 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: dgclarinet
Date: 2009-05-04 12:12
A few years ago, I made a post about travelling to Prague and asked for any out of the way clarinet related things to see...I got some really good advice and it helped to make a great trip even better. This year, my wife and I are going to Paris towards the end of May. We're going to see the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at Cite de la Musique, and we're taking the chunnel train to London and while there we'll hear a free lunchtime concert at St Martin in the Fields.
Does anybody have any recommendations for music (clarinet or otherwise) or things a clarinet player should do while in Paris? I've read some threads about buying horns in Paris, but I haven't found any on what else to do there. There is obviously enough to keep us busy for a lot longer than the time we have, but I'd appreciate any ideas for musical must-sees (music shops, cd stores (if there are still any of those around), lunchtime concerts, etc.).
I told my wife that I want to buy a Louis Cahuzac bobblehead doll, but I'm not really sure I'll be able to find one.
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Author: clarinetcounsel
Date: 2009-05-04 12:28
If you Vandoren reed/mp user, you can visit Vandoren shop at 56 rue Lepic
75018 Paris. Not far away from underground station with a nice cafe at the corner for lunch.
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2009-05-04 13:11
The Vandoren shop on rue Lepic also has clarinet (and sax) cds and a large selection of clarinet music.
Last time I was there I tried 15 5RV Eb mouthpieces.
Perhaps your wife would like to accompany you into one of the tiny practice rooms at Vandoren and help you choose from among 15 Eb mouthpieces!!
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Simon Aldrich
Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
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Author: Joseph Brenner, Jr.
Date: 2009-05-04 16:27
Just a few bits of general advice:
1. Walk the city, by day and by night. Paris is a beautiful, well laid out city. It's a walker's paradise.
2. Ride the Metro, the best subway in the world, if not the galaxy. It has stops everywhere. The train's name is that of its ultimate destination, not IRT or Red Line or other such nonesense. Each metro stop has tunnels with clear signage, so that you can connect to trains very easily to get to your destination. If the train you're on doesn't go right to your destination, get off close to your destination and take a tunnel labeled "Correspondance" to catch a train labelled with your destination. When you get to your destination, take the tunnel labelled "Sortie" to go up to the street. You should be able to get a Metro map on the internet.
3. Take the funicular up to Sacre Coeur and walk around Montmarte
4. Paris has shops for everything and anything all over, and neighborhoods with distinct personalities.
5. Enjoy yourselves.
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Author: nahoj
Date: 2009-05-04 16:52
The Selmer showroom is also in the center of Paris, with a small museum and -- perhaps only by appointment -- an extended opportunity to try their instruments.
Check their website.
I have two more destinations I have in mind for myself, for the next time I go to Paris. One is a small repair place, specialized in contra's. See www.contrabassclarinet.org. The other is the historic shop mentioned above. It was closed when I discovered it, but through the window it looked very interesting.
And as stated above: walk around! Your feet may hurt by nightfall, but it's worth it.
The metro is indeed very convenient. For museums, I don't know many of them, but from the ones I do know, I liked the Rodin museum a lot.
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-05-04 17:37
BIG subject, this...
CD shops: there's a chain called FNAC which often has a pretty big range - my favourites of their shops are at Les Halles and Bastille although the one near Gare St Lazare is also not bad if you're pressed for time.
But even better is in the Odeon area: there's a shop called Gibert Joseph which has several buildings, and one of those has not only a good CD range but a back room with heaps of second-hand stuff and remainders/specials. And just a bit further up Boulevard St Michel and off to the right there's a shop called La Chaumière à Musique - just second-hand things, but bucketloads of them, a lot of them very competitively priced.
Sheet music: go up Rue de Rome, past the Gare St Lazare. You'll find a shop called Arioso (mostly cheapies/specials) and another three shops called La Flûte de Pan (new sheet music: one for general sheet music (that's where you'll find the clarinet stuff), another for sax and brass, another for voice and keyboard).
Vandoren: absolutely, don't miss it. Make sure you check their opening hours though. They have a machine for very picky reed selection: you can take in your favourite reed and they measure its resistance at various points and give you reeds to match. (At least they had this a few years ago - I don't know why but I haven't made use of this service recently.)
There's a musical instrument museum at the Cité de la musique in the 19th arrondissement - they've just reopened with a perked-up collection. I don't remember if they cater so well for the non-French-speaker but hey, you can still look at the stuff.
I don't know what state your clarinets are in but there's a tiny shop near the Gare de Lyon called L'Olifant which has a magician in it called Franck Denize. He gave my speaker tubes a tweaking they'll never forget - and that's a job he does practically on the spot so you don't have to leave your gear there for ages. He's probably booked up already for the end of May though.
Cahuzac bobblehead doll: just get a Serge Gainsbourg one, I reckon.
Post Edited (2009-05-04 17:38)
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2009-05-04 17:49
I had been to Paris a dozen times with various musical groups until I got the radical inclination to go to Paris as a tourist with my girlfriend.
It is a great enough city when you are there for work but what a different city it is when there as a tourist!
As mentioned above, walk when you can. Paris is unlike a North American city in the sense that it changes character block-by-block.
As you know, Paris is divided onto "arrondissements" (districts), each with its own distinct flavour. You could do a lot worse than to walk around each major arrondissement.
If you plan to go to a museum (especially a major museum like the Louvre) get your tickets beforehand (on the internet when possible if the surcharge is not too much). You can save hours of waiting in line at the venue by getting the tickets earlier.
