Just before the major Chopin exhibition at the Cité de la Musique, it’s the Musée de la Vie Romantique – one of our favourite places in Paris – that honours the man for the bicentenary of his birth.

The Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris. Photo : JasonW

Before it became a museum the Musée de la Vie romantique was a Parisian townhouse that received distinguished and talented guests such as George Sand and… (neighbour) Chopin. We love the place (indeed we wrote about it on the blog not so long back here). The exhibition has been specially designed for the museum and will concentrate on Chopin’s Parisian years (1831-1849) by trying to recreate the historical, aesthetic and poetic atmosphere that helped Chopin to develop his musical genius.

With literature, paintings and music, the exhibition revolves around the concept of the ‘blue note’ that Delacroix and George Sand could hear in Chopin’s music, and comprises around 90 paintings, sculptures and drawings by Chassériau, Clésinger, Corot, Courbet, Delacroix, Scheffer… lent by major French museums (Louvre, bibliothèque-musée de l’Opéra – BNF, Carnavalet, Petit Palais) as well as other public collections in Nantes, Rouen, Arras, Montauban, the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and many private collections.

photo by Flickr user wallyg, used under cc licence

The exhibition Frédéric Chopin – la note bleue is at the Musée de la Vie Romantique (here) from 2nd March – 11th July 2010. Open every day except Mondays and public holidays from 10am – 6pm. Admission 7€ / 5€.

Official site (in French): www.vie-romantique.paris.fr