FRANCE

The Places
The tour starts in the formal gardens of the Palace of Versailles and moves on to the Château of Chantilly. In Paris Montmartre presents a simpler world, with scenes from the Canal Saint-Martin. The writer Rabelais is celebrated in Chinon, his birth-place, and there is a glimpse of Bluebeard’s castle before we enter the traditional brasserie, La Cigale, in Nantes. In Paris again, the restaurant, the Train Bleu, celebrates an earlier age of luxury and from the historic railway stations of the capital we continue to Père Lachaise Cemetery, before finally visiting the Place de la Concorde and the major sights of Paris.

The Music
In 1809 Vienna was once again under attack from the forces of Napoleon. Most of the leading families, including the imperial family, had taken refuge elsewhere, the occasion of Beethoven’s sonata Les Adieux. On 12 May the city surrendered, the French occupation bringing with it hardship for the Viennese people. In these circumstances Beethoven, now 39 and increasingly deaf, worked on the last of his five piano concertos, to be popularly known as the Emperor. It was probably completed in the following year and was given its first performance in Leipzig in November 1811.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1