Paris districts 8-9 (north)

At the west side of the park is a monument of Chopin, at the east side are monuments of Charles Gounod and Ambroise Thomas.

The composer Mel Bonis entered a marriage of convenience with the rich industrialist Albert Domange in 1883. At first they lived at her husband’s leather factory, from 1918 at this address, alternating with villas in Sarcelles (>fr2) and Étretat.

House of Francis Poulenc after his parents’ death, from 1917 until 1936. His first compositions written here ─ Mouvements perpétuels, Rhapsodie nègre and the Sonata for piano four hands ─ were already published in 1919 by Chester, London.  

The Mahler biographer Henri-Louis de la Grange founded this Mahler centre, with a large library (books, scores, recordings) and a collection of Mahler autographs and memorabilia.

www.medathequemahler.org   

Important concert hall, built in 1927 for the piano firm Pleyel. It was opened with Ravel conducting La Valse and Stravinsky conducting the suite from L’oiseau de feu. There are two smaller halls for chamber music. The hall had two predecessors (1830 and 1839, demolished); in the building of the second hall, 22 rue de Rochechouart, Stravinsky had a studio during the 1920s.

House of the piano virtuoso and composer Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) from 1869. Here his bookcase should have fallen down and here he died, but the often suggested causal connection is fake.

The Russian cathedral was consecrated in 1861. One can visit the solemn liturgy according to the Russian rite at Sunday 10:30 AM; beautiful music guaranteed.

The Russian composer Aleksandr Skryabin lived here twice: 1897-98 with his first wife Vera Isakovich, 1904-05 with her successor Tatyana Schloezer.

Gaetano Donizetti was brought here by his nephew Andrea in July 1847, after being cured in a clinic but paralysed and in alarming mental state. In October he was moved to Bergamo, where he died half a year laater.

The Rumanian violinist and composer George Enescu died in Hôtel Atala in 1955.

This theatre was the first large building in Paris which was built of reinforced concrete. It opened its doors in 1912 with Debussy, Dukas, Fauré, D’Indy and Saint-Saëns, conducting own works. The following year the Ballets Russes presented Debussy’s Jeux and two weeks later (29.V.1913) Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps; with a public, unleashed in an orgy of shouting and fighting, it became the perhaps most notorious première in music history. Other premières: La creation du Monde by Milhaud (1923) and Poulenc’s Les Biches(1924), without incidents, and Antheil’s Ballet mécanique (1926) and Déserts by Varèse (1954) nearly as riotous as was the case with the Sacre.

House of Béla Bartók in the summer of 1905. He came to Paris as a competitor for the Rubinstein Prize. He didn’t win ─ Wilhelm Backhaus did ─ but he enjoyed his stay, strolling through the streets, parks and museums without any knowledge of the French language.

Here was the cabaret Le boeuf sur le toit, which was the subject of Darius Milhaud’s ballet from 1919.

House of the composer André Messager (1853-1929) from 1902. In the same street was Maison Hix, the boarding school where Adam and Hérold were pupils. Wagner stayed at nr 4 during the autumn of 1859.

House of Igor Stravinsky from 1934, the year of his French naturalisation, until 1939.

Concert hall of the Gaveau piano firm with c 1000 seats, opened in 1907. A number of chamber works by Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen were performed here for the first time.

Birthplace of Francis Poulenc, born in 1899 into the rich family which owned the Rhône-Poulenc chemical firm.

House of the Russian born conductor Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951), living in Paris in the 1920s. Rakhmaninov, Stravinsky and Prokofiev were among his guests. The publishing company Boosey & Hawkes, a later occupant, discovered in 1959 in the cellar a supply of unsold printed matter from the conductor’s own Éditions Russes de Musique and some personal belongings of Prokofiev ─ all left behind by the time when Koussevitzky had moved to the USA.

Camille Saint-Saëns played the organ of this neo-antique church from 1857 to 1877, his pupil Gabriel Fauré from 1896 to 1905. The organ was made by Cavaillé-Coll in 1846 but only the front is in original state. The funerals of Chopin (1849), Gounod (1893) and ─ under the sounds of his own Requiem ─ Fauré (1924) took place here.

Auguste Durand founded his publishing firm in 1870 at this address and it remained there until 1980; only the beautifully panelled music shop continued its business. Durand is the main publisher of Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Dukas and  Ravel and published many works by other French composers. Saint-Saëns lived in the building for a short time in 1910.  The present address of Durand is 215 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré.

Verdi’s opera La Traviata was based on the play La dame aux camélias by Dumas. This ‘lady with camellias’ was a real person, named Alphonsine Plessis or Marie Duplessis. She became a famous courtisane and the lover of the young Dumas. In 1847, only 23 years old, she died of tuberculosis in this house.

Chopin lived here officially from 1839 to ’41, but often he stayed with George Sand at 16 rue Pigalle.

House of the composer Reynaldo Hahn (1895-1947) from 1918 until his death. During his lifetime, his operetta Ciboulette (1923) was his greatest success; today some of his songs are still appreciated.

The Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) lived in this hotel from 1952 to 1959. He left an enormous oeuvre, from which Bachianas Brasileiras nr 5 for voice and cello ensemble is his best known work.

Hôtel Bedford was the hotel where the Brasilian emperor Pedro II d’Alcantara had died in exil in 1891. Among later visitors were the musicians Andres Segovia, Yehudi Menuhin and Josef Suk.

The composer Jules Massenet (1842-1912) lived here from 1871 to 1903.

This was the building of the Paris Conservatory and its collection of instruments from 1911, during the directorship of Fauré, until its move to the Cité de la Musique in 1990 (>fp5). Today the building houses the conservatoire of the region of Paris.

House of Debussy with his parents from 1875 to 1885. With L’enfant prodigue he won the ‘Prix de Rome’ and from 1887 to 1889 he stayed in Rome.

House of Debussy with his parents from 1887 to 1893.

The befriended composers Gabriel Fauré and André Messager shared an apartment here from 1877 until 1883, the year of Fauré’s marriage.

Emmanuel Chabrier, the composer of such joyful works as España and Suite pastorale lived here between 1880 and 1886.

House of the composer and conductor Gabriel Grovlez (1879-1944). He was director of the opera between 1914 and 1934. As a composer of cultivated neo-classical works, he is indebted to Fauré.

Here was the ‘Prison for debts’ until 1867. Wagner may have stayed  there a while in 1840, not deprived of any facilities; the institute had the disposal of a reading room, a gaming hall, a bar and private rooms. The creditor paid the board.

Debussy’s first address in Paris; he lived here with his family from 1865 to 1868.

At nr 17 Berlioz had lived for half a year in 1858, before moving to his last address.

Last house of Berlioz, from 1858; here he worked at Les Troyens. The house was rebuilt, only a plaque remembers his death in 1869.

The Berlioz monument was erected in 1948 after its bronze predecessor by André Lenoir (1886) was melt down by the Nazis for the purpose of the manufacture of arms.

House of the sisters Nadia and Lili Boulanger since 1904 (then 36 rue Ballu). Nadia (1887-1979) was the teacher of many composers, including Aaron Copland, Virgil Thompson, Lennox Berkeley, Igor Markevich and Jean Françaix. Her sister Lili (1893-1918) was a gifted composer who, in spite of her short life, produced a couple of splendid works for voice and orchestra.

House of the versatile composer Jacques Ibert (1890-1962). Flutists shall be grateful for his masterly Flute Concerto; examples of this genre are scarce since the 18^th century.

Arthur Honegger lived here from 1936 until his death in 1955. His symphonies 2, 3 and 4 were written here. The plaque doesn’t refer to Honegger but to the Swedish artist Anders Zorn, who had lived here before.

Arthur Honegger lived here from 1916 to 1931. Here he wrote two of his most popular works: Le roi David and Pacific 231.

The École de la musique réligieuse et classique was established by Louis Niedermeyer in 1853. After his death in 1861, Saint-Saëns became the director. The most famous pupils of the ‘École Niedermeyer’ were Fauré and Messager. The school was intended for the education of church musicians, but it became a general music academy in 1895.

Georges Bizet lived here from his marriage in 1869 with Geneviève Halévy ─ the daughter of the composer Fromental Halévy ─ until his death in 1875. Carmen was composed in this house. Also Geneviève’s cousin Ludovic Halévy lived here; he was an important librettist of Offenbach.

The singer and composer Pauline Viardot lived here from 1848 to 1883. The house of Louis and Pauline Viardot was visited by all Parisian composers, by Verdi and most frequently by Pauline’s most ardent admirer, the writer Turgenyev.

César Franck took an apartment in the house of his fiancée Félicité Desmousseaux. After their marriage in 1848, the couple moved to nr 69 in the same street; there they stayed until 1865.

The former house of the painter Ary Scheffer became a museum which gives a good impression of the way of life of well-to-do people during the romantic era. Special attention is paid to George Sand’s circle.

The Greek avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) studied engineering and architecture; as a composer he was self-taught. From 1947 he lived in Paris.

The composer Iannis Xenakis had a studio nearby his house for his experiments with electronic music.

House of Victor Massé, a composer of popular opéras comiques (1822-1884).

The cabaret Le Chat Noir of Rodolphe Salis, where Erik Satie worked, was at this address from 1885 until 1896.

Emmanuel Chabrier lived here from 1886 until his death in 1894.

Birthplace of Georges Bizet, °1838.

In 1889 Erik Satie left his family to live on his own, but this address proved to be beyond his means and the next year he moved to a cheaper apartment in Montmartre (>fp5).

Shortly after the birth of Maurice Ravel (Ciboure 1875), his family moved to Paris. In this house he spent his childhood.

The young Jacques Offenbach moved in 1834 with his brother from Cologne to the mansard of this house and lived here until 1844. At the same time, another Jewish German lived in this street, the poet Heinrich Heine; they never met.