the rhone music festival (17–24 october 2013)

M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R A V E L

The Rhône Music Festival17–24 October 2013

Le Concert Spirituel • Mandelring Quartet • Ensemble Gilles Binchois Lucy Crowe & Anna Tilbrook • Adrian Chandler & Cecilia Bernardini Tenebrae, Nigel Short • Ensemble Mare Nostrum

The Rhône Music Festival17–24 October 2013

Voysey House, Barley Mow PassageLondon W4 4GFTelephone 020 8742 3355Fax 020 8742 [email protected]

Australia: telephone 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand: telephone 0800 877 [email protected]

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Canada: telephone 647 382 1644 [email protected]: telephone 1 800 988 6168

The Rhône once formed the central stretch of the highway linking the north of Europe to the south. Through its tributary the Saône it reached up to the pastures, vineyards and great abbeys of Burgundy; southwards, it flowed past the bleached limestone villages and Mediterranean vegetation of Provence, whence travellers could continue, via coastal waters, to Italy and Spain.

Now it is practically a backwater. River traffic has seeped away to roads and railways, the cities and settlements along its banks largely by-passed by industry. Even tourists are thin on the ground in many places, despite the attractiveness of both town and country.

We are delighted to be bringing to this enchanting slice of France profonde a music festival of the sort we pioneered, and which continues – at this level of quality – to be unique to us. The audience is comfortably accommodated on a ship, disembarking for eight private concerts in historic buildings. In many cases these are of the same period as the music; sometimes there is a specific connection. There is time also to see some of the best of the art and architecture in the vicinity. Two lecturers accompany the cruise, a musicologist and an art historian.

Most of the music is French, from the Middle Ages to Poulenc and Messiaen via Couperin, Charpentier, Debussy and a host of major and less-known composers. Purcell, Corelli, Bach and

Onslow also make appearances. The musicians are from France, Switzerland, Italy, Britain and Germany, and are among the finest artists in their category.

This is the fourth of our river festivals, introduced on the twentieth anniversary of our first. That was along the Danube, and has run almost annually ever since; the Rhine Festival has had eight outings and the Seine, two. Time for another river.

www.martinrandall.com

Martin Randall (Chief Executive) and Sophie Wright (Festival Manager).

3 The Rhône Music Festival, 17–24 October 2013

Joining the festivalFlights or rail travel from the UK. We are offering flights from London Heathrow to Lyon with British Airways. It may be possible to arrange connecting flights from regional airports – please enquire. Alternatively you may choose to travel by rail on Eurostar and TGV (high-speed train within France).

Wednesday 16 October (Day -1)

Option 1: by air, 16th October. Depart London Heathrow 16.00, arrive Lyon 18.35 (BA 362). You are taken by coach to Hotel le Royal. Thursday 17th October is free for independent sightseeing in Lyon. A coach is provided from Hotel Le Royal to the ship for embarkation at 4.15pm.

Hotel le Royal is a five-star hotel located on the Place Bellecour, the main square of the Presqu’île, the promontory between the Rhône and Saône rivers. It now belongs to the Accor group. The atmosphere is welcoming, décor is elegant and the service professional. The hotel has a restaurant, bar and a small lounge.

Thursday 17 October (Day 1)

Option 2: by air, 17th October. Depart London Heathrow 08.40, arrive Lyon 11.15 (BA 360). You are collected by coach and set down in central Lyon for about three hours of independent time. After rejoining the coach, you board the ship at 4.15pm.

Option 3: by train, first-class seats throughout. Depart London St Pancras station at 09.17, or Ebbsfleet at 09.35, or Ashford at 09.55; arrive at Paris Gare du Nord at 12.47. By coach across Paris to Gare de Lyon, where departure is at 14.57; arrive at Lyon Part-Dieu station at 16.56. Transfer to the ship by coach for embarkation at c. 5.45pm.

Option 4: independent arrangements. You can choose not to take any of these options and instead make your own arrangements. You are welcome to join our coach transfers from Lyon St Exupéry airport or Lyon Part-Dieu train station. See page 14 for prices.

‘MRT music festivals are truly life-enhancing experiences. I’m just left gasping by the imaginative programming and the standard of performance – these are talks and concerts which change one’s perception of music and enrich it beyond measure.’

J. M., London, participant on a Martin Randall Travel music festival.

The Programme ................................................ 4–11

More about the concerts ......................................... 5

The Speakers ......................................................... 12

Optional architectural walks ................................. 12

Fitness for the festival ........................................... 12

The Ship ............................................................... 13

The Package, Prices ............................................... 14

Pre-festival tour: Roman & Mediaeval Provence .. 15

Booking Form ...................................................... 17

Booking Details & Conditions ............................. 19

The comfort of a river cruiser

We have chartered a first-class river cruiser exclusively for the festival audience. The MS Amadeus Symphony is the most comfortable passenger ship of the capacity we require on the Saône and the Rhône.

