Famous for its exceptional acoustics, the Philharmonie de Paris welcomes all sounds and even the cries of animals. It is a fantastic bestiary, both visual and aural, that is exhibited from 20 September 2022 to 29 January 2023.
In a playful and sumptuous setting, MUSICANIMALE offers a journey of 150 works and art objects organised according to a primer from A for Appeals to Z for Zoomorph. The sounds of the forest, the bellowing of the stag or extracts of “seroius” music accompany the wanderings of the visitor, who is seduced, amused and always surprised by the intelligence of the subject.
The exhibition’s co-curators, Marie-Pauline Martin (director of the Musée de la musique) and Jean-Hubert Martin (art historian), have chosen a playful immersion without forgetting a powerful ecological message: the future of biodiversity. Designed in partnership with the National Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva, the exhibition is like a cabinet of curiosities where one can observe the undulations of a spider’s thread, the light dance of a whale or the endurance of a snail’s stomach. As for music, music lovers will be carried away by obvious excerpts from Messiaen, Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals and Rossini’s Duo of the Cats, or more unexpected ones from Bartók, Enescu, Saariaho and Rued Langaard…
Accessible to all audiences from the age of 6, the MUSICANIMALE exhibition has its music counterpart in the concert halls of the Philharmonie de Paris, which is organising a series of concerts entitled “Listening to the living”, including a night of the nightingale (30 March 2023).
Events not to be missed!
(c) Philharmonie de Paris
