Everyone knows it, the highly dramatic O Fortuna - has been used in countless commercials and has thus become largely detached from its original context. The piece actually forms the framework of Carl Orff's Carmina Buranaa scenic cantata about the capriciousness and ambivalence of human existence. Orff set 24 of the 254 poems in the medieval manuscript to music for it Codex Buranuswere built in the 11th and 12th centuries.

This now world-famous work was performed in its entirety on Saturday, November 11 at the Stadtcasino Basel. Organist Babette Mondry and choirmaster Tobias Stückelberger, who founded the vokal:orgel association in 2022 and regularly present new formats for choir and organ, were mainly responsible for this.

What was new in the performance of Carmina Burana the beginning: It did not start with O Fortunabut with a kind of prologue - Hanna Marti, a specialist in medieval music, sang the song, also from the Codex Buranus originating Vacillantis trutine and accompanied himself on the harp. After a transition, Orff's work followed in its original structure. The instrumentation was new: Mondry imitated most of the instruments on the versatile Stadtcasino organ, accompanied by the percussion ensemble of the FHNW Academy of Music under the direction of Matthias Würsch. It was the first time that an organ version of the Carmina Burana It was adapted by Mondry herself, who obtained the publishing rights to the work especially for this project.

Scenic elements

The choir consisted of over 200 colorfully dressed young singers, made up of the Basel Young Chamber Choir and choirs from the Bäumlihof, Kirschgarten, Muttenz and Oberwil high schools. The solo voices were soprano Jardena Flückiger, baritone Yannick Debus and countertenor Julian Schmidlin. The numerous scenic elements performed by the choir and solo voices, which the work actually provides for but which are rarely performed today, were also special.

Carmina Burana is about the ups and downs of life, the changing moods and whims of (human) nature, symbolized by the ever-turning wheel of Fortuna - in scenes in the field, in the tavern or in the courtyard of love. The performance in the Stadtcasino under the direction of Tobias Stückelberger was convincing across the board, firstly because it managed to skillfully switch back and forth between a village-naïve and apocalyptic sound. Secondly, the staging by Swiss director Mélanie Huber and the music were full of life - as it should be in a work about the ambivalences of human existence. The sold-out Stadtcasino honored the performance with a standing ovation.

Prevention in music lessons has long been a taboo subject, said Pia Bucher, founding member of the Swiss Society for Music Medicine, today Swissmedmusica SMMin her greeting to the Swiss Performers' Foundation SIS. Nobody wanted to admit that things were not always good in the music profession. However, the pandemic in particular has changed this. Social security also contributes a lot to mental and physical health. She therefore advised those present to use the pension portal for cultural professionals to-be-or-not-to-be.ch and find out about the possibilities.

Self-determined music-making

A common thread running through the first three presentations was the demand for individuality: Anke Grell reminded the audience that music lessons for children and young people are often the only 1:1 time with an adult outside of the family. The responsibility this places on a music teacher is self-evident. Through playful and individually adapted lessons, the motivation to make music and practice can be maintained. Learners are encouraged to find out how much effort it takes to achieve their goals, and they should be allowed to take responsibility for their own practicing according to their level. This creates an intrinsic motivation that is more sustainable than one imposed by the family environment or over-ambitious teachers.

Oliver Margulies startled the audience with the statement that three quarters of all professional musicians have work-related health problems. Cramps, poor posture and one-sided strain often mean that even young musicians suffer from pain. It is therefore important that music students at universities receive individual music physiology support. Those who feel good when making music remain motivated, and those who will work as music teachers in the future can have a positive effect on their students with the necessary knowledge of music physiology.

Carine Tripet Lièvre made a fiery plea for music learners to receive individual support in the event of failure. She described motivation as an engine that is fueled by commitment and effort rather than fuel. Learners recognize which efforts lead to success. If this reward fails to materialize, the teacher must get the faltering engine running again by setting a task that can be solved immediately, e.g. within the next lesson.

According to Antonia Pfeiffer, learned performance anxiety can be countered with positive affirmations, and it can be "tapped away": PEP is the name of the method in which you tap on acupuncture points while mentally placing yourself in an anxiety-inducing or stress-inducing situation.

Emotional engagement brings interaction

As after every presentation, moderator Isabelle Freymond tried to motivate the audience to ask questions at this point. "Could it be because of the lack of practical relevance that there are no questions?" someone asked. - The topics covered all had a practical relevance and a lot of knowledge was imparted in the presentations. However, it was a little tiring that the speakers primarily read out their PowerPoint presentations. Some interactive elements would probably have provided additional motivation.

It was therefore the ideal time for Christian Studler's presentation: he talked about his practical experience as a musician and as a professor of flute. "Fears feel at home in the musician's soul," he said and found it frightening that entire classes at the HKB swallowed beta blockers before every performance. His remedy for instilling performance anxiety is a feedback culture in which students feel accepted for who they are. The focus should not be on forcing performance and fighting against mistakes. Rather, criticism should point out what is already there and what is good and how to build on it.

