Rouen Cathedral: The All Saints’ Plenum

Épisode de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine Acoustique par Sauvegarde du Patrimoine Acoustique · 3 novembre 2025 · 17 min

Rouen Cathedral Plenum - All Saints’ Day, November 1st, 2025

This podcast offers a unique listening experience: the full plenum of Rouen’s Notre-Dame Cathedral, recorded with no editing, no processing - exactly as it sounds from the height of the window where Claude Monet painted his iconic Cathedrals series.

A rare moment, captured on All Saints’ Day - November 1st, 2025 at 10:10 a.m. - when the five monumental bells of the Saint-Romain Tower set themselves in motion and fill the soundscape of the city.

The introduction immerses you in the history of Rouen - a city shaped by centuries of art, power, and defining events.

Capital of Normandy, stronghold of the Viking Rollo in 911, the site of Joan of Arc’s fate in 1431, stage of a triumphant public concert by Frédéric Chopin in 1838, and an endless source of inspiration for Claude Monet, who painted its cathedral more than thirty times.

After this brief historical introduction, the rest is pure sound.

You will hear the plenum - five bells ringing with their full power, nearly 24 tons of bronze, generating up to 40 tons of horizontal force as they swing.

🔔 The five bells

The largest bell, Jeanne d’Arc, casts a deep F2, weighs 9.6 tons, measures 2.47 meters across, and dates from 1959.

Romain, sounding G2, weighs 5.2 tons with a diameter of 2.05 meters, cast in 2015.

Germaine, tuned to A2, weighs 4.7 tons and measures 1.92 meters, originally cast in 1959 and recast in 2015.

Cécile, ringing B♭2, weighs 3.25 tons, with a diameter of 1.70 meters, and was cast in 2015.

Finally, Agnès sounds C3, weighs 2.3 tons, measures 1.54 meters, and like Germaine was cast in 1959 and recast in 2015.

Close your eyes, breathe deeply, and let the cathedral speak.

Enjoy this journey through sound and time.

Acknowledgments

With heartfelt thanks to

the Carillon Association of Rouen Cathedral, and especially Mr. Patrice Latour,

as well as the City of Rouen and Rouen Tourisme.

Recording & production: Nicolas Labatut (Safeguarding Acoustic Heritage / Sauvegarde du Patrimoine Acoustique)

Voice-over: Renée Clancy

Copyright © November 3rd, 2025

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The “Sauvegarde du Patrimoine Acoustique” operates in different areas of expertise around the safekeeping of our sound heritage : podcasts around the history of augmented music, the capture of impulses, the digital cloning of musical instruments (in danger of being moved or destroyed) and field…

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