It’s a dive into the acoustic history of Notre-Dame de Paris. Researchers unveil on Friday January 24 a reconstruction of concerts… which take us on a journey into the cathedral's past. Thanks to artificial intelligence, these acousticians placed musical works in the historical, architectural and musical context of the building.
Lasting 60 minutes, The Archéoconcert offers the general public the opportunity to dive from the XIIe au XXe century, in particular to discover the sounds of each era, as our ancestors could hear them.
Like here: we are in December 1804. Napoleon I entered the cathedral to be crowned Emperor of the French. On the screen, the camera wanders around the building, reconstructed in computer-generated images. No characters in the image, it is mainly the sound and the music that interests Brian Katz, acoustician and research director at the CNRS. “We were fortunate, before the fire, to have already taken measurements at Notre-Dame, which helped us calibrate the computer model. With this, we brought together researchers from several disciplines, such as musicology or archaeoacoustics, to really study the evolution of the acoustics of Notre-Dame since its construction. he deciphers.
Eleven musical pieces are played in this film, each time with a presentation of the architectural and political context. “We really worked on recreating the acoustic ambiance of Notre-Dame in 3D“, explains Brian Katz.
-However, this acoustic atmosphere, in 860 years of existence, has evolved. “The more we move forward in time, the more reverberant the cathedral will be. We went from reverb time of 3-4 seconds, so I clap my hands and it takes 3 seconds to die, and we don't hear anything anymore, to 8-9 seconds. It's related to geometry, explains David Poirier-Quinot, research engineer at the d'Alembert Institute, at the Sorbonne. Before its creation, the cathedral was perhaps a third of the volume we have today. And there are the materials: if we ever cover the entire floor with a carpet, like for the Coronation of Napoleon, we will have something a little duller, a little more matt…“
At the time, there were no cameras or microphones. So, to recreate these concerts within the cathedral, researchers had to dig into the archives. “We find out about the position of the orchestra at the time. There are times when we have had to interpret a little broadly. There will also be a bit of a process of romanticizing the scene to ensure that it is still pretty.“, rejoices David Poirier-Quinot.
For these acoustics specialists, this film is also a means of popularizing their research. A version adapted for online video platforms is in preparation.
