Just FYI - for those who are friends with me on Facebook, my friend posted a recording of our duet on my wall, so you can listen if you want. Those that don't have Facebook I'm sure can find someone who is friends with me if they desperately want to hear. :)
Also PS, guys, I was kidding about the cows! We just all stared at each other for a while, they weren't scared of us and we weren't scared of them. They just didn't like us getting so close to their field.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Sing sing sing
As I mentioned, I took a little trip this weekend to see a friend who is also an au pair in France. We've known each other for oh, maybe...19 or 20 years by now and it happens that we sang together in our school choirs throughout middle and high school. She moved here in February and joined a choir with the mother of the family she works for - it's not a professional choir but they're decent. It's mostly older people. She thought I could help out the soprano section so invited me to join them for their concert this weekend.
Anyway, they live in a very small town outside of Nancy, one of the smallest cities in France. Their province, Lorraine, borders Germany. It's an hour and a half from Paris on the high speed train.
So I got out there Friday evening and met the mother at the train station, we drove through the first thunderstorm of the year, and then we got home and I met her two little girls. They're six and nine, and just starting out learning English so they know much less than the kids I work with. The whole family is musical and we had a lot of fun singing and playing piano with the girls while practicing the choir music.
The strange thing about the program for the concert on Saturday was that there were 22 choir pieces, so, not counting our duet or my friend's solo. Normally choirs will do 6-8 pieces for a concert, depending on the length. So this concert was VERY long and there was a LOT of singing I had to do Saturday - I had to practice super fast to learn all of it and then sing it at the concert. I ended up with no voice whatsoever!
The people in the choir were very nice and friendly, they were all very impressed both with the singing and my French. They were so pleased, in fact, that they're paying for my train ticket to come out there again in a couple of weeks and sing. We're going to have to pick out another duet, but at least this time around I won't have to learn all the music the day of the concert. I'm pretty excited that they liked it so much, since I haven't done much performing in a while.
The town where they live is really pretty, and the countryside around it is absolutely gorgeous!
This is their street:
On the walk down their street:
Their street ends with a big field on one hill of a shallow valley - this is a view across to the other side of the valley.
The field, and looking farther on
My friend didn't know who owns the field, she doesn't really think anyone does, although it's mowed sometimes. Apparently not recently since the grass and such came up to my upper calf! The trees in this picture look like they're sinking into the grass.
Oh look, it's me in a field!
There are lots of cows and horses around
Speaking of cows! These did not appreciate us being next to their field. They look pretty menacing, no?
The area where we were walking was full of these pretty little flowers.
After taking a quick tour of the town and some rehearsing it was time to go perform. The church was small and pretty generic, so no pictures. However I had to take a picture of the outfits they gave us:
They were so awful! The color was terrible and they looked awful on everyone. The top part of mine and the skirt were the same color but for some reason everyone else had a shiny light gold skirt instead. Notice the distinctly old-person looking shoes: one of the old ladies brought them for me because they were worried I wouldn't have appropriate (ie, non-black, flat) ones. I had brought some neutral colored flat sandals but apparently these were much better!
After the concert there was a little wine/digestif gathering with the choir and everyone. They were all sweet, but they demanded we sing another duet on the spot! So we had to come up with something really quickly and do it, but they liked it.
So, when I go out there in another two weekends I'm going to spend some more time in Nancy before the concert. I got a few pictures from there this trip but I figured I'd wait to post them until I have a bunch from the city. It was very cute and interesting, though, so I'm excited to go back.
Anyway, they live in a very small town outside of Nancy, one of the smallest cities in France. Their province, Lorraine, borders Germany. It's an hour and a half from Paris on the high speed train.
So I got out there Friday evening and met the mother at the train station, we drove through the first thunderstorm of the year, and then we got home and I met her two little girls. They're six and nine, and just starting out learning English so they know much less than the kids I work with. The whole family is musical and we had a lot of fun singing and playing piano with the girls while practicing the choir music.
