In the Opera they were always in the front of it. Eight years before the first Parisian street was equipped with gas lamps, you could admire the new lighting system is already in the music theatre. And long before Nadar made the photography society, was used on the stage there is already a flash of light, produced by Lycopodium, which is made from the spores of the club moss.
Paris is in the middle of the 19th century. Century, the cultural capital of the world and the Paris Opera, a place of longing, the artist as the Fans of the genre – it is not the grandiose Palais Garnier, which dominates the city today as a symbol of the Belle Epoque centre. It will only be opened in 1875. In the time, the Volker Hagedorn describes in his book “The sound of Paris”, has the most expensive, most elaborate Form of the performing arts 2000-courses-domicile in the Salle Le Peletier.
There it pulls in 1821, the young Hector Berlioz shortly after his arrival from the province. Four days and four nights, 22-Year-old has spent in a Carriage to get to and from Lyon in the capital. In 1867, when he has to lament the death of his son, Louis, will he be able to train on the same route in 11 hours.
It is enormous, what has worn Hagedorn it all together
Two turning points in the lives of the composers to mark the Start and the end point of this “journey into the musical metropolis of the 19th century. Century,“ as Hagedorn book is in the subtitle. In fact, it is in this extraordinary publication to more than just the music.
Volker Hagedorn creates a complete panorama of Society in the Form of a docu-fiction. He constantly changes the perspective, weaves aware of the literary elements in the historical chronicle, “a fictional close-UPS, dialogue, which he writes from sources of food, collages of letters, Newspapers, prose,” as in the afterword. And he often slips into the role of the journalist who roams the Paris of today, and even quasi – “live” from his impressions and experiences reported. All with the aim of “the protagonists close”.
And it really is staggering what has worn Hagedorn everything together: He orchestrates his narrative like a musical score, has all the Figures of Europe, quoted passages from novels, know, always, how the weather was, and who had why, what wrinkle in the frock coat. He knows even in the menus of upscale restaurants. Hagedorn here, writes as often as possible, in the present tense, in the middle of it instead of just. This makes the reading just for Opera fans is interesting, but for anyone who has a desire in the atmosphere of the time.
All in front of you in the case of Hagedorn, the French composer, singer, stars, and music Manager, as well as the countless visitors, artists, enrich the cultural life of the metropolis, by Rossini, Ferdinand Hiller to Meyerbeer, Offenbach, and the young Richard Wagner. Victor Hugo and George Sand, Heine, Dumas and Baudelaire, the analyses of important paintings by Eugène Delacroix and Edouard Manet are almost as rampant as the descriptions of the key compositions of the time.
Like Volker Hagedorn euphoric-poetic when it comes to the Details of the scores, a paragraph further on, he lapses again into a sober local reporter-style, when he jumped into the present and reported, as he rings the doorbell, strangers Parisians, the living room in the Roof, where Hector Berlioz once his “Symphonie fantastique” composed.
excesses of unfettered capitalism in the Boomtown
Berlioz Hagedorn key witness and a soul mate. Because, as the composer was at the same time, a sharp-tongued reviewer, is also the author of the book dual, active as a musician on the viola as the music critic. With the stamina of the red-hot Fans, he rattles off all the places where Berlioz lived in Paris, loved, and suffered, to finally get to the result: “Berlioz is well-hidden in Paris. Also to the Panthéon in Paris, he has not done it. But there’s not a single funny bone is anyway.“
the composers were in the 19th century. Century important, to those places of entertainment to keep Running, where the Beautiful and Powerful self-created. Again and again Hagedorn denounces the excesses of unfettered capitalism in this Boomtown, reported by the poverty in which large sections of the population. Your displeasure is resulting in the July Revolution of 1830, just, while Hector Berlioz, the greatest revolutionary of the French music history of the 19th century. Century, in the Institut de France is quartered, to write with other young composer’s cantata for the coveted Rome prize from the Conservatoire de Paris.
A reading, as strenuous as Paris in the 19th century. Century
Volker Hagedorn the art piece manages to put the reader in those feeling wobble, in which the Paris were 150 years ago: A tremendous flood of impressions, a pattering continually on the individual.
For the inhabitants of the city were primarily due to the acceleration of daily life, connected with the railroad and Telegraph, with the Gaslight, the (balloon) air travel and the photography. For the reader of today, in turn, the dizziness set by the fact that Hagedorn reflects on everything at the same time, what happens in this time, politics, societal trends, technical innovations and avant-garde endeavors in all the arts. This makes the reading enormously productive, but also exhausting. So exhausting, like living in Paris in the mid-19th century. Century must have been.
On the 14. April 17 at a musical-literary Salon will be held for the book in the Villa Elisabeth, Invalidenstrasse in Mitte.
More about
The story of How Paris, the city of
Bernhard Schulz
Volker Hagedorn was: “The sound of Paris. A journey into the musical metropolis of the 19th century. Century“, Rowohlt 2019, 410 Pages, 25 Euros.
