Les Grandes Heures de Cluny

Program

As mentioned in a previous blog Cluny hosts during the summer, as part of a wine festival which has venues throughout the whole of Burgundy (Festival Musical des Grand Crus de Bourgogne), a concert series under the name of Les Grandes Heures de Cluny.
The various concerts take place in the cloister, the garden and the granary of the former abbey and in the church Saint-Marcel.

Farinier - interior

The granary or farinier is one of the former buildings of the abbey that hosts eight columns with beautifully carved capitals, placed around a marble altar, all originating from the old abbey church.
We had ordered tickets for Edgar Moreau, cello player and winner of the Victoire de la Musique (as promising soloist in 2013 and as soloist of the year in 2015), who was going to give a recital of the third and sixth suite by Bach and a sonata by Ligeti.

Our seats

On arrival we bumped again into the President of the festival and his wife, and again two seats had been reserved for us, on the third row this time.
About the concert itself we had conflicting opinions. My better half thought that he played Bach as if he had to catch the TGV to Paris, and she thought the changes in tempo within several parts of a suite too free, actually too jazzy.

Edgar Moreau

On the other hand, I enjoyed the concert, and I was not really bothered by the higher tempi (certainly compared to the CD I have of Fournier). This was most likely the last concert of the 2015 season we were going to attend; we are already looking out to the programs of the various concert halls in the vicinity for 1915-1916 and of the festivals for 2016.

Edgar Moreau

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Looking for...

One of the walks around Dracy

On one of our quests in search of Romanesque churches we started to look for the former church of Dracy-lès-Couches (near Couches), or the remains there of. This is what we knew:
Dracy-lès-Couches : vieux-cimetière (East side): pans de mur, tombes. Church has been demolished and was replaced by a new one elsewhere; do not bother to go to the new church.
After having done some research we found that one of the signposted walks around Dracy was passing by this ex-church; we found the walk on the internet and we had even spotted some reference on a map to "Ruines Eglise". One would think that after this information the church should not be difficult to find….

The signpost

Based on the above we went to Dracy in July 2014, and lo and behold, we found a signpost saying "Ruines Eglise 300 m". We slithered down the path (it had been continuously raining for the last few weeks, turning the paths into mud covered tracks) and at approx. 300 m we stopped at a gate, with another very muddy path leading to the left and an overgrown bit of woods on the right. Since the paths were so impassable we decided to stop there, again trying to locate an old cemetery left or right from the path we walked down to go back to the car. No need to say that this did not reveal anything; we decided to wait for the dry season and go back again one day.

The signpost disappeared!

That day came, almost spot on, one year later. Our department had suffered from a severe heat wave for a number of weeks by then, without one drop of rain, hence the paths should be no problem this time. However, the pole where we had seen the sign "Ruines Eglise 300 m" was still there, but the sign had disappeared. Only the fixing clips were still there. The paths were no problem this time, and at what we thought to be roughly the 300 m point we took the path to the right for another 300 m, went back, then went down a dry ditch for 200 m, an turned back again.

The path is on the left, the shrubs with the church and graveyard are on the right

On the point where we had turned off to the left however, there was a heap of old stones on the right hand side, at the bottom of the slightly higher wooded area. I thought that this might well be the "remains" of the church, took a picture of it and was about to walk back to the car. My better half however is blessed with a bit more patience than I can muster, and she had disappeared in between the trees behind "my" heap of stones. After a few minutes she shouted "I found it!".

Tomb

When I climbed the low hill I saw her stooped over some gravestones, hence she had found the cemetery. From "my" heap of stones we then found the foundation of a wall running east-west, and following the foundation we indeed found some heavily overgrown small remains of what must have been the wall of the church. So we had finally found that church! One would say: and, was it worth it? That is debatable, but the picnic we had afterwards certainly was worth the trip!

Part of the church wall

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Sortie Culturelle : Beajolais

Once a year the Touris Office of Saint-Gengoux-le-National organises a cultural outing.

Beaujolais

This year we were going to visit the Beaujolais, with on the program the Musée Claude Bernard in Saint-Julien-en-Beaujolais, the Château du Sou and its chappel in Lacenas, Oingt for a guided tour and for lunch, and finally the inevitable wine tasting at Domaine Boulon in Corcelles-en-Beaujolais.

Château du Sou

About the museum I can be brief; that was as far as I was concerned hardly worth getting off the bus for. The fact that the tour guides completely had forgotten about us after the first part of the visit did not really help.
The Château du Sou turned out to be a very charming building, and the owner, a British lady, gave us an interesting and animated tour around the premises.

