Music Festival at the Concert Hall
Event information
Description
As the highlight of the “Festival of Music,” we’ll explore the boundaries of classical music: Alphorn player Lisa Stoll, together with the Swiss Orchestra, will present music by Mozart as well as Swiss melodies, while violinist Yuki Hirano will draw on a rich repertoire with the virtuosic “Carmen Fantasy” and a neoclassical work. The concert takes place as part of the “Festival of Music,” during which performances of various styles fill Andermatt Reussen with music throughout the day. ABOUT THE PROGRAM Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher and philologist, wrote one of the sharpest and most entertaining pamphlets in music history in 1888. It concerns his former friend, Richard Wagner, whom he once held in high esteem. And it is a charming understatement when Nietzsche begins the preface to his nearly sixty-page reckoning with: “I am giving myself a little relief.” For in *The Case of Wagner: A Musician’s Problem*, he tears the composer and his music to shreds by every trick in the book—or, to put it more flippantly in this context: to the very core? The orchestral sound is “artificial” and “brutal,” Wagner’s art a magic trick, Wagner himself a “clever rattlesnake”: “He is the master of hypnotic techniques; he knocks even the strongest men down like bulls.” As a positive counterexample, Nietzsche—the connoisseur might say: of all people—cites Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen.” Here, the once ardent Wagnerian becomes not only a “better philosopher” but even a “better person” upon listening. He describes the music as light, charming, rich, and cheerful. It “doesn’t sweat”; Bizet’s atmosphere is—figuratively speaking—dry, pure, and clear; the music symbolizes a return to “nature, health, cheerfulness, youth, and virtue.” But what does all this have to do with the Swiss Orchestra’s concert? First of all, Franz Waxman’s “Carmen Fantasy” for violin and string orchestra brings the most beautiful melodies from Bizet’s opera to the concert stage. And that’s not the only thing likely to please the philosopher. Large parts of the rest of the program could also align with Nietzsche’s conception of good music (which—incidentally—looked quite different in his early work), as the mood is nature-loving, cheerful, and youthful: First up are two nature-inspired pieces for the unusual combination of alphorn (Lisa Stoll) and string orchestra: Hans-Jürg Sommer’s “Alp-Sommer” and Leopold Mozart’s “Sinfonia Pastorella.” Edvard Grieg’s “Two Nordic Melodies” for string orchestra are characterized by Norwegian folk music and a profound, atmospheric harmony. Alexey Shor’s Violin Concerto (soloist: Yuki Hirano) combines virtuosic passages with youthful cheerfulness. The mood is quite different in Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” which was voted the saddest piece of classical music by BBC listeners. – But such a small counterpoint surely won’t hurt Nietzsche’s ears either. Lisa Stoll, alphorn Yuki Hirano, violin Swiss Orchestra Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer, conductor PROGRAM: EDVARD GRIEG Two Nordic Melodies for String Orchestra, Op. 63 LEOPOLD MOZART Sinfonia Pastorella in G Major for alphorn and string orchestra HANS-JÜRG SOMMER “Alp-Sommer” for alphorn and string orchestra, Op. 222 ALEXEY SHOR Violin Concerto No. 6 “Carpe Diem” FRANZ WAXMAN Carmen Fantasy for Violin and String Orchestra SAMUEL BARBER Adagio for Strings Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.
Price Information
CHF 105.00 / 90.00 / 75.00 / 60.00 / 45.00 Children, schoolchildren, apprentices, and college students (up to age 30) receive a 50% discount on all regular tickets.