When a foreigner thinks of France, he usually thinks of Paris, and the same is also true when he thinks of French orchestras. Yet the latter are not confined to the capital : there are about thirty ensembles and orchestras (employing almost two thousand five hundred regular musicians) scattered quite evenly throughout the country. Of the twenty-two French regions, only four do not have their own orchestra while seventeen of the twenty-five largest cities (population wise) possess a resident orchestra. The traditional picture of French musical life, centred mainly on Paris from Autumn to Spring, then suddenly movinq South in Summer for the festival season, is far from being a reality ! Outside the Paris region, the thirty permanent orchestras present almost two thousand concerts and other performances in the course of the year-which means an average of about five events per day.
The size of the ensembles varies considerably, from the twelve strings of the Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse to the great «pool» of a hundred and seventy-four musicians of the Opéra National de Paris. Their repertoires are also very diverse, including opera, symphonic works, but also chamber concerts and even, of late, baroque music.
Some orchestras, such as those of Radio France, Paris, Lille, Lyon and Ile-de-France, devote themselves almost entirely to the symphonic repertoire, while the orchestras of Bordeaux, Nancy, Nice, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Lorraine and the Pays de la Loire divide their time between the opera season and a season of symphony concerts.
The orchestras may also be classified according to mobility. The Orchestre de Bretagne and the Orchestre d’Auvergne, for example, take music all over a vast area, while others concentrate their activities on just one or two main concert venues. All of them travel beyond their bases, however, and, all together, they give a total of almost two hundred concerts abroad, mostly in Europe.

French orchestras with an operatic vocation – particularly those of Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulouse and Strasbourg – date back to the early nineteenth century, while the orchestra of the Paris Opéra was founded in 1669 during Louis XIV’s reign. During the nineteenth century, symphonic life was organised around concert’s societies (sociétés de concerts), mainly composed of amateurs. Since the orchestras were unable to guarantee regular employment and income to their musicians, they lacked the necessary stability to exist as permanent ensembles. Due to those reasons and to the Great Depression during the interwar years, the symphony orchestras could not exist on a regular basis until 1934 when the Orchestre National de France was founded.
In the late 1960s, after decades of stagnation, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs finally gave the orchestras a decisive boost. First of all, in Paris, ministry officials persuaded city councillors to disband the Conservatoire orchestra (Orchestre de la Société du Conservatoire) and form the Orchestre de Paris (1967). It was followed by the foundation of the Orchestre national de Lyon (1969) and the Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire (1971). It was the beginning of a whole new movement. Over a period of one year (1976) many new orchestras appeared : Lille, Lorraine, Cannes, the Ensemble Intercontemporain (EIC) and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, followed by the Ensemble Instrumental de Grenoble and the Orchestre National de Montpellier.
Then came the 1980s and an important movement of political decentralisation. In order to encourage a greater musical life in the regions as well as to lessen the existing disparities (vast areas having no access at all to symphony orchestras), the orchestras of Auvergne (1981), Lyon Opéra (1983), Basse-Normandie and Pays de Savoie (1984) came into existence. Nevertheless, in France the cities still play a leading role when it comes to subsidising orchestras, as indeed in supporting cultural life in general.
Those past two decades, some difficulties have emerged. But the orchestras, supported on a long-term basis by state, regional and local authorities, have not suffered as much as other cultural institutions from the effects of the persistent economic crisis.

