There are probably no more than a dozen compositions of classical music that have found a permanent place in the public consciousness. The reasons for this are extremely varied; they range from their frequent use on official occasions, in radio, film and television to sometimes not-so-local traditions. Hand on heart: who hasn't heard a more or less festive performance of Beethoven's Ninth on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, at the end of which the singing seems to eclipse everything symphonic? At least in this sublime moment, it is as if - despite many everyday experiences - all people really are brothers. Moreover, this "Ode to Joy" has never been a bad substitute when no national anthem was available or would fit (for example in Rhodesia, in Kosovo or at the former entry of all-German teams at the Olympic Games). In all these cases, however, Friedrich Schiller's visionary verses were not sung, perhaps not even considered. The same applies (unfortunately) to its official use as the European anthem (since 1985). wordless arranged by Herbert von Karajan in the versions for piano, wind orchestra or orchestra.

There was no shortage of arrangements in the 19th century. Even then, the crucial question was how to deal with the text and the vocal parts. Franz Liszt's virtuoso transcription for piano two hands (1853), for example, became a piano reduction in the finale. Years earlier, Carl Czerny had already had reservations about such a performance when he made his own arrangement for piano four hands: Where should the vocal parts have been inserted, since (as is still customary today) the two players are assigned the left and right pages of the open edition respectively? And so the Leipzig publisher Probst finally published a piano volume in landscape format, while the vocal parts were enclosed separately in portrait format. In a letter dated September 3, 1828, Czerny had expressed himself even more pragmatically (and as we know today: with almost clairvoyant abilities): "The future will appreciate the greatness of musical composition so much that it will forget the words."

Link to the project homepage "52 x Beethoven"

Irish-born singer and songwriter Shirley Grimes has been contributing to the cultural life of the Bern region for decades. She has contributed her musical versatility to various bands, but has also realized many of her own projects.

Over the past twelve years, Bernese violinist Meret Lüthi has built up the Bernese early music orchestra "Les Passions de l'Ame" and positioned it on the international music scene. She has discovered and publicly performed or recorded numerous baroque works.

Since 1992, the Bürgi-Willert Foundation has awarded a cultural prize every two years. It is awarded to people who have enriched Bern's cultural life for many years.

The 1913 statutes of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, founded in the same year, already provided for the possibility of appointing honorary members. The first use was made of this in 1937, when Felix Stransky, financial officer and member of the management of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, was appointed the first honorary member, the second being Richard Strauss in 1938.

The Moldovan-born violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja initially studied violin with Michaela Schlögl, a student of David Oistrakh. In 1989, her family emigrated to Vienna, where she continued her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. At the age of 21, she moved to the conservatory in Bern on a scholarship. She graduated there with distinction in 2000.

After serving as Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in the USA from 2014 to 2018, she took over the artistic direction of Camerata Bern at the end of 2018, with whom she has since staged the projects "War and Chips" and "Time and Eternity".

Those who want to deepen their knowledge of contemporary music in Bern benefit from transdisciplinarity: studio, live electronics, composition and creative practice, ensembles, sound arts, theater, visual arts, literature, performance, festivals - all connections are possible and are supported by an international team of lecturers and an individual study plan.

From 2020, the HKB's Master Specialized Music Performance course in New Music / Création musicale will be part of an exclusive European institutional network: the international cooperation Master New Music Bern-Dresden-Salzburg. HKB students will also visit one of the other two universities of their choice, develop and realize projects and take them on tour.

The ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra was due to tour South Korea and China from March 10 to 21, but the tour under Finnish conductor John Storgards has now been completely canceled. The reason for this is the spread of the coronavirus in China, which is now also affecting cultural life in South Korea.

Initially, the two concerts planned in China were canceled by the organizer at the beginning of February, and a week later one of the organizers also withdrew from Korea. The remaining concerts in Korea can now no longer be performed by the orchestra.

Due to the wave of infections, a long-planned concert tour by Festival Strings Lucerne with Midori, which was to have toured several East Asian countries in March, has also had to be canceled. A shortened tour without the concerts planned in mainland China was also no longer an option due to stricter travel regulations and the shutdown of public life at planned tour venues such as Hong Kong. The canceled concerts are to be rescheduled as soon as possible.