Notre-Dame de Lacenas

To my big surprise we could visit, after we had seen the château and its chapel, the former church Notre-Dame. The building hosts a nice collection of frescoes, and despite the "No photographing" signs all over the place one could take pictures as long as the flash was disabled.

Les Pierres Dorées - Oingt

Oingt is classified as one of the most beautiful villages in France, and it lived up to its name. The houses built of gold-coloured sandstone justify the name of the "pays des pierres dorées"". The lunch we had for € 25 per head at "La Table du Donjon" was worth every penny of it.

La Table du Donjon - Oingt

Even though the Beaujolais is mainly known for its Beaujolais Primeur or Nouveau, it also produces good and affordable wines. We found the "Moulin à Vent" at slightly over € 6 a bottle an excellent wine.
And because the Beaujolais is actually just around the corner, we can warmly recommend a daytrip to this beautiful area!

Domaine Boulon - Corcelles-en-Beaujolais

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Open air concerts

Saint-Pierre - Mâcon

Open air concerts have one major disadvantage: they are rather weather dependant. We realised that again when we decided to go to a concert on the square in front of the Eglise Saint-Pierre in Mâcon by the Mâcon Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eric Geneste. We had not been very lucky anyway that evening; halfway Cluny and Mâcon a truck got stuck on the part that is a two-lane road, hence the cars were alternately lead past the obstacle via the one free lane.

Brahms

Fortunately we had left home early enough, at least that is what we thought. After having been able to drive into Mâcon at normal speed we found out that the road through town had been closed, and the centre was a chaos of searching car drivers trying to find their way through the town. Still we were in time on the crime scene to arrest some seats on the last row.

Brahms

The musicians did not gather inside the church as was to be expected but elsewhere in town, hence we regularly saw some horn players, violinists or clarinettists wandering across the square towards the stage. Very un-French the concert started at 21h10 instead of 21h00 (normal would have been 21h30) with Brahms's Hungarian Dances no. 1, 4 and 5. The church behind the orchestra was colourfully illuminated, the music was very pleasant, in a word, the concert could not have started off better.

Dvořák

The fourth and last piece on the program was Dvořák's cello concerto with soloist Sung-Won-Yang. The first of its 3 parts was wonderful, but after the last notes had sounded it started to rain. The conductor announced, while the musicians brought their instruments into safety, that the concert would continue in 10 minutes time. However, since we had not brought any rain clothing and since it did not look like the rain would stop in 10 minutes, we decided not to get wetter than strictly necessary and drive home as dry as was possible.

Dvořák

Anyway, having heard this orchestra once, we will start looking for a program booklet for the next season, assuming that the orchestra also performs every so often under cover.
Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Connections

Once a year Cluny hosts a series of concerts as part of the "Festival Musical des Grandes Heures de Cluny".

Our seats

Since we are not exactly inundated here with concerts by top musicians we always keep an eye out for the programming of the series. One of the concerts would take place in the cloister of the abbey, featuring the Camerata of the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouworkest conducted by Lucas Macías Navarro. They would play the Ouverture classique avec quelques bagatelles of Dvořák (for accordion, 2 violins and cello) and a special arrangement by Erwin Stein of Mahler's 4th Symphony. Even though I do not exactly jump with joy when I hear the name of Gustav Mahler, it is also not very often one gets a chance to hear a Chamber orchestra of the Royal Concertgebouworkest performing in Cluny.

Dvořák

Tickets were arranged very quickly through the internet, and because the seating used to be free within the chosen price range, we were there quite early in order not to sit at the back.
The President of this festival is the trumpet player Guy Touvron, who also happens to organise "our" Festival Guitares en Cormatinois. When we entered the cloister, we saw Guy and his wife Isabel seated at the table meant for selling tickets. Both of them waived at us. Isabel, who coordinates the internet tickets, had stumbled upon my name, and had made sure there were two places for us available on the first row.

Mahler

The chairs should have a piece of paper attached to it with my name on it.
Everything worked out as planned, and we never had had such good seats for a concert. The concert itself was excellent as well. Stein's arrangement of Mahler's symphony sounded every so often quite modern, maybe due to the fact that Stein knew both Maher and Schönberg personally.
And now we are waiting for the next concert!

Mahler

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Museum collection on a kitchen chair

The museum is open between April and Oktober, Saturdays and Sundays from 15h00 till 18h00, and is free as well.

The museum

The collection of this tiny museum consists of amongst others a Merovingian sarcophagus from Curtil-sous-Burnand, a number of small and larger pieces of flint stone and some old coins, whilst the first floor is dedicated to Romanesque architecture.
The first time we visited this museum was with a big group of people of the Tourist Office in Saint-Gengoux.