As both hotel and principal means of transport, the ship enables passengers to attend the concerts and visit some fine cities of the region without having to change hotel or travel long distances. Like our other river festivals there is little regimentation, no obligatory seating plan, no onboard entertainment, no intrusive announcements and no piped music.

Front cover illustration: the town of Valence, copper engraving c. 1800. Facing page: Avignon (detail), engraving 1635 by Mérian. Above: engraving 1878.



The ProgrammeDay 1, Thursday 17 October Lyon

France’s second city by size, Lyon is widely regarded as surpassing Paris in terms of lifestyle and agreeableness as a place to live. The number of Michelin stars is usually cited to support this assertion, but it is immediately evident to the visitor that this is a well-ordered city in which modern management and infrastructure enhances the handsome historic architecture of the extensive city centre.

There is time to settle into your cabin and explore the ship before an early dinner.

The first concert is after dinner, at the Musée des Tissus. Lyon was – and remains – a leading producer of luxury silk cloth, and it is fitting that it hosts an excellent textile museum with material from around the world.

Concert 1: Mélodies Françaises Salle des Tapis, Musée des Tissus, LyonLucy Crowe (soprano) Anna Tilbrook (piano)

Art-song in France flourished on a rising tide of French poetry across the fin-de-siècle and into the twentieth century. It had begun with settings of Romantic poetry and continued with more modern poems and translations

by composers such as Debussy. The long lived Fauré connected both worlds. This programme includes some of his well known Mélodies, and some songs by Debussy written in his early twenties for Madame Vasnier, a talented amateur singer some ten years his senior with whom he had a passionate affair. It concludes with arias by Gounod, Charpentier and Massenet.

Lucy Crowe is one of the brightest stars in the exceptional firmament of young British sopranos. She has performed roles for Classical Opera, Covent Garden, English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and in Munich and Chicago and Metropolitan Opera, New York, and is an accomplished recital performer.

Anna Tilbrook has a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music. She made her debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since become a regular in Europe’s major concert halls and festivals.

Moor overnight in Lyon.

Day 2, Friday 18 October Lyon, Vienne

The morning is free for independent exploration of Lyon. We suggest the Musée des Beaux Arts. Installed in a monumental eighteenth-century convent, it is one of the more important French provincial galleries.

Lyon, early-19th-century engraving; below: from Rhône Sketches by Joseph Pennell (exact location not known) in The Magazine of Art, 1890; right: Lucy Crowe.

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Alternatively, you can join a walking tour of the Old Town, including the Cathédrale St Jean, with John McNeill. See page 12 for further information.

At 1.00pm, leave the mooring and sail down the Rhône. Moor at Vienne around three hours later.

Vienne is a handsome town which was a major Roman settlement, exporter of wine, and important mediaeval bishopric. The almost complete Temple of Augustus and Livia and the Romanesque-Gothic cathedral are among the outstanding monuments among the narrow streets and squares. St-André-le-Bas, a church which dates from the ninth and twelfth centuries, is the venue for the early evening concert.

Concert 2: Angels and Devils Eglise St-André-le-Bas, VienneAdrian Chandler & Cecilia Bernardini (violins)

This programme presents a collection of Italian and French sonatas for two violins by Leclair, Vivaldi and Guillemain. While Vivaldi’s style is unmistakably Italian, that of Guillemain and Leclair combines the fire of the Italians with the bon goût of the French.

Adrian Chandler is one of the foremost exponents of the Baroque violin, and is founder and director of La Serenissima, the

brilliant ensemble which specialises in the music of Vivaldi. Cecilia Bernardini has led and played as a soloist with ensembles such as La Serenissima, The King’s Consort, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Sail overnight to Tournon.

More about the concerts

Private events. The concerts are planned and administered by Martin Randall Travel, and the audience consists exclusively of the 122 participants who have taken the full festival package. The concerts are therefore private.

Seating. Specific seats are not reserved. You sit where you want.

Acoustics. This festival is more concerned with authenticity and ambience than acoustical perfection. While some of the venues have excellent acoustics, some have idiosyncrasies not found in modern concert halls.

Changes. Musicians fall ill, venues need emergency repairs: there are many unforeseeable circumstances which could necessitate changes to the programme. We cannot rule out changes to the programme due to the tide, to severe increases in water levels (which lead to the closure of locks) or indeed low levels of water. Such changes might necessitate more travel by coach. We ask you to be understanding should these events occur.

Church of St Nizier, Lyon, steel engraving 1833, after a drawing by J. D. Harding.

Left to right: Adrian Chandler and Cecilia Bernardini.

©Paul H

urst courtesy of the BBC.

©Pynk Studios, London.



The Programme

Day 3, Saturday 19 October Tournon, Viviers

Moor in the delightful little riverside town of Tournon: an expanse of gravel and plane trees, a sweep of pastel façades and shutters, a steep hill rising abruptly behind. There is a little time to wander around.

Resume the voyage downstream and moor at Viviers in the late afternoon.