He was believed to have trained people during his teaching career, not music machines. Interestingly, his presentation triggered a flood of questions. It was a showpiece of how genuine commitment and emotionality can motivate!

The 19th SMM Symposium, which was bilingual and simultaneously translated, was perfectly organized by President Wolfgang Böhler and his team. During the breaks and the aperitif that followed, there was time for lively discussions with colleagues from the fields of music, music education, medicine, psychology and therapy, and at the table-top exhibition, participants were able to find out about new teaching methods, supporting instrument accessories and prevention methods. Prevention has also been at the heart of the organization since it changed its name to Swissmedmusica.

All this motivates us to attend next year's anniversary symposium!

According to the current call for applications, Joeʼs Youth Jazz Orchestra.ch focuses on the exploration of original big band material. The musicians, aged between 16 and 22, explore jazz literature and composition. Playing together in a big band is encouraged, as is solo improvisation.

In addition to Joe Haider, pianist, composer, bandleader and long-standing director of the Swiss Jazz School in Bern, Claus Reichstaller, director of the Jazz Institute at the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts, and trumpeter Bernhard Schoch, Uster, are also involved in the project management. During the work phase from August 2 to 10 in Uster, they will be supported by a large team of lecturers.

Further concerts in Switzerland and nearby countries are planned. Young people living in Switzerland can register for the auditions in March until January 31, 2024.

joesyouthjazzorchestra.ch

The good thing about anniversaries is that something gets moving again. Villa Senar, a stately Bauhaus-style building in the middle of a large park in Hertenstein, was privately owned until recently. Since April 2022, the property has belonged to the canton of Lucerne. Following extensive renovation work, it is temporarily open to the public to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). The Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation looks after the house and organizes events in Switzerland and abroad.

In this context, the estate was also handed over to the Lucerne State Archives, making Lucerne a focal point for Rachmaninov researchers. Organizing and digitizing it is a time-consuming task, which the State Archives are taking care of in exemplary fashion. An exhibition currently on show at the Hans Erni Museum provides an insight into this impressive legacy.

Suitcases, gardening clothes and photos

The Hans-Erni-Museum is located on the grounds of the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne. The special exhibition on Sergei Rachmaninov is located on the top floor of the imposing circular building. From a distance, you can see a large display case containing one of the virtuoso's suitcases and his original clothes, which he liked to wear when gardening. Rachmaninov lived in Hertenstein from 1932 to 1939; Villa Senar was his retreat from his strenuous concert tours, where he could also compose in peace. The exhibition focuses on this period.

Heinz Stahlhut, the director of the Hans-Erni-Museum, curated it. He has dedicated an extensive chapter to Lucerne and Hertenstein in the 1930s. Loans from the Swiss Museum of Transport, the Weggis Regional Museum and private collections show how attractive Hertenstein was for international tourism at the time. Another chapter focuses on the architecture, planning and construction of Villa Senar by Alfred Möri and Karl Friedrich Krebs. Floor plans, documents and photos provide an insight into the work of these progressive Lucerne architects, who also built St. Luke's Church in 1933/35.

Rachmaninov toured primarily as a virtuoso, even during his time in Hertenstein. Concert programs and posters from all over the world can be seen in the exhibition, especially from Carnegie Hall New York and Paris. Rachmaninov's only appearance at the Lucerne International Music Festival is also included. On August 11, 1939, he played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major under the direction of Ernest Ansermet, and his own Rhapsodie sur un thème de Paganini for piano and orchestra op. 43.

In this exhibition, it is above all the beautifully presented historical photos of Rachmaninov that attract attention. You can see him either at work on the piano or in private. Also eye-catching are the numerous editions, including Russian ones, of Rachmaninov's most popular piano piece, the Prelude C sharp minor op. 3 No. 2 from the documentation library of Walter Labhart. Old shellac records bear witness to a different era of recording technology.

Variations, essays and events

When Rachmaninov came to Lucerne, he was in a creative crisis. Only after a long break full of artistic self-doubt did he regain his creativity. In Hertenstein, he wrote the Variations sur un thème de Corelli op. 42, the Paganini Rhapsody and his Third Symphony op. 44. In addition to interesting editions of these works, the conducting score of the Paganini Rhapsody by the renowned conductor Willem Mengelberg is also on display, complete with his entries. All three works can also be heard in the Erni Museum.

A catalog accompanying the exhibition takes an essayistic look at Rachmaninov's time in Lucerne. In it, Karl Bühlmann Insights into Lucerne's artistic life in the thirties, Elger Nies carries Indian summer on Lake Lucerne and Graziella Contratto makes a An attempt at great happiness, Rachmaninov's music and the lake. It is richly illustrated and includes a biography, a bibliography and a list of works.

