many times. (She started before we arrived at the Chapel, so the beginning is cut off.) The choir organ was originally mounted just above this chapel (opposite the grand organ, way down at the other end of the nave), and I'm not sure when it was moved down to its current position (on the left side of the nave, just before the transept).

Finally, we were treated to Messiaen's O Sacrum Convivium, a piece designed to inspire spiritual reverie.

While Carolyn's concert clearly constituted a unique experience, I'm hoping that the choir organ at La Trinité becomes a consistent part of my remaining time here. Carolyn invited me to play with her just as soon as I can get some clarinet/organ repertory copied at the library, and I plan to do just that.


For something close-to-but-not-quite-as-amazing-as our experience, you can hear Carolyn play during Mass and at rare solo concerts, as indicated on her website.

Lille v. Cracovie

First stop on our whirlwind mini-sightseeing adventure last week: Lille. Once again, we found a great host via Couchsurfing. While we were on the train, we received a text message from Xavier, our soon-to-be host, saying that he had some extra tickets to a basketball game, and would we like to come along? Never ones to turn down random and potentially interesting opportunities, we were more than happy to take him up on the offer.

Here we are, with our host, post-basketball game:

And here's a shot of part of the crowd and the delightful clown mascot/pump-up-the-crowd-guy.

But wait - here's something I bet you weren't expecting... (and neither were we!) the basketball game we went to was professional, and women's. SO. Awesome. The Lille team is known as the Entente Sportive Basket Villeneuve d'Ascq, or ESBVA and is part of the Ligue Féminine de Basket.

Watch this video to get a little taste of the sweet, sweet basketball action and hear from three of the players themselves, including former Wisconsin Badger all-star Joelene Anderson!

Oh, and I cannot forget to mention one of the highlights of the event: the pep band, Les Z'hurlants! This video comes from their official website [warning, there is unstoppable (but really awesome) music at this site... best not to open this link at work]:

What an adventure!

I leave you with a not-so-great action shot that taken right from my seat because I was too stunned to leave it: I was at my first-ever professional women's basketball game... in Lille, France!