The strange thing about the program for the concert on Saturday was that there were 22 choir pieces, so, not counting our duet or my friend's solo. Normally choirs will do 6-8 pieces for a concert, depending on the length. So this concert was VERY long and there was a LOT of singing I had to do Saturday - I had to practice super fast to learn all of it and then sing it at the concert. I ended up with no voice whatsoever!
The people in the choir were very nice and friendly, they were all very impressed both with the singing and my French. They were so pleased, in fact, that they're paying for my train ticket to come out there again in a couple of weeks and sing. We're going to have to pick out another duet, but at least this time around I won't have to learn all the music the day of the concert. I'm pretty excited that they liked it so much, since I haven't done much performing in a while.
The town where they live is really pretty, and the countryside around it is absolutely gorgeous!
This is their street:
On the walk down their street:
Their street ends with a big field on one hill of a shallow valley - this is a view across to the other side of the valley.
The field, and looking farther on
My friend didn't know who owns the field, she doesn't really think anyone does, although it's mowed sometimes. Apparently not recently since the grass and such came up to my upper calf! The trees in this picture look like they're sinking into the grass.
Oh look, it's me in a field!
There are lots of cows and horses around
Speaking of cows! These did not appreciate us being next to their field. They look pretty menacing, no?
The area where we were walking was full of these pretty little flowers.
After taking a quick tour of the town and some rehearsing it was time to go perform. The church was small and pretty generic, so no pictures. However I had to take a picture of the outfits they gave us:
They were so awful! The color was terrible and they looked awful on everyone. The top part of mine and the skirt were the same color but for some reason everyone else had a shiny light gold skirt instead. Notice the distinctly old-person looking shoes: one of the old ladies brought them for me because they were worried I wouldn't have appropriate (ie, non-black, flat) ones. I had brought some neutral colored flat sandals but apparently these were much better!
After the concert there was a little wine/digestif gathering with the choir and everyone. They were all sweet, but they demanded we sing another duet on the spot! So we had to come up with something really quickly and do it, but they liked it.
So, when I go out there in another two weekends I'm going to spend some more time in Nancy before the concert. I got a few pictures from there this trip but I figured I'd wait to post them until I have a bunch from the city. It was very cute and interesting, though, so I'm excited to go back.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Mini trip
There won't be any new posts up until probably Sunday or Monday, because I'm taking a mini weekend trip to the Nancy area. I have a friend who is an au pair there and she invited me to join her choir for their concert Saturday.
I'm hoping I'll have some time to explore the area a little bit, but since I'll have to learn all the music in one day I'll probably spend most of my time rehearsing, but we'll see.
Bon week-end tout le monde!
I'm hoping I'll have some time to explore the area a little bit, but since I'll have to learn all the music in one day I'll probably spend most of my time rehearsing, but we'll see.
Bon week-end tout le monde!
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Versailles - Hamlet
Last time I explained a bit about Marie-Antoinette's kind of crazy fantasy that she could remove herself from court life and live in the "country" as a make-believe shepherdess. To make this role more authentic she had this tiny "hamlet" made just for her where she could escape to her imagined "country life." It is a longish but pleasant walk from the Petit Trianon, where she spent most of her time. This was probably the craziest thing she did in her tenure as queen.
Although it was a representation of a fantasy, this actually was a functioning farm after she had it made. It had farm animals and working buildings to process all the farm stuff - the queen would even milk cows and sheep here, after they had been meticulously cleaned by her staff, of course. There was a laiterie (a place to process dairy products), a mill, a couple of houses, a farmhouse where most of the animals were kept, things like that.
I have to say this place is really pretty and picturesque, just as it's supposed to be. It was more or less abandoned after the French Revolution and only restored two hundred years later, but they did a very good job.
This is the "lighthouse," originally intended as a fishery but mostly it just held the equipment for when the queen felt like taking a little boat trip around the lake.