From the tranquil mooring, the pinnacles of this enchanting hilltop town can just be

seen through the trees. A shaded road leads half a mile to the town. From here a cobbled street climbs steadily and myriad alleys thread past stone houses and eventually lead to the summit. Here rules the Gothic cathedral, which with its broad seven-sided chevet and flamboyant tracery is one of the delights of mediaeval Ardèche.

Concert 3: French Choral Music Viviers CathedralTenebrae Nigel Short (director)

This programme of twentieth-century French choral music includes liturgical works by Duruflé, Poulenc, Fauré and Messiaen. Tenebrae also perform Poulenc’s Figure Humaine: premièred in London in 1945, it is a powerful setting of poetry by Paul Eluard which cries out for freedom and laments the horrors of war.

Tenebrae’s performances are renowned for creating an atmosphere of spiritual and musical reflection. Director Nigel Short was an experienced consort singer before founding Tenebrae in 2001, whose members are selected from the finest of professional choral singers.

Sail overnight to Avignon.

Day 4, Sunday 20 October Avignon

The day is spent in Avignon, one of the loveliest cities in France. For seventy years during the fourteenth century the Popes and the whole apparatus of papal administration ruled the Catholic Church from Avignon. Rome had reached a nadir of violence and factionalism, and Provence was then a virtually independent principality with excellent communications by water with both the north and south of Europe.

The complete circuit of walls, 2.6 miles in length, is an impressive survival from this time, as is the Palais des Papes, perhaps the finest palace to have survived from the Middle Ages, and several Gothic churches. But much of the fabric of the city dates from the eighteenth century.

There is the option of joining an architectural walk around Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, a town on the other side of the Rhône (see page 12).

Above, left to right: Tenebrae; Nigel Short (director).



Avignon, Palais des Papes, aquatint by Sir Francis Barry c. 1920.



The Programme

After dinner there is a private opening and guided tour of the Palais des Papes, followed by a concert here in the Grand Tinel, a vast hall where cardinals gathered for the conclave.

Concert 4: Music for the Papal Court Palais des Papes, AvignonEnsemble Gilles Binchois Dominique Vellard (director)

Six male singers and two instrumentalists perform the fourteenth-century Mass of Tournai and the Mass of Barcelona which were among the repertoire of the papal court at Avignon. The Tournai Mass may be the earliest polyphonic setting to survive, while that of Barcelona is thought to be a version made in Aragón.

The Ensemble Gilles Binchois, devoted to mediaeval and Renaissance music, has been directed by Dominique Vellard since its creation in 1979. They have released over forty recordings and performed all over the world.

Left, top: Mâcon, early-19th-century engraving. Beneath: Ensemble Gilles Binchois.©

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Day 5, Monday 21 October Bourg-St-Andéol

From Viviers, drive the short distance to the small town of Bourg-St-Andéol, a complex web of curving narrow streets around an early Romanesque church of noble simplicity. This is the venue for the morning concert.

Concert 5: Baroque Chamber Music Eglise de Bourg-St-AndéolEnsemble Mare Nostrum Andrea De Carlo (director, viola da gamba)

The programme consists of instrumental, chamber and vocal music of the seventeenth century by Marin Marais, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, François Couperin, Louis Couperin, Nicolas Bernier, and Robert de Visée. The gamba player Marin Marais is the starting point: a composer who resisted the inroads made by Italian music which eventually resulted in polemics and arguments about stylistic supremacy. The others, although unmistakably French, were more open to Italian influences.

Andrea De Carlo is a leading viola da gamba player and a regular performer with some of the most important early music ensembles. He founded the Ensemble Mare Nostrum in 2005 to specialise in work for viol consort with harpsichord, organ and voice. For this concert he is joined by Nora Tabbush (soprano), Anna Fontana (harpsichord) and Monica Pustilnik (theorbo).

In the afternoon sail upstream to Trévoux, mooring early on Tuesday morning.



Day 6, Tuesday 22 October Trévoux, Lyon

Trévoux is an attractive mediaeval town with winding lanes, set on a hill sloping steeply away from the river. From the neo-Romanesque church there is a magnificent view of the bend in the Saône and the hills beyond.

Sail mid-morning to Lyon where the afternoon is free, or there is another opportunity to join an architectural walk with John McNeill. For independent time, a return visit to the Musée des Tissus is recommended, and adjacent is the Musée des Arts Decoratifs. Time can also be spent exploring the alleys and Renaissance courtyards of Le Vieux-Lyon on the slopes across the Saône. A coach shuttle is provided between the mooring and the centre.

The evening concert is held after dinner in the magnificent Chapelle de la Trinité, now the main venue for the annual Festival de Musique Baroque de Lyon. As in many cities in Catholic Europe, the austere bulk of the Jesuit college does little to prepare the visitor for the decorative elaboration and chromatic richness which is found in the chapel concealed within.

