Bon voyage!
Travel to Paris with this playlist of classical music that will whisk you away to the City of Light.
Jacques Offenbach: La Vie Parisienne Overture
Here’s a short and sweet piece, which kicks off Jacques Offenbach’s mid 19th-century operetta La Vie parisienne (The Parisian Life). It’s a delightful amuse-bouche of an opening.
Joseph Haydn: Paris Symphony No. 85, La Reine
In the mid-1780s, Joseph Haydn received a commission from the Count D’Ogny to write a series of symphonies. The six he completed (82-87) are known as the Paris symphonies. The nickname La Reine (The Queen) came about after the stately work’s creation — apparently, it was especially well-received by Marie Antoinette.
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
The second movement of Hector Berlioz’s programmatic Symphonie fantastique showcases the rarified atmosphere of a ball. The lilting harps and swelling strings paint a grand picture befitting a Romantic era fête.
Joseph Bertolozzi: A Thousand Feet of Sound from Tower Music
The subtitle of this project is “Bertolozzi Plays the Eiffel Tower.” But the Parisian landmark is not the site of a performance, it’s the instrument itself. Bertolozzi placed microphones around the tower, capturing sounds from the iron icon. The composer sampled these sounds, stringing together a wholly singular percussion suite.
Georges Bizet: Carmen
Though set in Spain, Carmen is the world’s most frequently performed French-language opera. Premiering at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1875, the opera mainstay has gone on to grace opera houses worldwide.
Giacomo Puccini: La bohème
A foil to our Carmen example, La bohème is an Italian-language opera set in Paris! Puccini’s band of poor artists represent a prototypical bohemian Parisian lifestyle, especially fitting for the work’s Latin Quarter setting.
George Antheil: Symphony No. 6, "After Delacrois"
Eugène Delacroix’s epic 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People is one of the most recognizable works of French art. Depicting the July Revolution, the painting has been in the collection of the Louvre since the late 19th century. More than 100 years after the painting was created, American composer-inventor George Antheil paid tribute to Delacroix and his famous painting in his 6th Symphony, subtitled “After Delacroix.” This brooding, martial opening movement captures the commotion and chaos of battle, with a cohesive and determined drive and a triumphant conclusion.
Darius Milhaud: Le Bœuf sur le toit
Milhaud outfits his winsome 20-minute piece with a gathering of different popular musical influences. Written for a ballet created by the composer’s friend, Jean Cocteau, the piece’s assorted moods and rhythms are enough to compel anyone to sway and swing.
Pérotin: Viderunt omnes
One of Paris’s greatest landmarks was instrumental in the development of new musical forms. Notre Dame’s unique acoustics opened new avenues for polyphony, with the house of worship’s soaring architecture amplifying and sustaining the spellbinding sounds.
Fréderic Chopin: Ballade No. 4
Born near Warsaw in Poland, Frédéric Chopin spent the majority of his professional life in Paris. His fourth and final Ballade was completed in Paris in 1842. The technically demanding and deeply heartfelt composition is considered one of the great piano works of the 19th century.
Germaine Tailleferre: Parisiana
This excerpt from Germaine Tailleferre’s ballet Parisiana is a pas de deux, a dance for two. This lucid piano setting embodies an urbane lightheartedness with some dramatic interventions.
Georg Philipp Telemann: Paris Quartets
Over two stints in the French capital city, prolific German Baroque Composer Georg Philipp Telemann created a dozen quartets. These so-called “Paris Quartets” take different musical forms (sonata, concerto, suite) corresponding to different national styles. He tapped into a French style of composition in his two suites, as in this sophisticated, wintry movement from his 43:e1 suite.
Jean-Baptiste Lully: Le Divertissement Royal de Versailles
Luxuriate in this stately work from the Louix XIV era. Jean-Baptiste Lully was one of the Sun King’s best loved composers, and as such, he spent much of his life as the monarch’s court composer. This piece was created for a play by the French playwright Molière presented to Louis in his court.
George Gershwin: An American in Paris
Gershwin captures the romanticism and excitement of Paris through the eyes of an American in this 1928 symphonic work. 20 years later, An American in Paris, and other beloved music by George and Ira Gershwin, would be used for Gene Kelly’s Oscar-winning 1951 film of the same name.
Francis Poulenc: Les biches
Francis Poulenc was one of the most prominent members of the informal, Paris-based group of composers, Les Six (The Six). Poulenc created music for the Sergei Diaghilev ballet Les biches. The title itself warrants inspection: as Tim Munro notes, “les biches” means female deer, or a group of women (akin to “darlings”), but it’s also a Parisian slang term for “people with uncommon, or ‘deviant,’ sexual desires.” The Andantino movement leads with an almost sardonic sense of pageantry before winding through somber and upbeat moods.
Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird
Stravinsky’s pivotal ballet premiered in Paris in June 1910, winning its then-late-20s composer instant recognition for his singular and versatile score. The success of the ballet led Stravinsky to relocate to France from his homeland, Russia.
Henri Dutilleux: Tout un monde lointain…
Like many before him, French composer Henri Dutilleux came up through the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris, where he would also go on to teach. Tout un monde lontain… (A whole distant world) is a piece for a cello and orchestra that was composed for Mstislav Rostropovich. The evocative, cryptic piece is inspired by the poetry of Parisian Charles Baudelaire.
Ian Maksin: Blues au jardin du Luxembourg
Cellist and composer Ian Maksin created this evocative piece inspired by Paris’s Jardin du Luxembourg. Seeming to reference Satie, Reinhardt, and many others, the wistful piece feels perfectly Parisian.
Jacques Ibert: Suite Symphonique, “Paris”
Parisian scenes spring forth in Jacques Ibert’s Suite Symphonique. Each movement pays homage to a different Parisian mainstay, whether it's depicting the rollicking Restaurant au Bois du Boulogne or the harried opening “Metro” movement.
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