Concerts were planned in Singapore and Seoul as well as in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Changsha and Zhuhai and a performance at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, where the Festival Strings Lucerne has been a guest performer since 1978. The Hong Kong Arts Festival, one of the most renowned festivals in Asia, was even completely canceled this year with over 120 events. A unique occurrence in the festival's almost 50-year history.

Dodo Hug initially appeared on stage with Christoph Marthaler & Pepe Solbach, among others, and later founded her ensemble Mad Dodo. Since 1994 she has been working together with the Sardinian musician and cantautore Efisio Contini, who is also her life partner. She has been a Swiss/Italian dual citizen since 2004.

This year's two sponsorship awards of CHF 30,000 each go to the Bla*sh network and the musician duo Eclecta. Bla*sh - short for Black She - is a network of Black women cultural mediators and artists in German-speaking Switzerland that was founded in Zurich in 2013. The network is committed to the empowerment of black women in a society in which whiteness and masculinity are still considered the norm.

Eclecta stands for a decidedly eclectic, electrifying musical firework display. The musicians Andrina Bollinger (*1991) and Marena Whitcher (*1990) are responsible for this. They sing, rattle, scream and whisper their way into the music. Even broken glockenspiels, defective pianos, balloons or punched papers find their way into the songs. The musicians studied jazz in Zurich and began to shed their musical blinkers early on in their own formations.

The Vorarlberg State Conservatory hosted a symposium for cultural and music professionals on February 4 and 5. The topic of "Music and Society" brought together around 170 participants from the four-country region in the Montforthaus Feldkirch together. In addition to presentations and inputs, there were lively debates in discussion rounds and the first-ever format was used to exchange ideas.

Martin Tröndle (Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen) laid the foundation for the subsequent debates with his report on "non-visitor research": cultural institutions (in the narrower sense of theaters, opera houses and classical concert halls) are known as places where only a small part of society can be found. However, it is still quite unclear who misses out on the many offerings of the classical sector and, above all, for what reasons. A few findings from a study (conducted in Berlin in 2019 with around 1,300 young academics) are briefly mentioned here: the classic feature pages are hardly used as a place for information and preparation, while offline information and friends are the second most important source after the internet.

Lack of time and money are often cited as reasons for not attending traditional events; however, they are not decisive for visitor behavior. Tröndle speaks of 11 % of so-called "never-visitors" who are hopeless to try to attract; it is more worthwhile because it is more promising to get to know the 20 or so % of "not-yet" and "maybe-visitors". Institutions can ask themselves how they can offer "proximity" on all possible levels and how they can make their establishment and their offerings inviting for all those who want culture.

The Blaibach concert hall in the Bavarian Forest, a local project that has become known beyond the region, was largely financed by urban development programs. The well-known problem of operating costs for programming also exists here, as is the case with many other organizers. In the meantime, public funding has been completely dispensed with here, as it is too insignificant compared to the effort required to obtain it. Artistic Director Thomas E. Bauer passionately argues that there is a right to prominent culture as well as to education and infrastructure - even in rural areas.

The concert series "Montforter Zwischentöne" seeks regional relevance by involving the local communities, playing in urban spaces and having an impact beyond Feldkirch into the Rhine Valley with its 250,000 inhabitants. In its own productions, themes from the region are taken up and artistically processed in new concert formats; participation here means taking "user competence" just as seriously as expertise.

Christine Rhomberg (Hilti Foundation) provided an example of practical talent promotion with her report on the commitment "Music for social change" and introduced the second major topic of the meeting: How can musicians be empowered to get involved in social contexts while still in training? Creative people and clever collaborations are needed to combine the established music business and socio-musical initiatives such as JeKi or Superar in a sustainable and profitable way.

It is an urgent task to bring music studies and teacher training closer together in order to close the devastating gaps in children's basic musical education. This was also made clear in the presentation by Peter Heiler from the Bregenz Music School: for a "music school in school", music teachers are needed who have the entire spectrum of "educate - learn - play" in mind, as there is less and less support from parents.