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Simon Aldrich
Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
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Author: dgclarinet
Date: 2009-05-04 18:15
Thank you all so much. Vandoren is very close to Montmartre (and Moulin Rouge), so that looks like a no-brainer. Especially if they can match a reed...I won't have my horns, but a souvenir reed would be very cool. The music shops on Rue de Rome and the cd shops sound good too. I'll put those on the list. I saw the instrument "museum" at Cite de la Musique online, and we'll probably show up a little early for the concert to try and check that out.
Yes, we plan on walking a lot..and using the Metro. I've been lost in a lot worse places than Paris, so at worst, I'll still be lost in Paris. Can't wait to go...just reading about it on the internet is exciting to this country boy.
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Author: beejay
Date: 2009-05-05 22:26
Nobody mentioned the instrument museum at La Couture Boussey (http://www.lacoutureboussey.com/), which is where the clarinet industry got started. It's some 40-50 km from Paris, but with a car you could easily combine it with a trip to Versailles.
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Author: MBrad
Date: 2009-05-06 00:34
There were a number of excellent music shops on Rue de Rome, but for clarinet music I've never seen better than the Vandoren shop. I guess it depends on how much time you have and what kind of music you'd be interested in poking through.
If you feel like strolling through any parks while you are there (last time I stayed in Paris to take some courses I had to budget myself pretty strictly) I'd recommend: la promenade plantée (an old rail line turned into a garden/promenade that ends in the woods at the edge of the city proper), Parc des Buttes Chaumont (had some lovely views). Some of the cemeteries are interesting, besides the famous Père Lachaise. Canal St. Martin and La Villette I also found to be excellent places to stroll.
In the evening you can find the nearest grocery store, pick up some bread, cheese, charcuterie and wine, and go find a nice spot along the Seine for dinner outdoors. My favorite spot was somewhere along the right bank between the Tuileries and the Trocadéro.
Have fun, and stay off the RER A during rush hour...I think there's few places in the world more unpleasantly crowded.
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Author: beejay
Date: 2009-05-06 09:00
I can't second the suggestion that the FNAC chain is a good place to buy CDs. Over the years, it has steadily reduced the amount of space given over to classical records, with the exception of the branch at Bastille, the closure of which has been announced. You will find very little at FNAC that you cannot buy cheaper online. I much prefer the Harmonia Mundi stores, where you can get intelligent advice and listen to records before you buy. There is one on trhe Avenue de l'Opera near the Louvre and the Comedie Francaise, and another in the Marais, almost opposite the church of Saint Paul. One of my favourite records -- Alexandre Tharaud's Rameau -- came from Harmonia Mundi, and I don't think I have ever seen it at FNAC. For woodwind records, Vandoren is indeed a good place to look, although their stock is not large.
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-05-06 13:47
While FNAC isn't what it used to be (and the effect it's had on smaller book/record shops in France is of course a story in itself) the better FNACs are still worth a visit and relatively high up my list of favourite Euro CD shops. (Dussmann in Berlin is probably at the top nowadays for general classical and is better than anywhere else I know for listening, but it's a bit of a shlep from Paris. In any case the different shops reflect their different local markets so you'll get the best pick of the smaller French labels in France.) Even though the trajectory is sad (it mirrors the market as a whole), to say they're not "a good place to buy CDs" is overstating things quite a bit, IMO.
That's a great shame about the Bastille shop - to me they always had a slight edge over Les Halles. More soul, somehow.
As I said, Gibert Joseph and La Chaumière à Musique are worth dropping into first (and certainly worth supporting over FNAC just out of principle). The Harmonia Mundi shops are certainly fine if you're looking for Harmonia Mundi stuff. Alas my last Harmonia Mundi experience was in the Marais shop and the chap there didn't know about the specific impending Harmonia Mundi release I was looking for...
Online for me is OK if you're looking for specific things but for me a big part of the joy of CD shopping is the browsing.
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Author: dgclarinet
Date: 2009-05-06 16:51
Oliver,
You're right about the joy of cd shopping being the browsing. I live in Atlanta, and if there's a cd shop open that sells a cd I might want to buy, I don't know of it. Buying a cd (or LP in the old days) has always been something I do on trips, and I try to find something that I couldn't find at home (or online now).
I'm still looking for tips on finding that Louis Cahuzac bobblehead. I know it's there somewhere. (yes, I'm kidding)
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Author: beejay
Date: 2009-05-06 22:03
Unless I am mistaken, Harmonia Mundi sell not only their own recordings but also the products of other independent labels, which you are very unlikely to find at FNAC. You cannot even find the complete Naxos catalogue there.
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-05-06 23:37
I'm surprised you couldn't find the Rameau disc you mentioned - I've never had any trouble finding things at the bigger FNACs, including plenty of independent releases. Anyway, we don't want to turn the thread into a FNAC debate... ![[toast]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley15.gif)
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Author: beejay
Date: 2009-05-07 13:34
Well, I am not entirely knocking FNAC. I have been a regular customer for more than 20 years, but it has been sad to see the declining importance of classical music at all their stores (Bastille excepted, and this is apparently due to close). At the FNAC store closest to my home, the classical music section shares a virtual closet with jazz, and you cannot hear yourself think for the noise of hip hop seeping in from next door. I think this particular monopoly has burned its reputation as a reliable source for classical music.
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