Date of Production: 2015-04-20

Playing Time: 00:57:10

Catalogue Number: 2.110299

UPC: 747313529957

The Places

The tour starts in the formal gardens of the Palace of Versailles and
moves on to the Chateau of Chantilly. In Paris Montmartre presents a
simpler world, with scenes from the Canal Saint-Martin. The writer Rabelais is celebrated in Chinon, his birth-place, and there is a glimpse of Bluebeard's castle before we enter the traditional brasserie, La Cigale, in Nantes. In Paris again, the restaurant, the Train Bleu, celebrates an earlier age of luxury and from the historic railway stations of the capital we continue to Pere Lachaise Cemetery, before finally visiting the Place de la Concorde and the major sights of Paris.

The Music

In 1809 Vienna was once again under attack from the forces of Napoleon. Most of the leading families, including the imperial family,
had taken refuge elsewhere, the occasion of Beethoven's Sonata Les
Adieux. On 12th May the city surrendered, the French occupation
bringing with it hardship for the Viennese people. In these circumstances Beethoven, now 39 and increasingly deaf, worked on the
last of his five piano concertos, to be popularly known as the Emperor. It was probably completed in the following year and was given its first performance in Leipzig in November, 1811.