Interesting acquaintance and our first concert 5-12 & 5-13-15

There is a very large brocantes fair at the Place de la Bastille and we had received some complimentary invitations from some dealers.  So we could come back a second time without having to pay the 10 euro/person entry fee, so we did.   We have see some very interesting things for sale but nothing which is so spectacular that we got out our wallets.  We did however meet a very interesting dealer who has a booth full of old tools and industrial related objects and he turned out to be very entertaining and quite congenial.   His grandfather was one of the ironworkers who worked on the construction of the Eiffel Tower and he had a picture of his grandfather along with the crew of workers who were his companions.   We spent probably 45 minutes in conversation with him and enjoyed it greatly.  Thank you Jean-Claude.  


Jean-Claude and the picture of his grandfather.








Then the next day we had our first visit to the new concert hall that was opened just shortly after we moved into the apartment.  It was difficult to obtain tickets for the concert because when I went to buy tickets the first two concerts were sold out more than 2 month early and we were only able to get the last 2 seats together for a third concert.  The new hall is quite lovely and pretty plush, it was built as a concerthall in the round.  Very much like the old DSO hall at DCPA, which they want to tear down, was Denver 35 years ahead of its time?   Is it really out of date or has Paris just built an obsolete hall?  Only time will tell.  Foolishly I forgot a camera, sorry.

Now to the concerts, as there were actually 2.  We went to a pre-concert prelude chamber concert, a string quartet by Dvorak, which was very well done by students from the Orchestral Academy of Paris.  They were very well prepared!   Since there are no tickets required for the prelude presentations we were able to sit in the very expensive and plush seat around 15 rows from the stage. This is where I got my first big surprise on the seating, very comfortable seats but when a person sat down in the row in front of me and folded down the seat the back of the seat actually came back so far that I had to spread my legs or have my knees really bashed.  Somewhat indelicately put, if I farted then only one person in the hall would have heard it, the guy with his head between my knees! In my opinion this is a major defect and I'm so glad that we didn't have the very expensive tickets for the main concert.
The main concert was another piece by Dvork, a concerto for cello and orchestra which was very well executed.  This was followed by Brahm's first symphony which was very enjoyable as well. The acoustics are excellent and we could hear the music from our seats in the second to last row without any problems.