This is the house where the queen stayed when she was around. The building attached on the left was the kitchen area.
One of the buildings burned down at some point, it might have been the mill.
There are still sheep, goats, chickens, roosters, ducks, and other types of fowl there. Here is a peacock:
And thus concludes the tour of Versailles! It really is worth a visit if you ever come to Paris, although it needs a full day to do everything there.
Although it was a representation of a fantasy, this actually was a functioning farm after she had it made. It had farm animals and working buildings to process all the farm stuff - the queen would even milk cows and sheep here, after they had been meticulously cleaned by her staff, of course. There was a laiterie (a place to process dairy products), a mill, a couple of houses, a farmhouse where most of the animals were kept, things like that.
I have to say this place is really pretty and picturesque, just as it's supposed to be. It was more or less abandoned after the French Revolution and only restored two hundred years later, but they did a very good job.
This is the "lighthouse," originally intended as a fishery but mostly it just held the equipment for when the queen felt like taking a little boat trip around the lake.
This is the house where the queen stayed when she was around. The building attached on the left was the kitchen area.
One of the buildings burned down at some point, it might have been the mill.
There are still sheep, goats, chickens, roosters, ducks, and other types of fowl there. Here is a peacock:
And thus concludes the tour of Versailles! It really is worth a visit if you ever come to Paris, although it needs a full day to do everything there.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Versailles - the Trianons
Trianon was originally a small hamlet next to the town of Versailles. When Louis XIV bought the palace of Versailles and surrounding areas he also bought that hamlet (I don't know what happened to the people!), and today "the Trianons" are the two small palaces that were built on the land there.
The Grand Trianon is the older one, and as the name implies it's considerably larger. It was conceived as the king's "retreat" for when he didn't feel like being with the whole court, and that is still how it's thought of today. Louis XIV himself didn't spend that much time there, and soon it became more of a social domain, under the rule of the wives, mistresses, daughters, and sisters of French kings.
Residents included Louis XIV; his son (who never became king) and his wife; his two younger sons and their wives; his well-respected illegitimate daughter, known as "Madame," who decorated much of it; Peter the Great of Russia; a deposed king of Poland (Louis XV's father-in-law); Napoleon and his second wife. In each of these pairings it was undoubtedly the wives that dominated at the Grand Trianon, since the husbands would have often been at court. They created famous salons, where intellectuals and artists would socialize and discuss matters of the day.
The Grand Trianon is definitely far simpler than the big palace. It's done in a Rococo rather than Baroque style, and the idea of it was to be more like a "country" house. If you compare these pictures to those of the palace in one of the last posts you'll see a huge difference.
This was a room where the counselors of the king would gather and well, counsel.
A bedroom
This was my favorite part of the Grand Trianon! I love the aesthetic of the "marble passageway," and it leads out to the smaller but charming gardens out in the back. While Louis XV was walking through this passageway to get to his carriage in 1757 a man stabbed him in an assassination attempt. It failed, and only slightly wounded the king.
I like old pool tables
I hate the colors in this room, I think that yellow is so ugly.
This special green marble was all over this room, it is apparently found mostly in Russia and was given as a gift by Tsar Alexander I.
Moving onto the Petit Trianon: it was made later, in the 1760's, for the official mistress of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour (who is possibly my favorite 18th century woman - she was pretty amazing for her time). Unfortunately she died before it was done so it went to Madame du Barry, the next official mistress.
The most famous resident, however, was of course the wife of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette. She is inextricably linked with the Petit Trianon, and everything there is set up as she had it when she left.
Marie-Antoinette came to France from Austria as a young teenager. Her French retained a strong German accent, she had many political enemies at court, and for many years she was miserable at Versailles, feeling like an outsider. Her husband gave her the Petit Trianon as a personal gift because he knew she was particularly unhappy at court, which was far more restrictive, gossipy, and insular than the Austrian Hapsburg court where she grew up.