Open!

During this first, very brief visit we thought that the first floor had not much more but a collection of scale models, drawings and photographs of the churches of Mont-Saint-Vincent and Gourdon. Still, the maker of Bourgogne Romane thought that there might be more Romanesque stuff in this museum.

Ground floor

From an earlier blog it may be clear that we already had undertaken another attempt to pay a second visit to this museum.

First floor

Finally we decided to try out luck once more, this time on our way back from a visit to a former brick factory in Ciry-le-Noble. This time we hit the jackpot. The museum was open, and the ground floor certainly had no Romanesque items, hence we decided to look upstairs. At the bottom of the stairs there were two light switches, taped off with cello tape and a notice saying "Do not touch!".

The chair

It looked as if switching on the lights might cause a short circuit somewhere. Hence we had to investigate the top floor with the light shining through the windows. The scale models, drawings and pictures were still there, but in a dark corner we found a kitchen chair with three pieces of stone and a sign telling us that these were "Rare remains of the priory". Next to it, on a wooden pedestal, there was a modillon with an Atlante.

75 % of the collection

According to Wikipedia: In classical European architecture, an atlas (also known as an atlant, or atlante or atlantid; plural atlantes) is a support sculpted in the form of a man, which may take the place of a column, a pier or a pilaster. The term atlantes is the Greek plural of the name Atlas – the Titan who was forced to hold the sky on his shoulders for eternity.
So this appeared to be the whole Romanesque collection of the museum. However, one has to admit that a museum where the Romanesque remains easily fit on a kitchen chair is certainly something special!

The remaining 25%

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Guitares en Cormatinois 2015

The festival is over; the preparations for the next one (2016) will no doubt commence very soon.
Below an overview of this year's concerts. Only the concerts which were distinctly different or much better than the other ones will get a few more lines than the (also good) remaining concerts.

Philippe Mouratoglou & Ariane Wohlhuter

Philippe Mouratoglou – guitar & Ariane Wohlhuter – soprano
A thorough program with music of Purcell, Dowland, Britten and amongst others Sor, Rodrigo, de Falla.

Franceries Sound Connection

Franceries Sound Connection – guitar, flute, percussion
An interesting program with what I for convenience's sake call World Music. A random selection: Roumanion music (such as the Hora Staccato), Brasilian music, an occasional tango, Zawinul's Mercy, mercy, mercy, etc.

Jérémy Jouve

Jérémy Jouve – gitaar
A sparkling program with works of (amongst others) Mompou, Rodrigo, de Falla and the contemporary composer Duplessy. Jouve stood in last year for a colleague who fell ill, and turned out to be by far the best guitar player of the festival. This year, 2015, he lived up to that reputation as well.

Eric Sobczyk & Agnès Abiton

Eric Sobczyk – guitar & Agnès Abiton – guitar
A guitar recital played on romantic guitars, with works of Carulli, Sor and Coste.

Irish Kind Of

Irish Kind Of – guitar, violin, flute, vocals
As the name of the band suggests this was a concert with mainly Irish reels and jigs. That Irish music is quite popular in France might be deduced from the band's origins (Grenoble) and from the fact that the concert was more than sold out. A number of people had to be send away, and the team of volunteers had to stay outside and listened in through the church doors that were kept ajar….

The team of volunteers outside the church

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Belgian jokes

How many Belgians does it take to change a light bulb?

Mont-Saint-Vincent

Five; one on the ladder to hold the bulb, and four to turn the ladder around. This sort of joke, very popular in the Netherlands at some stage, came to mind when we wanted to visit the museum in Mont Saint-Vincent, and we saw the museums employees busy trying to open the door with chisels, hammers and screw drivers. How many employees do you need to open a closed museum? Five; one to hold on to the door and four to demolish the walls around it.

Musée Jean Régnier

This museum is supposed to be open between April and October on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays from 15h00-18h00. On a beautiful sunny day in June we decided to visit the museum, and found two attendants waiting at the door, at 15h15. They were supposed to man the museum, but the man with the key was delayed. Never mind, we could have a look at the church in the meantime. When we returned at 15h50, we saw the keyholder together with the attendants working at the door.

Burglars?

According to the keyholder, the door handle prevented the key from turning around, and hence the door handle had to be removed. We decided to visit the mediaeval garden whilst waiting. When we returned, at approx. 16h10 there were five of them trying to force their way in.
We do not give up easily, but there are boundaries….
My only remaining question now is: if the museum has been (in theory) open approx. 20 times between April and mid-June, should opening the doors for the 21st time be so difficult?