Many musical program points enriched the symposium, various ensembles of the Vorarlberg State Conservatory as well as the many-membered Superar Choir (conducted by Magdalena Fingerlos) performed. The final round of the Hugo Competition - an international student competition for new concert formats organized by Montforter Zwischentöne - presented four teams from German-speaking music academies with ideas on the theme of "Taking detours". The XYlit collective from Leipzig won over the jury and audience with their entry "Traumlandschaft"; the Hugo winners received 1000 euros in prize money and can now develop their project with a professional production budget for the Montforter Zwischentöne summer festival.

The symposium was a successful prelude to further exchange between music and society and was cleverly placed: The Landeskonservatorium has just applied for accreditation as a music university. For the artistic director, Jörg Maria Ortwein, his institution and the symposium are equally important as "a source of inspiration for innovative approaches. The aim is to establish the emerging private music university as an ideal platform for the development of artistic personalities with a multi-layered impact on society."

Born into an aristocratic family in 1905 and raised at Valva Castle near Naples, he bears the title Conte d'Ayala Valva. "Even as a three-year-old, he used to spend hours improvising on the piano with his feet, arms and elbows and did not want to be disturbed under any circumstances," says pianist Marianne Schroeder, who knew Scelsi personally and worked with him.

As a pianist, he was largely self-taught. He later studied composition with three teachers, with Debussy specialist Giacinto Sallustio in Rome, with Egon Köhler, a Scriabin supporter, in Geneva and twelve-tone technique with Schoenberg pupil Walter Klein in Vienna. These studies took place outside the academic world, from which he deliberately kept his distance and was therefore sometimes despised or ridiculed. Marianne Schroeder enthusiastically recounts a 1979 concert in the Hans-Huber-Saal in Basel, in which Jürg Wittenbach performed works by Scelsi. The Japanese soprano and Scelsi specialist Michiko Hirayama was also there. In 2014, Schroeder invited the now 90-year-old singer to her first Scelsi festival at the Gare du Nord. "It was incredible: she sang a one-and-a-half-hour program with the Canti del Capricornothat were dedicated to her."

During the Second World War, Scelsi struggled with nervous problems and became increasingly interested in spiritualism, turning to Far Eastern teachings and practising yoga intensively. He believed that he received his music as messages from the beyond, for example from Hindu deities: "I am only a medium in the service of something much greater than myself," he says in the film portrait The first movement of the unmoved from the year 2018.

He was in search of microtonalities, always looking for frictions, minor seconds and sevenths. In 1965, he stopped improvising on the piano and began working with the Ondiola, the first electronic instrument on which pitches could be set.

Marianne Schroeder, a piano teacher at the Basel Music School at the beginning of her career, states: "I only felt happy when I started playing modern music. I was always successful with it". She studied Bartók, Stockhausen, Feldman and Cage. "Scelsi was a logical consequence of this," she is convinced. After the initial experience of the Scelsi concert in Basel, it took another five years before she plucked up the courage to call the master: "In 1984, I was in Darmstadt when it came like a bolt of lightning: now I have to play Scelsi." The following year, she met the master in Rome. He asked three questions: "How old are you? What kind of music do you play? Do you do yoga?" She didn't do yoga, but started soon after Scelsi's death (1988) and still practises it intensively today: "Scelsi was extremely kind and calm, someone who only wanted the best for you." As he always worked at night, you could only meet him after 4 pm. Scelsi often asked: "Did you improvise today?" It was extremely important to him that a musician should let the music emerge from within.

You couldn't listen to his music for more than ten minutes at a time, Scelsi said, it was too eruptive. Today we've moved on, says Schroeder: "There's something emotionally right about Scelsi. There is something natural, fundamental and unaffected about it."

After a concert in Rome, Schroeder had her second important inspiration: "Now I'm going to do a festival." She found a project manager in Anja Wernicke, and the first three-day edition was successfully staged in January 2014. With the exception of 2015, the festival has always been hosted by Gare du Nord. However, the first day traditionally takes place at Fachwerk Allschwil, as was the case this year on February 2. First on the program was a singing workshop with Amit Sharma, followed by a reading from Scelsi's autobiographical work, Il sogno 101. The music was entirely dedicated to the piano. The following were performed Cinque incantesimi (1953), performed by Marija Skender. These pieces are among the composer's best-known piano works. They were written over several years in nightly improvisations that were recorded on tape. Action Music 1-4 (1955), interpreted by Giusy Caruso, dates from the time when Scelsi was inspired by the action painting of Jackson Pollock, among others, in New York. Marianne Schroeder set the final point with I Capricci di TY, Suite No. 6 (1938-39), which are intended to describe the caprices of his wife Dorothy.