Throughout her life the queen had a fantasy of living as a shepherdess in the countryside, and this tiny palace surrounded by woods and probably a mile or so from the palace of Versailles fit the bill exactly. She came here to escape the pressures from court, and only invited her closest friends to accompany her. She often went from here to her little hamlet (next post), and spent far more time here than at the palace.
The gardening implements
This is a part of the lowest floor, where the servants would reheat meals from the palace for the queen and her guests.
The design of the palace and its decorating are a major transition point in French art from Rococo to Neo Classical. Everything is much simpler, more streamlined and less frilly.
Her music room
A small salon outside her bedroom, and her bedroom
The successive women here had some little pavilions built in the gardens outside. This is the Pavilion of Love, because it has a statue of Cupid inside.
And a view of the Petit Trianon as you head towards her little village, which will be in the next post.
The Grand Trianon is the older one, and as the name implies it's considerably larger. It was conceived as the king's "retreat" for when he didn't feel like being with the whole court, and that is still how it's thought of today. Louis XIV himself didn't spend that much time there, and soon it became more of a social domain, under the rule of the wives, mistresses, daughters, and sisters of French kings.
Residents included Louis XIV; his son (who never became king) and his wife; his two younger sons and their wives; his well-respected illegitimate daughter, known as "Madame," who decorated much of it; Peter the Great of Russia; a deposed king of Poland (Louis XV's father-in-law); Napoleon and his second wife. In each of these pairings it was undoubtedly the wives that dominated at the Grand Trianon, since the husbands would have often been at court. They created famous salons, where intellectuals and artists would socialize and discuss matters of the day.
The Grand Trianon is definitely far simpler than the big palace. It's done in a Rococo rather than Baroque style, and the idea of it was to be more like a "country" house. If you compare these pictures to those of the palace in one of the last posts you'll see a huge difference.
This was a room where the counselors of the king would gather and well, counsel.
A bedroom
This was my favorite part of the Grand Trianon! I love the aesthetic of the "marble passageway," and it leads out to the smaller but charming gardens out in the back. While Louis XV was walking through this passageway to get to his carriage in 1757 a man stabbed him in an assassination attempt. It failed, and only slightly wounded the king.
I like old pool tables
I hate the colors in this room, I think that yellow is so ugly.
This special green marble was all over this room, it is apparently found mostly in Russia and was given as a gift by Tsar Alexander I.
Moving onto the Petit Trianon: it was made later, in the 1760's, for the official mistress of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour (who is possibly my favorite 18th century woman - she was pretty amazing for her time). Unfortunately she died before it was done so it went to Madame du Barry, the next official mistress.
The most famous resident, however, was of course the wife of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette. She is inextricably linked with the Petit Trianon, and everything there is set up as she had it when she left.
Marie-Antoinette came to France from Austria as a young teenager. Her French retained a strong German accent, she had many political enemies at court, and for many years she was miserable at Versailles, feeling like an outsider. Her husband gave her the Petit Trianon as a personal gift because he knew she was particularly unhappy at court, which was far more restrictive, gossipy, and insular than the Austrian Hapsburg court where she grew up.
Throughout her life the queen had a fantasy of living as a shepherdess in the countryside, and this tiny palace surrounded by woods and probably a mile or so from the palace of Versailles fit the bill exactly. She came here to escape the pressures from court, and only invited her closest friends to accompany her. She often went from here to her little hamlet (next post), and spent far more time here than at the palace.
The gardening implements
This is a part of the lowest floor, where the servants would reheat meals from the palace for the queen and her guests.
The design of the palace and its decorating are a major transition point in French art from Rococo to Neo Classical. Everything is much simpler, more streamlined and less frilly.
Her music room
A small salon outside her bedroom, and her bedroom
The successive women here had some little pavilions built in the gardens outside. This is the Pavilion of Love, because it has a statue of Cupid inside.
