MUSICAL JOURNEY (A) - FRANCE: Paris, Burgundy, Provence, Loire, Brittany, Normandy
Paris
Opera Garnier / Champs-Elysees / Place Vendome / Place du Chatelet / Jardin du Luxembourg / Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Tombs of Haussmann and Chopin / A journey south of Paris / Metro / Art Nouveau House / Musee d'Orsay / Eiffel Tower
Burgundy
Vineyards / Beaune: Hotel-Dieu / Vezelay: Balisica
Provence
Arles: La Fete des Gardiens / Arena / Le pont du Gard / Les Alpilles
Franche-Comte
Fort de Joux / La Cluse de Pontarlier / Salt-works and LeDoux Museum of Arc-et-Senans / Salin-les-Bains / Arlay
Pays de la Loire
Canal Bridge, Briare / Angers Castle / Loire Chateaux: Chenonceau, Amboise, Saumur, Chinon, Usse, Azay-le-Rideau
Brittany and Normandy
Saint-Malo / Salt Marshes / Le Croisic / La Baule / Mont Saint-Michel
Date of Production: 2010-05-21
Playing Time: 01:18:00
Catalogue Number: 2.110247 UPC: 747313524754
UPC: 747313524754
The Places
This musical tour of France starts in Paris with scenes that reflect the modenisation of the city in the 19th century under Baron Haussmann. From Paris the tour passes to Burgundy, with its vineyards, to Provence, with its Fete des Gardiens in Arles and Roman aqueduct, and thence to the Loire, with its great castles and country houses. The tour ends with a visit to Brittany and Normandy, the northern coasts and the great monastery of Mont Saint-Michel.
The Music
Music for the tour is taken from Fryderyk Chopin's two piano concertos. The son of a French Emigre and a Polish mother, Chopin left his native Warsaw in 1830, settling in the following year in Paris, where he lived until his death in 1849. His piano concertos were written and first performed in Warsaw in 1830 and seemed a necessary part of his stock-in-trade for a planned career as a virtuoso. Eventually Chopin found a more congenial role in Paris as a performer in private society salons and as a fashionable teacher.