From 7 to 9 May, three more festival days are planned in Allschwil (the Gare du Nord is not available this time for organizational reasons). A masterclass entitled "The Art of Scelsi Singing" with the soprano and student of Michiko Hirayama, Maki Ota, has been confirmed. Marianne Schroeder is bubbling over with enthusiasm and program ideas, but also regrets that she can only make short-term plans at the moment due to her work overload: "A dream would be Scelsi's monumental early works La nascita del verbo with orchestra and choir, but that takes at least two years of preparation."

No, Beethoven as a person does not appear in this opera. His music is also only quoted recognizably once, when towards the end, like a commentary from offstage, the vocal quartet Mir ist so wunderbar from Fidelio can be heard. But the focus is on Beethoven's daughter, and her name is Minona. How could anyone who is even halfway informed about music history think that there is no mention of Beethoven's paternity anywhere in scholarship?

But it is certainly possible. At least that is the thesis of Jüri Reinvere, author of the opera Minonawhich has now been premiered in Regensburg, Bavaria, at the start of the so-called Beethoven Year. The composer, who was born in Estonia in 1971 and has lived in Frankfurt am Main for several years, carried out meticulous research before writing the libretto in order to substantiate his assumption and thus the plot of his opera. Among other things, he found documents in his home town of Tallinn that provide a deep insight into Minona's family history.

The pivotal point of the story is the mysterious person to whom Beethoven dedicated his song cycle To the distant beloved of 1816 and who is presumably identical to the "immortal beloved" to whom he addressed a letter in 1812 after a short stay in Prague, but never sent it.

Reinvere suspects that this figure, whose anonymity Beethoven carefully guarded, was the Hungarian Countess Josephine von Brunsvik, married to von Stackelberg; she was Beethoven's piano pupil and he was demonstrably strongly attracted to her. In those July days of 1812, when Beethoven was in Prague, he is said to have met her secretly, according to Reinvere's theory, and that is when it is said to have happened. But there is only circumstantial evidence, no proof that Josephine was in Prague at the time. But there was another woman who was also very close to Beethoven: Antonie Brentano. The biographical fog will probably never be completely cleared.

Historical research is one thing, artistic freedom is another. Reinvere, who skillfully balances reality and fiction, has stuck to the Brunsvik variant and turned it into a libretto that is eminently suitable for opera: the possible meeting between Beethoven and Josephine in Prague has consequences, and they go by the name of Minona.

In fact - and this is where reality comes into play again - the girl was born exactly nine months after the ominous Prague date and baptized Minona von Stackelberg. However, Josephine and her husband Baron von Stackelberg were already divorced in July 1812 and living separately - honi soit qui mal y pense. In the opera, Countess von Goltz, whom the distraught Josephine tells of her unseemly misstep, recommends the well-known recipe: off to Vienna, to the cold marriage bed! A child from this amorous loner Beethoven would be social ruin.

This prequel is told in the first two scenes of the opera. The rest of the two-act opera describes the life of the real Minona. She now becomes the main character of the opera. We see her as a young girl and as an old woman, sometimes both in simultaneous scenes. She is a so-called difficult character; like a female Kaspar Hauser, she is on a lifelong search for her identity, a tragic figure caught between two fathers. One, the fighter for high ideals, to whom she inexplicably feels instinctively drawn, is only present in her genes and her subconscious. The other, a Protestant fanatic and tyrannical educator, dominates her real existence with physical and psychological violence. She perishes between these two poles.

Towards the end, Beethoven's love letters to her mother Josephine are handed to her as heiress. She now feels that her suspicions have been confirmed and knows who she is. The figure of Leonore appears, an allegory of ideal love, and a philosophical dialog about the true nature of love ensues. Minona realizes that her feelings have atrophied under the pressure of her pious upbringing and that she has never lived her life: "I never existed ... I don't know where I come from, I don't know who wanted me." Minona, read backwards, means "anonymous". What remains is hopelessness and emptiness. Slightly dazed, you sneak out of the theater.

