Matthieu Stefanelli

Les Fleurs du Paradis

Composed between 2019 and 2020, this work is a tribute to Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. Following the fire, the title seemed obvious to me when I saw the first images inside the building and immediately gave me the desire to write a composition about it: the rose windows had completely survived the disaster, intact, and beams of light crossed them to illuminate the statue of the Virgin and child. I imagined 7 movements punctuated by 3 chimes to retrace the highlights of the history of the cathedral: the School of Notre-Dame et Pérotin, the Forest, the great organs, but also the fire, the fall of the arrow. The piece ends with a heavenly vision of the rosettes on a reconciling chorale by Mendelssohn from the oratorio Elias.