Janmot in music | Le Concert Spirituel at the Musée d'Orsay

Begun in Rome in 1835 and completed in 1881, The Poem of the Soul is the crowning achievement of the Lyonese artist Louis Janmot (1814-1892), a pictorial and literary work all in one. In 34 compositions accompanied by a long poem, it illustrates a soul’s initiatory journey on Earth. Comprising two cycles respectively composed of 18 paintings and 16 large-format drawings, Henri Focillon, director of Lyon Museum of Fine Arts from 1913 to 1924, described it as “Romantic spiritualism’s most remarkable, most coherent and strangest ensemble”.

At the invitation of the Musée d'Orsay, the Concert Spirituel choir, accompanied by organist François Saint-Yves and conducted by Hervé Niquet, will perform a programme of vocal masses by Gounod and Saint-Saëns on Thursday 16 November at 8 pm.

This is a first time for the Ensemble in the Parisian museum, and a unique opportunity to make the exhibition " Louis Janmot The Poem of the Soul " resonate with the works selected by Hervé Niquet to bring to life, for the duration of a concert, a service from Notre-Dame de Paris.

To find out more about the programme >> Vocal masses by Gounod & Saint-Saëns