The two-act play, which is somewhere between a stationary drama and a witty conversation piece, artfully interweaves times and settings. The extensive dialog parts are worked out with great care; an arioso tone, which does not impair the comprehensibility of the words, prevails. The singing is carried by the powerful, flowing orchestral sound. It shines in rich colors, never seems ponderous and surprisingly never drowns out the singing voices, but rather carries them. Several orchestral commentaries provide expressive climaxes, and the one at the beginning of the last scene adds an apocalyptic dimension to the increasingly darkening events. The final section drags on, but overall the musical design provides internal tension both in terms of architecture and detail.

The production was not without its weaknesses. This was not due to Marc Weeger's stage. With a metal frame that cleverly structured the space and the revolving stage mechanism, he created the conditions for quick scene changes and expressive decorations. Director Hendrik Müller, however, believed he had to spruce up the play with all sorts of far-fetched ingredients. At the beginning, the Reich piano grandmother Elly Ney ghosts through the scene with solemn gestures, which immediately places Beethoven's music under Nazi suspicion - a popular means of progressive cultural criticism today.

In the Stackelberg picture, the bigoted Protestant milieu is helped along with a little exorcism, and Beethoven's character of Leonore appears at the end as a malicious doctor in a white coat who gives Minona suicide pills and quickly shoots the thieving servants as she passes by. With silencer pistols, of course, just like the Mafiosi. Creative self-realization in honour, but please on the experimental stage and not at the premiere of a full-length opera, where it would be important to first make the outline of the work clear and not to deconstruct it straight away.

The online lexicon is the result of an initiative by musicologist Irène Minder-Jeanneret. She found partners in the Swiss Music Research Society (SMG) and the Swiss Music Council (SMR). The project was initially hampered by a lack of legal foundations and financial resources.

Under the direction of Cristina Urchueguía (University of Bern), Marco Jorio (former director of the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland HLS), Irène Minder-Jeanneret, Pio Pellizzari (former director of the Swiss National Sound Archives), Stefanie Stadler (University of Zurich) and Stefano Kunz (responsible project manager at the Swiss Music Council) worked on a voluntary basis to develop the foundations for the new Swiss Music Dictionary (MLS).

The beta version of the MLS currently comprises the older biographical articles on 6800 people that have appeared in the music encyclopaedias published to date. They form the basis for the second phase: the development of new articles on musicians' biographies, on the history of music in the cantons and larger municipalities, and on music-historical subject articles.

The MLS is published online, is freely accessible free of charge and will be interactive, multilingual and multimedia in the future. An additional benefit compared to the sources used is the dense linking of the articles to freely accessible online lexicons and bibliographic standard data.

As Cristina Urchueguía explained at a media conference on the project, one of the main challenges of the MLS will be to give visibility to the institutions that have shaped Swiss musical life: clubs, societies, foundations, venues and so on, in addition to the traditional articles on individuals.

Beta version of the MLS: https://mls.0807.dasch.swiss/home

Only very rarely (in fact, almost never) does a pianist today dare to improvise one of those cadenzas that are so emphatically demanded by the orchestra's six-four chord in a piano concerto from the decades around 1800. The art of leading through motifs, themes and keys in an interesting, pleasing and, above all, independent manner, which was still taken for granted at the time, fell into oblivion in just two to three generations. In contrast, elaborate cadenzas came into fashion, which could be freely selected and simply played. Even Beethoven made them on request, later renowned pianists and composers followed suit: Brahms, Bülow, Busoni, Fauré, Godowsky, Liszt, Medtner, Moscheles, Reinecke, Rubinstein, Saint-Saëns, Clara Schumann, to name but a few.

