On my way to a music festival in Graz, Austria, I spent four days in Paris where I had always wanted to visit. But rather than spending time on popular sight seeing spots and shopping, I was cemetery-hopping to meet my favorite composers. I also went out to a town where Claude Debussy’s birth house museum is. I will write about that in a separate entry.
Prior to the trip I went to this website (www.findagrave.com) to jot down where these masters were. Some of the graves were very hard to find. For Saint-Saens and Ravel, nice gentlemen helped me locate them. The funny story was that an admin gentleman at Cimetière de Levallois-Perret came to me and said something in French, said Ravel once or twice so I went "Umm... oui" then he took me there. I couldn't find Lalo's grave at Cimetière Père Lachaise. I walked around the division where he is supposed to be buried but it was just getting creepy so I gave up. Sorry Mr.Lalo... I will pay my visit next time!
So here are some photos of my trips to cemeteries.
Cemetière Montmartre (Berlioz; he lived in Montmartre, I saw a painting of his house by Maurice Utrillo at d'Orangerie)
Prior to the trip I went to this website (www.findagrave.com) to jot down where these masters were. Some of the graves were very hard to find. For Saint-Saens and Ravel, nice gentlemen helped me locate them. The funny story was that an admin gentleman at Cimetière de Levallois-Perret came to me and said something in French, said Ravel once or twice so I went "Umm... oui" then he took me there. I couldn't find Lalo's grave at Cimetière Père Lachaise. I walked around the division where he is supposed to be buried but it was just getting creepy so I gave up. Sorry Mr.Lalo... I will pay my visit next time!
So here are some photos of my trips to cemeteries.
Cemetière Montmartre (Berlioz; he lived in Montmartre, I saw a painting of his house by Maurice Utrillo at d'Orangerie)
Cemetière de Passy (Debussy and Faure)
Cimetière Montparnasse (Saint-Saens and Franck)
Cimetière Père Lachaise (Rossini, Chopin, Chausson, Pleyel and Kreutzer)
a small trivia; in “Les Misérables”, Jean Val-Jean gets buried in Père Lachaise.
a small trivia; in “Les Misérables”, Jean Val-Jean gets buried in Père Lachaise.
Cimetière de Levallois-Perret (Ravel)
I also found Alexandre Dumas' (an author of the Three Musketeers) grave at Cimetière Montmartre