Orchestre Helios - Classic concert in Paris

Orchestre Helios
Classic concert in Paris

The Orchestre Hélios, founded in 2014, is a flexibly sized ensemble, which offers a large variety in its program, from baroque music to contemporary creations. Based in Normandy, the Orchestre Hélios is dedicated to giving access to artistic excellence to everyone, in or outside of concert halls.
The orchestra contributes to the integration into working life of the young graduate musicians, by giving them the opportunity to perform with experienced orchestral musicians in optimum working conditions.

program

Die vier Jahreszeiten von Antonio Vivaldi ist eine Sammlung von vier Violinkonzerten, die 1723 komponiert wurde. Es ist wahrscheinlich Vivaldis bekannteste Komposition und das am häufigsten gespielte Musikwerk der Welt. Es ist ein Violinkonzert, bei dem der Solist in Begleitung eines Kammerorchesters spielt. Der Inhalt jedes Teils ist vielfältig und erinnert an jede der Jahreszeiten, auf die er sich bezieht. So wird der Winter beispielsweise durch Pizzicato-Noten auf den hohen Streichern unterbrochen, die an eisigen Regen denken lassen, während der Sommer im Finalsatz an ein Gewitter erinnert, das durch den Donner vorbereitet wird, der im Satz mehrmals grollt.


Das dynamische und eklektische Helios-Orchester hat sich seit seiner Gründung im Jahr 2014 durchgesetzt.


Sein künstlerischer Leiter, Paul Savalle, fördert die berufliche Eingliederung junger Musiker durch das Orchesterspiel. So mischen sich junge Hochschulabsolventen unter optimalen Arbeitsbedingungen mit erfahrenen Orchestermusikern, Dirigenten und Solisten.


Die Programme sind vielfältig, von Barockmusik bis zu zeitgenössischer Musik, das Repertoire ist sowohl sinfonisch als auch chorisch, wobei sich das Orchester mit den Chören des Departements und der Region zusammenschließt.

Dank der Zusammenarbeit mit verschiedenen Dirigenten nähern sich die Musiker einem sehr reichhaltigen Repertoire und erweitern ihre Interpretationspalette. Sie sind alle Absolventen der großen französischen Konservatorien, einige gehören einem Nationalorchester an.


Vom Streichquartett über das Blechbläserensemble bis hin zum Symphonieorchester erweitert das Orchester stets sein Publikum, indem es seine Zusammensetzung moduliert. Die "Streicher"-Besetzung tritt in den renommiertesten Kirchen von Paris auf, wodurch das Publikum ein sehr reiches architektonisches Erbe entdecken kann.


Seine Besetzung mit variabler Geometrie ermöglicht es dem Orchester Helios, mit leidenschaftlicher Neugier ein sehr breites Repertoire anzugehen.

Place

The Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, just beyond the outskirts of early medieval Paris, was the burial place of Merovingian kings of Neustria. At that time, the Left Bank of Paris was prone to flooding from the Seine, so much of the land could not be built upon and the Abbey stood in the middle of fields, or prés in French, thereby explaining its appellation.

The Abbey was founded in the 6th century by the son of Clovis I, Childebert I (ruled 511–558). Under royal patronage the Abbey became one of the richest in France; it housed an important scriptorium in the eleventh century and remained a center of intellectual life in the French Catholic church until it was disbanded during the French Revolution. An explosion of saltpetre in storage levelled the Abbey and its cloisters, the statues in the portal were removed (illustration) and some destroyed, and in a fire in 1794 the library vanished in smoke. The abbey church remains as the Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris.

In 542, while making war in Spain, Childebert raised his siege of Zaragoza when he heard that the inhabitants had placed themselves under the protection of the martyr Saint Vincent. In gratitude the bishop of Zaragoza presented him with the saint's stole. When Childebert returned to Paris, he caused a church to be erected to house the relic, dedicated to the Holy Cross and Saint Vincent, placed where he could see it across the fields from the royal palace on the Île de la Cité.


In 558, St. Vincent's church was completed and dedicated by Germain, Bishop of Paris on 23 December; on the very same day, Childebert died. Close by the church a monastery was erected. Its abbots had both spiritual and temporal jurisdiction over the suburbs of Saint-Germain (lasting till about the year 1670). The church was frequently plundered and set on fire by the Normans in the ninth century. It was rebuilt in 1014 and rededicated in 1163 by Pope Alexander III to Saint Germain of Paris, the canonized Bishop of Paris and Childeric's chief counsellor. The great wall of Paris subsequently built during the reign of Philip II of France did not encompass the abbey, leaving the residents to fend for themselves. This also had the effect of splitting the Abbey's holdings into two. A new refectory was built for the monastery by Peter of Montereau in around 1239 - he was later the architect of the Sainte-Chapelle.

The abbey church's west end tower was pierced by a portal, completed in the twelfth century, which collapsed in 1604 and was replaced in 1606 by the present classicising portal, by Marcel Le Roy. Its choir, with its apsidal east end, provides an early example of flying buttresses.


Limestone sculpture of Childebert, from the former refectory portal (Louvre)It gave its name to the quarter of Saint-Germain-des-Prés that developed around the abbey. This area is also part of the Latin Quarter, because the Abbey donated some of its lands along the Seine—the Pré aux Clercs ("fields of the scholars") for the erection of buildings to house the University of Paris, where Latin was the lingua franca among students who arrived from all over Europe and shared no other language.

Until the late 17th century, the Abbey owned most of the land in the Left Bank west of the current Boulevard Saint-Michel and had administrative autonomy in it, most clearly for the part outside the walls of Paris.

Louis-César de Bourbon, son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, was an abbot here.

In the 17th century the district of Saint-Germain was among the most desirable on the Left Bank. Marguerite de Valois pressured the abbot to donate abbey land to her, too. She built a palace on it, and set a fashionable tone for the area that lasted until the Saint-Honoré district north of the Champs-Élysées eclipsed it in the early eighteenth century. Her palace was located at the current numbers 2-10 rue de Seine. The gardens of the estate extended west to the current rue Bellechasse.

The tomb of philosopher René Descartes is located in one of the church's side chapels.