The old spirit of improvisation also speaks from the Fantasy op. 77 - although analysts have often attempted to peel out the smallest motivic references in order to defend the composer against the unpopular work. Yet Beethoven was not only a composer with both far-sighted and profound insights, but also (and this is often overlooked) a practicing pianist for most of his life. Carl Czerny already wrote in his The art of the lecture (1842) explicitly referred to this fact: "This very witty fantasy gives a faithful picture of the way he Beethoven used to improvise when he did not want to carry out a particular theme, and therefore left himself to his genius in inventing ever new motifs." This is by no means contradicted by the fact that sketches for the work can be proven and that the autograph was made in splendid Sunday handwriting: Every good improvisation (even in jazz) should be prepared in some form, even if only mentally. But if we look at the musical context of 1809, Beethoven's Opus 77, with its combination of free fantasia and a short sequence of (figurative) variations, which seems strange today, seems to have been nothing other than at the height of his time. This is again confirmed by Czerny, who in his Instructions for fantasizing (1829) recommends a longer improvisation and considers it advisable, "if there are echoes from the following topic and the whole forms a suitable introduction". Numerous long-forgotten works by other composers also reveal this structure (Hummel, Steibelt ...). In Beethoven's case, however, the (printed) fantasia, like so much else, remained singular.

Link to the project homepage "52 x Beethoven"

It was a little disconcerting when Raphael Immoos led the singers on February 9 after the Gloria of the Missa "Defensor Pacis" to the front rows of seats in Zurich's St. Peter and Paul Church and reached for the microphone. But what the Basel Madrigalists presented that evening under their conductor and artistic director really did require some explanation. The composer of the work, the musician born in Gersau SZ in 1904, was already in need of an introductory commentary Benno Ammann. He can justifiably be described as a typical representative of those prophets who are more respected abroad than at home. After the Second World War, he enjoyed some international success as a conductor, but this had little resonance in Switzerland. It is unclear why he did not pursue this career at all later on and restricted himself to conducting a few choirs in the Basel region.

It is likely that Ammann needed more time to compose. By the time of his death in Rome in 1986, he had created an extensive oeuvre of around 600 works, whose fascinating stylistic breadth ranged from the late romantic harmony of his Leipzig teacher Sigfrid Karg-Elert to free-tonal and twelve-tone works and serialism. From the 1950s onwards, he concentrated on electro-acoustic music, for the realization of which he travelled to electronic studios from Rome to New York until the end.

The work itself then required further explanation. The Missa "Defensor Pacis" (Defender of Peace) in honour of Niklaus von Flüe was composed immediately after the war and was premiered in the Sistine Chapel on the occasion of Brother Klaus' canonization, which was something of a sensation. Unfortunately, this triumphant beginning was immediately followed by a crash: the work disappeared into oblivion and has only now been resurrected - this year it will receive its Swiss premiere in eight concerts.

In the introduction, Raphael Immoos declared the rediscovery of this work to be a sensation, the piece to be as significant as Frank Martin's Mass, which also remained undiscovered for a long time. But even if Immoos has a great deal of experience in dealing with unknown pieces, their research and revival, such a lofty prediction has yet to be confirmed. However, the Zurich concert showed that Ammann's Missa "Defensor Pacis" ad 6-12 voces inaequales is an impressive work that does not need to shy away from comparison with Martin.

Reminiscent of the Flemish Renaissance and the Palestrina style, it moves in a tonal or modal space, leaving its modernity in the Kyrie and Gloria only flash up in occasional dissonances. Despite all the complex linearity, the voices repeatedly combine to create modern sound surfaces. From the middle of the work, the Offertorythe prayer of St. Niklaus von Flüe, the tone changes. What was previously still austere in places suddenly becomes catchy, more sensual. Almost mythical sounds now dominate the work. Individual voices rise up like invocations from the whole and allow the individual to emerge. Especially the Agnus Dei with his haunting, tranquil and peaceful closing of the work. Dona-nobis-pacem-invocation, left one moved.

The strong effect was also due to the performance of the Basel Madrigalists. They mastered the difficult score, which was peppered with many delicate passages, with masterful rhythm and intonation, remaining clearly audible and comprehensible even in the polyphony. With increasing familiarity, the one or other passage will certainly be mastered a little more smoothly.