And a view of the Petit Trianon as you head towards her little village, which will be in the next post.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Versailles - gardens
The gardens are Versailles were meticulously laid out by the best gardeners and architects in France, mostly during the reign of Louis XIV in the late 17th century. They are absolutely huge but just a fraction of what used to be the royal demesne of Versailles. Today's statistics: the gardens are 800 hectares, with 210k flowers planted annually, 200k trees, and 50 fountains.
One of the earliest sections of the gardens is the Orangerie, which as the name suggests, used to be filled with orange trees. Now it looks quite different:
There is a bit of a platform coming directly out of the back of the palace, and most of the garden grounds are situated somewhat below it. Radiating outward from the main fountain are tons of these little pathways to other sections, seen from above:
The main area if you were to walk out of the back of the palace. The current Versailles property still stretches as far as the eye can see in this direction, but it used to be many dozens of square miles. The lake in the distance is an artificial one called the Grand Canal because the king wanted something like the Venetian canals; he had gondoliers who rowed in there to create a pretty scene.
Wandering farther in, through the paths, there is one fountain that has a music show. The jets are programed to have a little show timed to the music, almost like a water ballet if that makes sense? It's quite pretty.
In the midst of the gardens are a dozen or so of these little grottoes. Most of them feature fountains and have some sort of Classical theme. This one is Pluto and Proserpina:
This one is my favorite, I think, it's the fall of the Titans:
And a view of the palace from in front of the Grand Canal:
So that will give you the main idea of the "designed" part of the gardens. To add a bit more natural authenticity, though, there is also a huge area of the grounds that are more or less just woods with paths through them, not this very finely controlled, manicured kind of garden. I didn't really take pictures, but you can imagine; they're like most woods you've ever seen.
One nice thing about the gardens/park area of Versailles is that from the Grand Canal on they are free and open to the public. It's only the closely maintained areas that need a ticket. So when it's nice out you see lots of people running, biking, rowing on the canal, even picniking in the fields farther out. It seems like it's a popular place for weekend family outings. I would definitely go there to hang out in the nice weather if I lived in the town of Versailles.
Next up, the Trianons, the two small "country" chateaux built as retreats for various queens and mistresses on the grounds of Versailles.
One of the earliest sections of the gardens is the Orangerie, which as the name suggests, used to be filled with orange trees. Now it looks quite different:
There is a bit of a platform coming directly out of the back of the palace, and most of the garden grounds are situated somewhat below it. Radiating outward from the main fountain are tons of these little pathways to other sections, seen from above:
The main area if you were to walk out of the back of the palace. The current Versailles property still stretches as far as the eye can see in this direction, but it used to be many dozens of square miles. The lake in the distance is an artificial one called the Grand Canal because the king wanted something like the Venetian canals; he had gondoliers who rowed in there to create a pretty scene.
Wandering farther in, through the paths, there is one fountain that has a music show. The jets are programed to have a little show timed to the music, almost like a water ballet if that makes sense? It's quite pretty.
In the midst of the gardens are a dozen or so of these little grottoes. Most of them feature fountains and have some sort of Classical theme. This one is Pluto and Proserpina:
This one is my favorite, I think, it's the fall of the Titans:
And a view of the palace from in front of the Grand Canal:
So that will give you the main idea of the "designed" part of the gardens. To add a bit more natural authenticity, though, there is also a huge area of the grounds that are more or less just woods with paths through them, not this very finely controlled, manicured kind of garden. I didn't really take pictures, but you can imagine; they're like most woods you've ever seen.
One nice thing about the gardens/park area of Versailles is that from the Grand Canal on they are free and open to the public. It's only the closely maintained areas that need a ticket. So when it's nice out you see lots of people running, biking, rowing on the canal, even picniking in the fields farther out. It seems like it's a popular place for weekend family outings. I would definitely go there to hang out in the nice weather if I lived in the town of Versailles.
Next up, the Trianons, the two small "country" chateaux built as retreats for various queens and mistresses on the grounds of Versailles.
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