Palace of Versailles

October 2, 2024

Dignity, Gorgeousness, and Vastness.

My wife and I have visited the Palace of Versailles. But we later knew that we had only seen a few percent of it.

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It’s been 34 years since we visited the Palace of Versailles on our honeymoon. Even in Japan, far from Paris, everyone knows the name of the Palace of Versailles. We chose there as our last destination in Europe. However, at the time there was no Internet, and we walked around Paris without a guidebook, so we didn’t know how vast Versailles was.

It was late afternoon when we arrived at the palace, even though we had to catch our flight back home that night. Because, we had already spent a lot of time at the Musee D’orsay before then. In Versailles, we ended up not going inside the buildings and just strolling around a small part of the gardens.

Nowadays, I can see many photos of Versailles through the internet, and the first thing I realize are the gorgeousness of the rooms and the dignity of the royal chapel. And there are paintings on every wall, statues in every corridor and all over the gardens, and an incredibly vast site has multiple palaces and cathedrals, and even a custom-built country village. It’s a royal theme park.


However, even in the small area we walked, the cultural differences were clearly evident.

First, how the architecture is presented. The Imperial palaces, where Japanese nobles live, emphasize the beauty of the roof. For that reason, the architectures are usually one-story. And it is better not to have too many walls, so that the boundary between the interior and nature is not felt. On the other hand, the overwhelming presence of the Palace of Versailles was the walls. They were wide and high, lined with windows, decorated with reliefs, and ornamented with gold.

Second, the layout of the gardens. What surprised me at first glance about the gardens of Versailles was how orderly and symmetrical they were in a geometric shape. Japanese gardens are ideal expressions of the nature, so they are designed to avoid sense of artificiality. Also, to let feel the flow of energy, they are never symmetrical.

Both are the result of the same pursuit of beauty and nobility. But how different they are! It was definitely worth coming all the way to Europe.

If we had been inside the building, we would have been able to feel the cultural differences there as well. But unfortunately, I have to make do with looking at photos on the internet. The photos gave the impression of a world of royalty far from the lives of ordinary people. The elegant life, the different worries from the common people, and the position that they had to be noble all the time. It’s so luxurious that I, a commoner, can’t even feel envious. 🙂

By the way, this song was originally intended to be a song about roses. However, after some twists and turns, it was decided to separate it from the rose song as a palace song. The circumstances surrounding this are explained in the explanation of ‘Roses in the Palace Garden‘.

I tried to make a fun song by filling it with various images of the Palace of Versailles that I could not see with my own eyes.

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Download Page: Score, TAB and mp3 for free

Song Information
  • Title: Palace of Versailles
  • Composer: Issay Tsumeki ( 爪木一晴 )
  • Work number: Op. 12
  • Date of composition: Mar. 19, 2022
  • Date of release: Oct. 2, 2024
Photos