The second introduction of the evening was actually dedicated to the work of the composer Joachim Raff, who was born in Lachen in 1822 and whose works included the premiere of a fragment. Immoo's speech, however, turned into a passionate plea for Swiss music, which is given far too little recognition in this country. Raff's work, for example, which was also performed Father Noster is certainly comparable to Verdi's counterpart. And even if one does not entirely share the latter assessment, Immoos' enthusiasm and commitment to the neglected Swiss musical heritage is infectious - beyond the evening! Next year, the Basler Madrigalisten will not only embark on a CD production of Ammann's Mass, but it will also be reissued by Hug Music Publishers and thus made available to other choirs. It would be great if this initiative by a top ensemble could actually help the work to have a broader impact. At least for ambitious amateur choirs, working with the Missa "Defensor Pacis" could be a worthwhile venture.

First the Symphony orchestra under chief conductor Ivor Bolton parts from Beethoven's Prometheus-Ballet, to which children of primary school age danced, followed by a few short pieces performed by the youngest members of the Insel orchestra school. And finally, the symphony orchestra "Side-by-Side" played Beethoven's Music for a knight's ballet. The conductor was none other than the world-class pianist Lars Vogt, who has been working with his project Rhapsody in School celebrates successes.

The evening in the well-attended Musicaltheater Basel was the result of a long-standing collaboration between the symphony orchestra and music teacher Dorothee Mariani: seven years ago, she founded an orchestra school in the Insel schoolhouse in Kleinbasel, which is home to a diverse mix of nationalities. Since then, children between the ages of 8 and 12 have been able to learn a string instrument there with the support of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, which regularly sends its violinist László Fogarassy to the school.

At the concert, around fifty children showed off their skills and the concentration they had gained on stage and then in the audience. The meticulousness and sensitivity with which the children performed on stage to the brilliantly played Prometheus-music.

Photo: Benno Hunziker / Basel Symphony Orchestra

Choreographer Rebecca Weingartner, who has been rehearsing with the children since November 2019, has truly pulled off a masterstroke. Depending on the level and age of the children, all dressed in black, there were three groups moving their heads, bodies and arms to the rhythm of the music or "whirling" around the stage. Highly concentrated, following the music and without any "misfires", the young performers completed the choreography, which was peppered with entrances and exits, to the rousing music.

The short Serbian, Albanian, Ukrainian and Scottish pieces played and sung afterwards under the direction of Dorothee Mariani showed how rocky the path is from beginners to advanced players and how much the music-making relaxed after some of the symphony orchestra musicians had mingled with the children. Was this a good or a bad omen for what was to follow?

Artistic Director Hans-Georg Hoffmann, who hosted the evening in a relaxed and witty manner, was already raving about the forthcoming Knight ballet. He had a lively conversation with two musicians, the viola player Fabian and Chukwu Cherem, whose sister Happyness was already in the orchestra on the cello and was concentrating on the "side-by-side" adventure.

Dorothee Mariani had been preparing the most advanced children with the help of László Fogarassy since August 2019. "The children should have contact with string instruments, especially in such a multinational elementary school," said Fogarassy about his involvement. "The discipline required to be able to play high-quality concerts remains in the children's memories."

Lars Vogt, who put the finishing touches to the "Insel-Sinfonieorchester", consisting of the professionals and the children, in two rehearsals, was delighted with the work and the result. It was indeed touching to see the joy and enthusiasm with which the colorful mixed orchestra played Beethoven's Knight ballet-music under his lively direction.

But that was not the end of it, as Vogt then played Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto together with the Basel Symphony Orchestra, gripping and dramatic, but also lyrical and subtle. A successful finale, which the island children - now in the audience, where many of their relatives were also sitting - listened to with astonishing calm and excitement. The evening lasted almost two hours without a break. A high level of concentration and the successful combination of an education project with the dress rehearsal of the orchestra, which will then go on tour with this program - without children, but with actor Peter Simonischek as narrator.

Photo: Benno Hunziker / Basel Symphony Orchestra

Orchesterschule Insel under the direction of Dorothee Mariani

Supported by Renaud Capuçon, the artistic director of the festival, the jury unanimously awarded this year's Prix Thierry Scherz to Jean-Paul Gasparian. The young pianist will record a CD with the Orchestre de chambre de Lausanne and the Claves Records label, which will also be responsible for promotion, in the second half of 2020.

