Paris: Music in the Air

Musicians on Rue Mouffetard, Paris
Photo: Mary van Balen

Music is in the air! Often, while walking around Paris, I hear music. Train stations large and small have public pianos ready for anyone passing by or waiting for their connection to play. Groups of musicians cluster on corners, a hat or open instrument case sitting on uneven cobbles to collect coins from those who stop to listen.

The first group I encountered was a foursome playing bass, banjo, sax, and trombone. They stood along Rue Mouffetard, a narrow medieval street lined with small shops, cafes, and fresh food markets. The sax player moved with the rhythm, tapping his foot. The thin, white-haired banjo player stood tall and straight. Lots of people paused to enjoy the sound and a little girl smiled while she twirled and clapped along.

Accordion player, Rue Mouffetard, Paris
Photo: Mary van Balem

That evening, my daughters and I had dinner at a restaurant on the same street. A man dressed smartly in a black suit and hat strolled along, weaving between the outside tables of small cafes, playing his accordion. No wonder the “soundtrack” I’ve heard in my mind when thinking of Paris includes accordion music: It’s common around the city, day or night.

Pianist on bridge over the Seine
Photo: Mary van Balen

No matter what they play, the musicians I’ve heard are accomplished. Once, while walking home from a day of wandering through neighborhoods on the right bank, we heard classical piano. Sure enough, there on a small bridge across the Seine, a man was playing Chopin on a shiny black piano. People clustered along the sidewalk, called by powerful, familiar music to stop and listen.

Music in, for me, unexpected places reminds me to appreciate, to recognize the power of song and the richness of the human gift to make stirring, soul moving sound.

Early one morning, Kathryn and I walked to our favorite boulangerie to buy a baguette and jam for breakfast. Rue Mouffetard was almost empty. Above us, a curtain billowed out of a window along with the sound of a violinist tuning his instrument. I wondered what he or she would be playing.

String ensemble and vocalist in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Paris
Photo: Mary van Balen

If you want to attend a concert, they are easy to find almost any night in cathedrals around the city. Kathryn and I listened to a string ensemble preform Pachelbel’s Canon and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. They were joined by a vocalist whose powerful soprano filled the church with Schubert’s Ave Maria.

On an afternoon in the Marais area, we thought a store or restaurant was piping opera music into the street. No. Approaching the art exhibition hall, we saw a woman standing in front of the building singing a piece from an opera. I don’t know what it was, but her strong, expressive voice was mesmerizing. Even armed military police patrolling the area had to stop and listen. One let his automatic droop to the side while he held up a phone to record the moment.

Guns and music. The news from the States is filled with hateful, troubling events aimed at transgender people for the moment. We watched TV in a café yesterday as the loss of an Egyptian Airlines plane was being covered. Security and armed military presence here on the streets as well as in airports and train stations reminds us of terrorist activities. Poverty is visible as homeless men, women, and children make the streets their homes.

Over it all, haunting music awakens the question in my heart: What fear and anger, what wounds make human beings, capable of creating such beauty, do such horrible things to one another?

© 2016 Mary van Balen