Like other orchestras all over the world, the French orchestras have gradually been led to leave aside a whole repertoire, more and more played by period intruments orchestras. As if to make up for the loss of that chapter devoted to the eighteenth century; which they have handed over to the «specialists», they have taken great steps forward not only where opera and concerts are concerned, but also in the field of recording. Bartok, Schoenberg, and even Messiaen and Dutilleux, are now considered almost as classics.
Defending the French heritage is obviously of the utmost importance, the triad Berlioz-Debussy- Ravel is still at its zenith, while works such as Dukas’s Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, Fauré’s Pénélope, Sauguet’s Caprices de Marianne and Jolivet’s Dolores, which once seemed doomed to oblivion, are making a fine comeback on the stages of our theatres and opera houses.
However defending the standard French repertoire is not the orchestras’ only objective. With the same spirit, they also aim at showing what is going on today in the modern scene : "defence but also illustration" as Du Bellay might say. The Ensemble InterContemporain, which specialises in the contemporary repertoire, is obviously the leader, but the other orchestras are also very active in this field. Vast cycles are now devoted to living composers : Pierre Boulez at Lille, Mauricio Kagel by the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, Luciano Berio at Radio-France, and so on. Every season, eighty new works are premièred. The aim is not only of obtaining recognition, but also-and above all-of sharing them with audiences. Over the past ten years, initiative in the field of contemporary music has steadily increased. One of the most original and ambitious of such enterprises is no doubt the «composer in residence scheme», whereby a creator is invited to spend at least two seasons composing with and for the musicians of an orchestra. Therfeore, contemporary music has become one of the major elements of the artistic policy of the French orchestras.

In the nineteenth century symphony concerts were given in dance halls, circuses or theatres. Since then, it is only in the last fifteen years that proper auditoriums such as Angers, Lille, Metz and Nantes, including the Cité de la Musique in Paris, have been built. The Auditorium in Lyon, the Halle aux Grains in Toulouse, and recently Salle Pleyel in Paris were also renovated to meet the acoustical requirements of an expanding repertoire. It also aims at satisfying audiences that are more interested than ever in the quality of music but also in the quality of the sound.
The activity of French orchestras, most of which were created quite recently, has regularly increased . Several of them have already passed the mark of a hundred concerts a year. Some-others have between seven thousand and ten thousand season-ticket holders.
For many of the symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles ticket sales and concerts represent almost 20% of the overall budget. That figure is particularly significant when we remember that financial support from state, regional and local authorities goes hand in hand with ticket prices that are kept as low as possible. Advanced management techniques, particularly in the field of marketing, are now essential to the running of the orchestras. Nevertheless, those in charge of them are fully aware that the concert, by its very nature, does not really come within the commercial sphere. Concert-going is also a social event.
The need to attract new audiences is therefore dictated not so much by economic considerations as by a concern for social legitimacy. This is reflected in the very reasonable prices of certain categories of tickets and also in the free concerts that are given each year by the resident orchestras. The first to benefit from such a policy are young audiences, to whom particular attention is paid. Each year several thousands of children have the possibility of meeting artists as well as attending public rehearsals and workshops. Quality; here, prevails over quantity.

In France, the orchestras are committed on lookers rather than the expiatory victims of the technological developments that directly affect the music world. Certain crises, such as the one the record industry is undergoing at the moment, have even led them to, make their presence more strongly felt in a market that is seekinq a new balance between quantity and quality. In the past few years, French orchestras, taken all together, have made between forty and fifty records each season, thus establishing repertoire, interpretations, a colour and a style that have definitively found a niche in the international scene. French music is obviously given pride of place and the catalogue of French works has been made richer than ever by the long and painstaking work carried out by conductors as Michel Plasson with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Jean-Claude Casadesus with the Orchestre National de Lille, Région Nord / Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Mercier with the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France and Emmanuel Krivine with the Orchestre national de Lyon.
In all these achievements, French orchestras not only play an important artistic part but they also make a great contribution on the financial level. Indeed, the musicians are paid essentially by the orchestras themselves for their participation in recordings. Few producers in the field of radio, television and records are prepared to pay «their» artists in full. The prospect of new developments subjects them to very keen competition, and they also have the alibi that such payments do not exist in other countries.
In this context, the protection of the musiciansérds’ rights is at the centre of discussions arising from the prospect of musical products worldwide broadcasting, via new technologies,—Do we have to choose between giving up certain rights and giving up our presence on the new musical market ? Some will bet on the internet worlwide market opportunities; others will consider living concert as the soul of music. Anyway, the hour of virtual orchestras has not come yet. As Karlheinz Stockhausen could say nowadays : “I really do like real orchestras”.