The Prix André Hoffmann aims to raise the profile of contemporary classical music. Each year, a contemporary composer writes a piece for the Sommets Musicaux, which is performed during the festival. The André Hoffmann Foundation finances the composition of the work, which is premiered in Gstaad, as well as the composer's stay.

Camille Pépin, this year's composer in residence in Gstaad, composed the piece "Number 1" for this edition of the festival. Aaron Pilsen won the prize of 5,000 Swiss francs for the best interpretation of this contemporary piece.

It is an interesting project initiated by the director of the Lucerne Theater, Benedikt von Peter: A genuinely Lucerne opera in which the Bürgermusik Lucerne brass band, made up of professionals and amateurs, sits in the orchestra pit, conducted by its director Michael Bach. The stage design was created by Lucerne origami artist Sipho Mabona and the majority of the stage crew are members of the ensemble.

The music was provided by Manuel Renggli from Lucerne, who is not only trying his hand at composing music theater for the first time, but is also presenting a "brass opera" as a world premiere. His score requires 25 brass players, four percussionists and a synthesizer player. A daring, "loud" formation in the small Lucerne theater, which is why the performers were equipped with microphones. So more musical than opera?

The text was written by Michael Fehr from Bern, winner of the 2018 Swiss Literature Prize, who describes himself as a storyteller. Jungle is an eloquent example of this: storytelling takes center stage, a modern fairy tale, a parable between the end of the big city and the destruction of the jungle, which he tells in poetic images:

Brahma, a girl living on the street, neglected by her alcoholic mother Raja, grabs a handful of pills from the son of the "Red Baron" and sinks into a world in which reality and hallucination become blurred. She encounters rats, monkeys, a snake, ants and a panther. It is a plot with powerfully colorful images, told in a unique linguistic style that includes rhythm and deliberate redundancies. But it is not a libretto that carries the evening through: no drama, no confrontation or dialog between opponents, no development of the character(s). At the end, Brahma is once again the ragged girl in the big city. The focus is therefore mainly on the inner images and feelings of the sad main character. With Ina Langensand, she is also played by an actress with a haunting performance. And the story is told by the actor Walter Sigi Arnold, who also performs brilliantly as Panther.

The scene in Lucerne is dominated by Sipho Mabona's abstract origami objects, intoxicating images full of color (lighting: Clemens Gorzella) and bizarre shapes, on which video projections (Rebecca Stofer) suggest the locations of the action. And the music? It should actually develop its own dimension, filling the dream visions with color, drama or elegiac "melodies".

But there is little evidence of this: harmonic processing, exploration of the sonic richness of the brass instruments or rhythmic diversification - nowhere to be found. The music, carried by endlessly repetitive, similar patterns, ripples along. However, this musical monotony is also largely due to the non-libretto, which offers no dramaturgical bite whatsoever.

Changes such as the jazzy syncopations during the monkey dance or the triumphant climax at the end remain the exception. In addition, mutes are often used to avoid drowning out the singers despite the microphone. Jungle is reminiscent of a movie, with images whizzing by accompanied by music. The Bürgermusik, consisting mainly of amateurs, plays well under the accomplished baton of Michael Bach, but is unable to really unfold.

Director Tom Ryser, together with the excellent ensemble, manages the feat of keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. The alternation between seriousness and slapstick is skillful, and the singing and acting cast give their best. Birgit Künzler's set design is ingenious, brilliantly managing the balancing act between a fabulous world portrayed by people.

There is Hubert Wild as a "Feathered Man" modeled on Papageno, who switches between countertenor voice and baritone with virtuosity. The expressive Rebecca Krynski Cox as the drunken Raja also makes her mark. And Diana Schnürpel as the snake Atlanta, with her melismatic, sinuous coloratura, reminds us just how great her Queen of the Night is.

In the program booklet, Manuel Renggli describes the strong linguistic rhythm of Fehr's narrative art as the "crux" of his compositional work. In fact, the solo parts still lack independence. Renggli succeeds in creating exciting moments with pulsating music in the chorus scenes of the monkeys, rats and ants. An evening that is fun to watch. But to listen to?