The mediaeval garden

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A Freebee

We are doing voluntary work for the Festival "Guitares en Cormatinois" and our great leader Guy Touvron, who resides in Paris and is a well-known classical trumpet player, organises the artists for the festival. Hence he is regularly in contact with musicians and impresarios.

My Freebee

Not so long ago we received a mail in which Guy reported that he had received two free tickets for the Orchestre Arabo-Andalou de Fès conducted by Mohamed Briouel in Chalon-sur-Saône. The secretary of the festival had forwarded the mail with the remark "I do not think anybody is interested in this, but….". However, since we have always been interested in what is nowadays called World Music, we decided to gamble on the fact that nobody would be interested, and said that we would love to go.

The leader of the orchestra

That turned out to be a good gamble, and a week later we had places in the Espace des Arts in Chalon-sur-Saône. There were no empty chars in the auditorium (seats approx. 1200), and I was a bit surprised that the spectators were not mainly people of North-African extraction. Chalon has quite a big population of North-Africans, resulting in a very interesting, lively and colourful Thursday market called the Arab market by the locals. The majority of the spectators consisted of European concert-goers dressed in their Sunday best.
The orchestra consisted of eight men, playing resp. a cello, two violins and an alto violin, a rebab (Arabic fiddle), an oud (Arabic lute), a tambourine and a drum played with the hands. All eight of them sang as well. They played a type of music I was not very familiar with, but clearly Arabic music of some description. The singing was Arabic, and it would not surprise me if flamenco singing has been influenced by this form of singing in a dim and distant past. The group gave a concert that lasted, without a break, for slightly less than two hours, playing tunes of between five and ten minutes each.

Orchestre Arabo-Andalou de Fès

All in all, we had a very enjoyable evening, with excellent music, and on top of that it had not cost us a penny. Having said that, if I had known the orchestra beforehand and had seen the posters, I would have happily dished out € 23 pp!
Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Overkill?

One of the shops that has been empty for a long time is situated near Pizz’a Marco. For a long time it looked like there was going to be some sort of furniture shop or an interior decorator, but this spring, out of the blue, a delicatessen Les Saveurs de France opened its doors.

Les Saveurs de France

It advertises itself as épicerie fine and traiteur (caterer). Cormatin already has one épicerie/rôtisserie, and the new butcher is also a traiteur. And apart from that the Caveau du Figuier also sells stuff that would be available in a delicatessen.
The question arises how many shops of this kind can survive in the Metropolis Cormatin… He will certainly have to compete quality-wise with La Renaissance and price-wise with Epis & Riz, and possibly with the Caveau du Figuier as well. We have tried his shop when it just opened, and were content with what he had to offer.

Les Saveurs de France

Having said that, La Renaissance is definitely at least one class better based on our own experience.
Hopefully the new guy will find a formula that makes him (in a positive way) different from his competitors.
All shops in Cormatin are only a stone’s throw away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Wait long enough… and you shall find

Text on an information panel in Cluny

Long time ago I read on an information panel somewhere in Cluny that, when demolishing a number of mediaeval houses on the Petite Place du Marché between 1860 and 1866, several claire-voies (decorated stone frames around windows) of those houses were saved and are on display in Musée Ochier in Cluny. Recently another one was discovered in the façade of the château in Burnand (private property, partially rented out as a B&B).

Château de Burnand

In 2012 we asked the Dutch caretaker of the château (the owners lived at the time on Bali) if we could have a look at the building. However, she was very busy at the time, and asked us to give her a call later that year. When we bumped into her some month later in Cluny she told us that the owners were divorced, that she had been sacked more or less on the spot, and that one of the owners would move to France and take care of the château herself.

Claire-voie - Burnand

That was the end of our potential visit to the château, so we thought. However, the Office de Tourisme in Saint-Gengoux regularly organises excursions along the various B&B's in the area, so maybe that could be our next option. Unfortunately, when Burnand was on the program we were not able to make it. Recently we saw another chance: there was going to be a free concert at the château, which gave us a chance to see this (Gothic) claire-voie from Cluny on the pretext of a cultural outing.

Capitals - Burnand

And we found it. The outside of the château is worth a visit anyway. It is very picturesquely located on the edge of Burnand, a village which hosts an interesting Romanesque church. I can be very brief about the concert: after two minutes we had had enough. I rather pay an entrance fee for a professional group of musicians than listening for over an hour to a dress rehearsal of some not (yet) very good amateurs. That is a privilege I happily grant their family and friends!

Concert - château de Burnand

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.