Looking for Notre Dame, an Immersive Podcast

The immersive podcast was produced as part of the research project PHE/ND – “THE PAST HAS EARS AT NOTRE DAME” on the evolution of the acoustic history of the cathedral and its soundscapes through the centuries.

The research project, PHE/ND, has numerous associated partners:
The National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris • The House of Human Sciences Lyon Saint-Étienne • The IReMus institute (Sorbonne University, CNRS, BnF, Ministry of Culture) • The Jean le Rond Institute ∂ 'Alembert (Sorbonne University, CNRS) • The André-Chastel Center (Sorbonne University, CNRS, Ministry of Culture) • Sunmetron

The project also benefits from the support of the French National Research Agency, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the European Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage. Partial funding has been provided by the European project PHE (The Past Has Ears, Grant No. 20-JPIC-0002-FS), at the initiative of the "European Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage", and the French project PHEND (The Past Has Ears at Notre-Dame, Grant No. ANR-20 -CE38-0014).

This audio series in four episodes transports listeners back centuries, to the heart of one of the most famous and adored French monuments: Notre-Dame. They rediscover this legendary monument through its history and its soundscape. Listeners are also swept up in the life of the famous poet Victor Hugo (the birth of his daughter Adèle, his literary encounters, the loss of the first version of the manuscript of Notre-Dame de Paris (The Huntchback of Notre Dame) during the July Revolution of 1830, and more).

Looking for Notre Dame plunges us into the mind of the young Victor Hugo as he begins his research to write his future "cathedral novel" Notre-Dame de Paris. It is 1828 and Victor Hugo is 26 years old. At that time, Notre Dame was a church in a state of disrepair. It will not be renovated by Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus until 1843. Notre-Dame is dying and Hugo wants to resuscitate it, as it was in the Middle Ages. Victor Hugo will engage in a real investigation into the sound of Notre-Dame, inviting us to explore its acoustics and soundscapes over the centuries.

He will meet several people for his research: priests, historians, musicians, Viollet-le-Duc, Mérimée and others. He draws his inspiration from frequenting Notre Dame, consulting manuscripts (including the Black Book that was thrown into the Seine), history books, and especially in his imagination that will inspire him by listening to polyphonies, documenting the furniture of Notre-Dame, and by reading Mysteries of the Middle Ages.

Recorded in an anechoic chamber and in the studio, then spatialized in 3D, the sound has an exceptional quality. Listeners can hear the acoustics of the cathedral from different periods, as well as soundscapes such as the noises of the construction site, a funeral oration by Bossuet as delivered in the 17th century, the bells, the 18th century organ etc. developed within the framework of the multidisciplinary research project PHE/ND – “THE PAST HAS EARS AT NOTRE DAME” on the evolution of the acoustic history of the cathedral and its soundscapes through the centuries.

A website details the “Research Objects” illustrated in the sound fiction http://alarecherchedenotredame.pasthasears.eu/