Concert 6: The Golden Age of French Sacred Music Chapelle de la Trinité, LyonLe Concert Spirituel Hervé Niquet (director)

At this concert ten female singers and a small orchestra present masterpieces by Charpentier, Lully and Le Prince, a characteristically imaginative programme devised by Hervé Niquet (and Le Concert Spirituel’s next recording). It demonstrates how Baroque composers managed to attract huge crowds in the greatest churches of France. The Mass by Le Prince is a delight but virtually unknown, even in France.

Le Concert Spirituel is one of the world’s leading Baroque ensembles. Founded by Hervé Niquet in 1987, they have recorded over 50 discs and performed worldwide. They made their début at the BBC Proms in 2012.

Sail overnight up the Saône to Mâcon.

Above left: Le Concert Spirituel. Above: wood engraving 1836, from The Musical Library, published by Charles Knight & Co.

©Pascal Brunet.



The Programme

Day 7, Wednesday 23 October, Pierreclos, Bourg-en-Bresse

Moor at Mâcon and drive for twenty minutes through Burgundian countryside, a crowded pallet of rumpled hills, woodland and fields, pasturage and vineyards. The Château de Pierreclos sits on a promontory as if on a stage, a picturesque clump of masonry and roof tiles, much battered and patched over the centuries. The concert is in an unembellished but well restored hall.

Concert 7: Quartets by Onslow & Debussy Château de PierreclosThe Mandelring Quartet

The thirty-six string quartets by George Onslow (1784–1853) constitute one of the most brilliant collections of work in the genre but are rarely performed, strangely. His name and his paternity are English, but his mother, domicile and musical influences are French. His quartet in G minor (Op.9 No.1) is combined in this concert with Debussy’s in the same key.

Comprising three siblings and a close family friend, the Mandelring is one of Germany’s finest quartets, with a busy schedule throughout Europe and beyond. Among their many recordings are all thirty-six Onslows.

Return to the ship for lunch and in the afternoon drive to the Royal Monastery at Brou outside Bourg-en-Bresse, commissioned by Margaret of Austria as a mausoleum for her

husband Philibert, Duke of Savoy. Beautifully wrought in creamy limestone, and a glorious demonstration of the building arts at the end of the Middle Ages, it was built by some of the best masons, sculptors, glass makers and painters of the Netherlands.

Concert 8: A Journey Through Eighteenth-Century Europe Monastère de BrouSoloists of Le Concert Spirituel Alice Piérot (director, violin)

A programme of sacred and secular music for two violins, four violas, two cellos, a double bass and a theorbo by the great masters of the

eighteenth century: Purcell, Muffat, Biber, Charpentier, Corelli and Bach (Brandenburg Concerto No.3). It illustrates the influences and antagonisms between the composers of Europe’s great musical nations.

Alice Piérot has been the leader of Le Concert Spirituel since 2004. She previously led Marc Minkowski’s Les Musiciens du Louvre and regularly performs as soloist with many other period instrument ensembles.

Sail down the Saône to Lyon.

Far left: The Mandelring Quartet; Left: Alice Piérot; Above: Soloists of Le Concert Spirituel.



Day 8, Thursday 24 October

Your option for returning to London is dependent on the option you chose for outbound travel on Day 1 (or Day -1).

Options 1 & 2: by air. Disembark at 9.30am, depart Lyon Exupéry airport at 11.55, arrive at London Heathrow at 12.35 (BA 361).

Option 3: by train. Disembark at 9.15am. Depart Lyon Part-Dieu at 10.04, arrive Paris Gare de Lyon at 12.07. Transfer within Paris by coach, depart Paris Gare du Nord 14.43, arrive at London St Pancras at 16.00. This Eurostar service does not stop at Ebbsfleet or Ashford.

Option 4: independent arrangements. Disembark by 9.30am. You are welcome to join our transfers to Lyon airport or Lyon Part-Dieu train station.

Pre-festival tour. Participants on pre-festival tour Roman & Mediaeval Provence return to London on option 1.

The junction of the Rhône and the Saône, from the Roman ruins in Lyon, lithograph c. 1830.



John McNeill, architectural historian, is a specialist in the Middle Ages and Renaissance in France, Italy and Spain. He has degrees in art history from the

University of East Anglia and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University. He lectures for the Departments of Continuing Education at both Birkbeck College, London, and Oxford University, and is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association. Among his publications are the Blue Guide: Normandy and Blue Guide: Loire Valley and he has edited collections of essays on mediaeval Anjou and on the mediaeval cloister. He has devised and led many tours for Martin Randall Travel.

Professor Richard Langham Smith is a music historian and broadcaster with a particular interest in early music and nineteenth- and twentieth-century French music. He

co-authored the Cambridge Opera Guide on Pelléas et Mélisande and reconstructed Debussy’s Rodrigue et Chimène for the opening of the Opéra de Lyon, and has published widely on Debussy and Bizet. He has taught at several universities and is currently Research Professor at the Royal College of Music. In 1994 he was admitted to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres at the rank of Chevalier. He read Music at York University and the Amsterdam Conservatory, where he specialised in Baroque performance. He is currently working on Bizet’s Carmen, preparing both a new edition and a monograph.

