"La Philharmonie" - open doors - Lang Lang

Paris has got a new concert hall – and much more – which opened last week, part of a music complex referred to as “La Philharmonie”. This new installation will be the home of two orchestras plus three associated orchestras. The major one, “Orchestre de Paris” (with musical directors like Münch, von Karajan, Solti, Barenboim, Bychkov, Eschenbach… and at present Paavo Järvi), has until now been especially linked to “Salle Pleyel” (see previous post). Many people regret that this prestigious concert hall now will lose its vocation. One item is the fact that “La Philharmonie” is situated in the extreme northeast of the city, which many may consider to be “far away”. The leading Paris classical music concert halls have until now been concentrated in the more fashionable central quarters. “La Philharmonie” is situated in the “Parc de la Villette” area (see previous post), where you already could find “La Cité de la Musique” (City of Music), “Le Zenith” (a concert hall for more “popular” music events)… On the map below, we can see the location of the more important classical music concert halls in Paris – and you can see what I have written about them, e.g. here and here.

Having visited the back stage of “Salle Pleyel”, I can understand the need to find more space for training, rehearsals... Other arguments given by the defenders of the new installation is the higher capacity (2400 seats) of the major concert hall (there are several), a new price policy and the chance to attract a new, maybe younger, public.

Here we can see what the outside …

… some of the open areas inside...

… and the major concert hall look like.

Actually, although now opening officially, some finishing jobs remain, outside as well as inside. The architect, Jean Nouvel, was not happy about this and did not join the inaugural concert last week.

Last weekend there were “open doors”. As said above, the new complex offers much more than the new concert hall. There are other more modest ones and there is a lot of space for rehearsals, training and learning. I got the chance to learn the violin during an hour – I may need a few hours more!

I then went to listen to a rehearsal for a concert which would follow later during the day – 100 young pianists on 50 pianos.

I will revert to this below, but while awaiting this concert, I visited the installations existing since 1995, now referred to as “Philharmonie 2” - whereas the new building is referred to as “Philharmonie 1”. Also here we can find some concert halls, learning space…

… and a spectacular museum with instruments from all over the world. I obviously concentrated my photos on some nice old 17^th century harpsichords, some 19^th century pianos, some old violins (by Stradivarius and others).  

I then queued up...

....for the concert by the 100 young piano players – now all dressed in blue tee-shirts. They had now become 101! Lang Lang (does he need a presentation?) gave them a “master class”!

I will be back this week for a more “normal” concert. :-)