Orchestra in France plays sweet music amid lockdown

Even with its members scattered far and wide by the coronavirus lockdown, an orchestra in France has still managed to make sweet music.

Like building a musical jigsaw puzzle, the National Orchestra of France used the magic of technology to weave together the sight and sounds of its musicians who recorded themselves playing "Bolero" alone at home into a seamless, rousing whole.

The orchestra posted a video of the performance on YouTube.

The musicians miss performing together and miss their public.

This was their way of staying in touch.

"For me and all the musicians, I think, make music is to share music with the other musicians. So this video, for our colleagues, can make something very therapeutic because we can stay in touch, everyone, and with the Internet, with the technology, we can make music together," said Didier Benetti, the kettle drum player.

Posted Sunday, the video of orchestra members playing French composer Maurice Ravel's work quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

It starts with just three musicians: a cellist, a violinist and a percussionist with "Stay home" written on his red drum.

A flutist joins, haunting, bewitching, seemingly playing in his lounge.

The musical tension and power builds as more and more join, until they are just short of 50.

Benetti said the orchestra wants the video to send a message to music lovers that 'We need you, you need us, but we are all together and with this music that we sent in the Internet we can keep in touch with you and we hope to see you as soon as possible.'"

Benetti rearranged Ravel's music, chopping it down to just under 4 for this performance.

The musicians got their scores by email.

They also got an audio track to listen to through headphones as they played.

That audio included a previous recording of the music and the ticking sound of a metronome, to help the musicians keep time and stay in perfect unison despite being scattered to the winds.

One of the violinists played outside, with a beautiful seascape as his backdrop.

Most of the others filmed themselves inside.

Unlike other musicians, Benetti couldn't take his hefty drums home when France went into nationwide lockdown on March 17.

So he improvised for the video, enthusiastically pretending to bang two chairs in his living room with a ladle and a wooden spoon, utensils he took from his kitchen.