The Speakers, Optional walksArchitectural walks

The architectural historian, John McNeill, gives talks on board the ship which are open to all participants.

He also leads four walks ashore which will examine a selection of buildings, predominantly mediaeval, in some of the towns and cities where the ship is moored. These take place when otherwise there is free time. There is a charge for these, and they need to be booked in advance. Numbers are limited to 18 or 22 for each walk and places are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. To request a place, tick the relevant box on the booking form.

Vieux Lyon: a walk around old Lyon including the Cathédrale St Jean and its treasury. Duration: c. 2 hours. Price: £25.

Vienne: a walk including the early Gothic Cathédrale St Maurice, the early Imperial Temple of Augustus and Livia and the church of St Pierre, the only late antique church in France to survive almost in its entirety. Duration: c. 1 hour 15 minutes. Price: £20.

Villeneuve-lez-Avignon: a charming village just outside of Avignon. Visit the Chartreuse, one of the great Carthusian monasteries of Europe. Duration: c. 2 hours. Price: £30, including coach transport.

Monastère de Brou: a guided tour of the monastery. There is a further hour for independent exploration before the concert. Duration: c. 1 hour. Price £20.

The Speakers

From Rhône Sketches by Joseph Pennell (exact location not known) in The Magazine of Art, 1890.

Fitness for the festival

Quite a lot of walking is necessary to reach the concert venues and to get around the towns visited. Neither the concert venues nor the ship are equipped with a lift. Participants need to be averagely fit, sure-footed and able to manage everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty.



The MS Amadeus Symphony is one of the more comfortable cruisers on the waterways of Europe. The multi-national crew is dedicated to the highest standards of service.

With a minimum floor area of 15m2 the cabins are reasonably spacious by the standards of river cruisers. All have windows to the outside and are equipped with the facilities one would expect of a first-class hotel including shower, w.c., individually adjustable air-conditioning, telephone, TV and safe. Special attention has been paid to noise insulation.

In layout and furnishings the cabins are identical, the significant differences being the size of windows and height above water level (higher cabins enjoy better views and fewer stairs). Beds are twins which can be pushed together or separated.

Those on the top decks (Mozart) are the most desirable, having floor to ceiling windows (152 x 170 cm) which slide open. Cabins on the Strauss deck have picture windows (150 x 100 cm) which also open. Also on the Mozart deck are four suites measuring approximately 22m2 which have a sofa, table and armchair, a bath and a minibar.

The Ship

Cabin (photo above shows a cabin on the Mozart deck). 1. Bed; 2. TV; 3. Toilet; 4. Wash basin; 5. Shower; 6. Cabinet; 7. Telephone; 8. Writing desk; 9. Window; 10. Chair.

Suite. 1. Bed; 2. TV; 3. Toilet; 4. Wash basin; 5. Bath tub; 6. Cabinet; 7. Telephone; 8. Writing desk; 9. Window; 10. Chair; 11. Minibar; 12. Sofa bed; 13. Table; 14. Armchair; 15. Safe.

Cabins on the lowest (Haydn) deck have smaller windows (160 x 40 cm) which do not open. There are no single cabins as such but we are allocating some two-bed cabins for single occupancy.

The public areas on the upper deck include the lounge and bar, a library area and a restaurant which can seat everyone at a single sitting. The sun deck has a small heated pool and a tented area for shade.

www.lueftner-cruises.com



The Package

Admission to all eight private concerts.

A choice of flights or rail travel from London. (There is a reduction in the price if you do not wish to use these.)

Accommodation for seven nights on board a first-class river cruiser.

All meals from dinner on the first day to breakfast on the last. Wine is provided with lunch and dinner.

Interval drinks where appropriate.

Afternoon tea or morning coffee on board the ship when it fits in with our itinerary.

Travel by coach between airport or rail station and ship and to the concert venues when they are beyond walking distance.

The Package, Prices

Prices, including air travel

Haydn Deck (lowest)£2,960 per person sharing a cabin£3,540 for single occupancy

Strauss Deck (middle)£3,580 per person sharing a cabin£4,290 for single occupancy

Mozart Deck (top)£3,900 per person sharing a cabin£4,670 for single occupancy

Suites (Mozart Deck)£4,470 per person sharing a cabin

Arrive a day early

£140 per person (based on 2 sharing); £210 double room for single occupancy. See page 3.

Travel by train

Add £160 to these prices. See page 3.

Independent arrangements

If you wish to make your own travel arrangements, subtract £180 from the air travel prices.

Lectures by a musicologist and an historian.

All tips for crew, restaurant staff and drivers etc., and all state and airport taxes.

Practical and historical information and a detailed programme booklet.

The assistance of an experienced team of French-speaking festival staff.

Britain’s leading provider of cultural holidaysAt Martin Randall Travel we aim to provide the best-planned, best-led and altogether the most fulfilling and enjoyable cultural tours available. Within the UK and Europe, the Middle East and India, we offer an unsurpassed range of events focusing primarily on art, architecture and music, and also on archaeology, history and gastronomy.

MRT has for over two decades led the cultural tours market through incessant innovation and improvement, setting the benchmarks for itinerary planning, operational systems and service standards.

There are two kinds of holiday:

All-inclusive music festivals began with the Danube in 1994, since when they have spread from St Petersburg to Seville and from Newcastle to Naples. The audiences number between 40 and 300.

Tours for small groups, all accompanied by an expert lecturer, have 22 participants or fewer. Commencing in 1988, there are now around two hundred a year in nearly forty countries.

This brochure was designed inhouse by Jo Murray. The text was written and edited by Martin Randall and Sophie Wright. Photos of Martin and Sophie (page 2) and of John McNeill (page 12) ©Bill Knight 2012, www.knightsight.co.uk.

From The Foreign Tour of Brown, Jones & Robinson, 1904.



Pre-festival tour: Roman & Mediaeval Provence11–17 October 2013 (ma 738)7 days • £1,900Lecturer: Dr Alexandra Gajewski

The many fine Roman remains had a decisive impact on mediaeval architecture and sculpture.

Truly great secular buildings, including the papal palace at Avignon, and pre-eminent Romanesque churches.

A natural setting of exceptional attractiveness.

Led by Dr Alexandra Gajewski, specialist in mediaeval architecture resident in France.

Based throughout at a four-star hotel in Avignon.

Famed for its natural beauty, its wealth of Augustan and second-century monuments, and the quality and ambition of its mediaeval work, Provence can seem the very essence of Mediterranean France. But its settlement was – historically – surprisingly concentrated, and the major Roman and mediaeval centres are clustered within the valleys of the Durance and Rhône.

This is the area which was marked out for development in the first and second centuries AD, and the range and quantity of Roman work which survives at Orange, St-Rémy and Arles is impressive. Indeed, as one moves into the Late Antique period it is precisely this triangle which blossoms – and in Arles one is

witness to the most significant Early Christian city of Mediterranean Gaul.

This Roman infrastructure is fundamental, and the pre-eminent Romanesque churches of Provence may come as something of a surprise, being notable both for a predilection for sheer wall surfaces and an indebtedness to earlier architectural norms.

But it is above all the sculpture which is most susceptible to this sort of historicising impulse. The Romanesque sculpture of Provence is more skilfully and self-consciously antique than any outside central Italy, and is often organised in a manner designed to evoke either fourth-century sarcophagi, or Roman theatres and triumphal arches. The façade of St-Trophime at Arles is a well-known example of this, but it is a theme we also encounter in many of the smaller churches – places such as Pernes-les-Fontaines and Montmajour – where exquisite friezes of acanthus and vinescroll are used to both elaborate and articulate exteriors of stunning delicacy.

For once the truly great late-mediaeval buildings we see are secular – René d’Anjou’s superb donjon and château at Tarascon and, supremely, the mighty papal palace at Avignon.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 1.15pm from London Heathrow to Marseille. Drive to Avignon, where all six nights are spent.

Aix, Cathedral of St-Sauveur, engraving from The Studio: Special Winter Number 1900–1901.



Day 2: Avignon. The Palais des Papes is the principal monument of the Avignon papacy, one-time site of the papal curia and by far the most significant 14th-century building to survive in southern France. The collections of late Gothic sculpture and painting in the Petit-Palais act as a splendid foil to the work at the papal palace, while the cathedral houses the magnificent tomb of Pope John XXII.

Day 3: Pernes-les-Fontaines, Vaison, Venasque. Gentle stroll through Pernes, a delightful fortified river town with an important Romanesque church and 13th-century frescoed tower. At Vaison-la-Romaine

Day 7: Silvacane, Aix-en-Provence. At Silvacane, a major late-12th-century Cistercian abbey, the monastic buildings descend a series of terraces down to the River Durance. Finally visit Aix, where the cathedral provides an enthralling end to the tour, with its extraordinary juxtaposition of Merovingian baptistery, Romanesque cloister, 13th-century chancel and late-mediaeval west front. Take the train to Lyon at c. 2.00pm to join The Rhône Music Festival. Embark the ship at c. 5.30pm. The festival begins this evening with dinner and the first concert.

Day 14, 24th October. After the festival, fly from Lyon to London Heathrow, arriving at 12.30pm.

LecturerDr Alexandra Gajewski. Specialist in mediaeval architecture. She read Art History at Münster University followed by a PhD in Gothic architecture in northern Burgundy from the Courtauld. She has lectured at the Courtauld, Birkbeck and the V&A and was recently visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,900 (deposit £200). This needs to be added to the Festival price for arriving on 17th October by air (see page 14). Price includes: travel by private coach throughout; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Flights (with British Airways, London to Marseille; Lyon to London, aircraft: Airbus A319) are charged as part of the festival package and are therefore not included in the cost of this tour.

Hotel: a 4-star hotel in Avignon in a converted 16th-century convent. Some rooms are in a modern extension. Excellent location near the Palais des Papes.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking is involved, particularly in the town centres. The tour is not suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. There are some long days and coach journeys. Average distance by coach per day: 53 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Pre-festival tour: Roman & Mediaeval Provence

Illustration: Arles, cloister of St-Trophime, from Agenda P.L.M., 1926.

the sublime late-Romanesque cathedral is attached to a northern cloister. Drive in the late afternoon over the Dentelles de Montmirail to the stunning early mediaeval baptistery at Venasque.

Day 4: Villeneuve, Orange, Tarascon, Pont-du-Gard. A day spent mostly within sight of the Rhône, beginning with Pope Innocent VI’s now ruined Charterhouse at Villeneuve-lez-Avignon. The day’s real star is Orange, site of the greatest of all Roman theatres to survive in the West. In the afternoon visit René d’Anjou’s mighty riverside château at Tarascon and that astonishing feat of engineering that brought water over the River Gardon at the Pont-du-Gard.

Day 5: St-Rémy-de-Provence. Drive along the northern flank of the Alpilles to St-Rémy-de-Provence, Glanum of old, and proud possessor of one of the truly great funerary memorials of the Roman world, the cenotaph erected by three Julii brothers in honour of their forebears. Some free time.

Day 6: Montmajour, Arles. Explore the superlative complex of churches, cemeteries and conventual buildings that once constituted the abbey of Montmajour. In Arles the amphitheatre is a justly famous early 2nd-century structure of a type developed from the Colosseum. The Romanesque Cathedral of St-Trophime is home to one of the greatest cloisters of 12th-century Europe. The Musée de l’Arles Antique houses a quite spellbinding collection of classical and early Christian art.

ARCHITECTURAL WALKS (see page 12) Walks are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Please tick for each participant:

Vieux Lyon

Traveller 1 Traveller 2

Vienne


The Rhône Music Festival, 17–24 October 2013

Booking Form

ADDRESS for correspondence

Postcode

Telephone (home) Telephone (work)

Mobile Fax

E-mail

Tick if you do NOT want to receive updates on our range of cultural tours and music festivals by email.

DECK & CABIN TYPE

Please tick (see pages 13–14):

Haydn deck (lowest)

Single occupancy

Twin (beds separated)

Twin (beds together)

Strauss deck (middle)

Single occupancy



Mozart deck (top)

Single occupancy



Mozart deck suite



TRAVELLERS’ NAMESGive your name as you would like it to appear on documents issued to other participants.

1.

2.

SPECIAL REQUESTS. Please let us know if you have any requests (for flight upgrades, connecting flights, a particular cabin, etc.), or any dietary requirements.

FESTIVAL FLIGHTS OR TRAINS

Tick your chosen option (pages 3 & 11)

Option 1 (by air, arrive 16 October)

Option 2 (by air, arrive 17 October)

Option 3 (by train, arrive 17 October)

Option 4 (no flights or rail travel, arrive 16 October)

Option 4 (no flights or rail travel, arrive 17 October)

If you are also booking on the pre-festival tour, Roman & Mediaeval Provence, you do not need to tick an option here.

PRE-FESTIVAL TOUR. Tick to book.

Roman & Mediaeval Provence, 11–17 October 2013 (see pages 15–16)

Room typeSingle occupancy

Twin

Double

FlightsGroup flights

No flights

Villeneuve-lez-Avignon


Monastère de Brou



Booking Form

PASSPORT DETAILS. In block capitals please. Essential for airlines and Eurostar and in case of emergency during the festival.

Traveller 1

Title

Surname

Forename(s)

Date of birth (dd/mm/yy)

Passport number

Place of birth

Place of issue

Nationality

Date of issue (dd/mm/yy)

Date of expiry (dd/mm/yy)

Traveller 2

Title

Surname

Forename(s)

Date of birth (dd/mm/yy)

Passport number

Place of birth

Place of issue

Nationality

Date of issue (dd/mm/yy)

Date of expiry (dd/mm/yy)

NEXT OF KIN or contact in case of emergency.

Name

Relation to you Telephone

PAYMENT

EITHER Deposit(s) at £300 per person for the festival, plus (if applicable) pre-festival tour deposit(s) of £200 per person:

Total: £

OR Full payment which is required within ten weeks of departure:

Total: £

EITHER by cheque. Please make cheques payable to Martin Randall Travel Ltd and write the festival code (ma 744) on the reverse.

OR by credit or debit card. Visa/ Mastercard/ Amex

Card number

Start date Expiry date

OR by bank transfer. Please use your surname and the festival code (ma 744) as a reference and please allow for all bank charges. Tick if you have paid by bank transfer:Account name: Martin Randall Travel Ltd. Royal Bank of Scotland, Drummonds, 49 Charing Cross, London SW1A 2DX. Account number: 0019 6050. Sort code: 16-00-38 IBAN: GB71 RBOS 1600 3800 1960 50. Swift/BIC: RBOS GB2L

I have read and agree to the Booking Conditions on behalf of all listed on this form.

Signed

Date

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London W4 4GFTelephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 [email protected] www.martinrandall.com

Australia: telephone 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand: telephone 0800 877 [email protected]

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Canada: telephone 647 382 1644 [email protected]: telephone 1 800 988 6168

w


Booking Details

Making a booking

1. Provisional booking

We recommend that you contact us first to ascertain that your preferred deck and cabin type is still available. You can make a provisional booking which we will hold for one week (longer if necessary) pending receipt of your completed Booking Form and deposit.

2. Definite booking

Fill in the Booking Form and send it to us with the deposit. It is important that you read the Booking Conditions at this stage, and that you sign the Booking Form. Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of the festival.

3. Our confirmation

Upon receipt of your Booking Form and deposit we send you confirmation of your booking. After this your deposit is non-returnable except in the special circumstances mentioned in the Booking Conditions.

Booking Conditions

Please read these.You need to sign your assent to these booking conditions on the booking form.

Our promises to you.We aim to be fair, reasonable and sympathetic in all our dealings with clients, and to act always with integrity.

We will meet all our legal and regulatory responsibilities, often going beyond the minimum obligations.

We aim to provide full and accurate information about our tours and festivals. If there are changes, we will tell you promptly.

If something does go wrong, we will try to put it right. Our overriding aim is to ensure that every client is satisfied with our services.

All we ask of you.We ask that you read the information we send to you.

Specific terms.Our contract with you. From the time we receive your signed booking form and initial payment, a contract exists between you and Martin Randall Travel Ltd.

Eligibility. We reserve the right to refuse to accept a booking without necessarily giving a reason. It is essential to be able to cope with the walking and the steps required to get to the concert venues. See ‘Fitness for the Festival’ on page 12. There is no age limit for the festival, though we cannot accept bookings on the pre-festival tour, ‘Roman & Mediaeval Provence’, from those who would be 81 or over at the time of departure.

Insurance. It is a requirement of booking that you have adequate holiday insurance. Cover for medical treatment, repatriation, loss of property and cancellation charges must be included. Insurance can be obtained from most insurance companies, banks, travel agencies and (in the UK) many retail outlets including Post Offices.

Passports and visas. Participants must have passports, valid for at least six months beyond the date of the festival. No visas are required for visiting France for UK or other EU citizens, or for citizens of the USA, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Nationals of other countries should ascertain whether visas are required in their case, and obtain them if they are.

If you cancel. If you have to cancel your participation in the festival or the pre-festival tour, there would be a charge which varies according to the period of notice you give. Up to 57 days before departure the deposit only is forfeited. Thereafter a percentage of the total cost will be due:

from 56 to 29 days: 40% from 28 to 15 days: 60% from 14 to 3 days: 80% within 48 hours: 100%

We take as the day of cancellation that on which we receive written confirmation of cancellation.

If we cancel the festival or tour. We might decide to cancel the festival or tour if at any time up to eight weeks before there were insufficient bookings for it to be viable. We would refund everything you had paid to us. We might also cancel if hostilities, civil unrest, natural disaster or other circumstances amounting to force majeure affect the region.

Safety and security. If the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against travel to places visited on the festival or tour, we would cancel or adjust the itinerary to avoid the risky area.

In the event of cancellation before the festival or tour commenced we would give you a full refund.

Consumer protectionATOL. All the flights and flight-inclusive holidays in this brochure are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. When you make your first payment you will be supplied with an ATOL Certificate. Please check to ensure that everything you booked is listed on it. For more information about financial protection and the ATOL Certificate go to: www.atol.org.uk/ATOLcertificate

ABTOT. As a member of the Association of Bonded Travel Organisers Trust Limited (ABTOT), Martin Randall Travel has provided a bond to meet the requirements of the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.

In the event of our insolvency, protection is provided for non-flight packages commencing in and returning to the UK and other non-flight packages excluding pre-arranged travel to and from your destination.

In the above circumstances, if you have not yet travelled you may claim a refund, or if you have already travelled, you may claim repatriation to the starting point of your non-flight package.

The limits of our liabilities. As principal, we accept responsibility for all ingredients of the festival or tour, except those in which the principle of force majeure prevails. Our obligations and responsibilities are also limited where international conventions apply in respect of air, sea or rail carriers, including the Warsaw Convention and its various updates.

If we make changes. Circumstances might arise which prevent us from operating the festival or tour exactly as advertised. We would try to devise a satisfactory alternative, but if the change represents

a significant loss to the festival or tour we would offer compensation. If you decide to cancel because the alternative we offer is not acceptable we would give a full refund.

English Law. These conditions form part of your contract with Martin Randall Travel Ltd and are governed by English law. All proceedings shall be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GFTelephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 [email protected]

Australia: Martin Randall Marketing, PO Box 537, Toowong, Queensland 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 [email protected]

New Zealand: Telephone 0800 877 622

Canada: Telephone 647 382 1644 Fax 416 925 2670 [email protected]

USA: Telephone 1 800 988 6168

www.martinrandall.com


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the rhone music festival (17–24 october 2013)

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