 

Museum of Transport Lucerne, Hans-Erni-Museumuntil January 14, 2024.
The catalog is also available digitally: heinz.stahlhut@verkehrshaus.ch
23. 11. 2023, 6 pm: Exhibition talk on Villa Senar
14. 1. 2023, 2 pm: Finissage concert with the Corelli Variations (Tommaso Carlini)

Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation: https://rachmaninoff.ch

How the Male voices Basel the choir under the direction of David Rossel was founded on international competition of the City of Derry International Choir Festival was awarded the special "Outstanding Performance of a First-Time Participant" prize. It placed directly behind choirs from Latvia (94.8), England (94.3) and Norway (93.1). In addition to the commissioned composition Diluvium by Swiss composer Ivo Antognini, the 25 or so Basel musicians performed other challenging compositions, such as Francis Poulenc's Chanson à boire.

Only a few award-winning choirs are admitted to this competition from numerous applications. The festival has existed since 2013.

 

The Knabenkantorei Basel, whose members are between 14 and 25 years old, came out on top in the "Musica Sacra with accompaniment" category under the direction of Oliver Rudin. It came first in both the Champions Competition and the Grand Prix of Nations and was awarded gold medals.

She received another gold medal in the "Youth Choirs" category of the Champions Competition. At this competition, they were beaten by the male voices of the Boys Choir Lucerne by one point. The choir, conducted by Andreas Wiedmer, also won a gold medal in the "Youth Choirs" category at the Grand Prix of Nations. The two choirs brought home five out of a total of 25 gold medals awarded.

 

The 10th edition of the Concours Nicati, the concours suisse de musique contemporaine organized by the Fondation Nicati de Luze, took place in Lucerne from 21 to 27 August. It was organized by the HSLU-Music, partner of the event. Three categories were presented: Solo and Ensemble, in which the candidates and candidates performed compositions written in Switzerland and abroad after 1945, and the Open Space category, which featured creations that did not take the form of a conventional concert. The competition brought together many different facets of contemporary music: instrumental and vocal pieces, musical theater, electronic music, multimedia works and multidisciplinary performances.

6 ensembles, 14 soloists and 9 open space projects from all over Switzerland were selected. Over 7 days, the public freely attended 26 concerts and 11 spectacles, including the finales followed by aperitifs offered to all.

The prizes of the finalists amount to CHF 48,000, including, for the first prizes, the opportunity to compete in the IGNM Bern, SMC Lausanne and FNML Lucerne seasons.

Palmarès 2023

Prix Interprétation Ensemble

1s Duet 2.26. Clara Giner Franco (flûte), Hèctor Rodríguez Palacios (flûte)

 

2ème : Duo Signal. Adrián Albaladejo Díaz (trombone), Alejandro Oliván Lopez (saxophones)

3ème Moser String Quartet. Ariadna Bataller Calatayud (alto), Lea Galasso (violoncelle), Kanon Miyashita (violon), Patricia Muro Francia (violon)

 

Prix Interprétation Solo

1s : Francesco Palmieri (guitares)

2ème Alexandre Ferreira Silva (percussions)

3ème : Nora Bertogg (voix)

 

Prix Open space

1er : Can Etterlin (composition et performance)

2ème : Ludmilla Mercier et Andrea Zamengo (composition et performance)

 

The next edition is scheduled for 2025.

 

Site web : nicati.ch

Instagram : concoursnicati2023

Table of contents

Focus

Art lessons must be at the heart of all education
Interview with Philippe Régana

Evening entertainment on the way to Mont Blanc
Tourism influenced Geneva's musical life

The sound of squats
Geneva's music scene is flourishing like never before
Link to the Geneva playlist

Composing in the city of Calvin
Some of Geneva's sound artists over the centuries

 (italics = summary in German of the original French article)

 

Critiques

Reviews of recordings, books, sheet music

 

Echo

Gentle socio-cultural Adventure
Ticino music village Sobrio

Una per tutti, tutti per una
La Festa federale della musica popolare di Bellinzona

Fear for and of music lessons
Podium in Zurich

In the paradise of cultural policy
Swiss Music Awards 2023

A Kampus festival in Lucerne
Music institutions at the Südpol

Concours Hélène de Montgeroult à Romont
Pour jeunes pianistes

Music retail in the niche market
A look around

"Making people listen" was his major concern
Urs Frauchiger

Radio Francesco
Far west | Wild west

Early music for today's audience
Forum Early Music Zurich

Yodeling, Joik and Krimanchuli
Film "Beyond Tradition"

Lutherie sauvage et musique pour tous
Joue à ton rythme

Clavardon's ...
au sujet de l'ethnomusicologie à Genève

Carte blanche fFor Thomas Meyer
A little boozy idea ...

Base

Articles and news from the music associations

Swiss Federal Orchestra Association (EOV) / Société Fédérale des Orchestres (SFO)

Konferenz Musikhochschulen Schweiz (KMHS) / Conférence des Hautes Ecoles de Musique Suisse (CHEMS)

Kalaidos University of Music / Kalaidos Haute École de Musique

Swiss Music Council (SMR) / Conseil Suisse de la Musique (CSM)

CHorama

Swiss Society for Music Medicine (SMM) / Association suisse de Médecine de la Musique (SMM)

Swiss Musicological Society (SMG) / Société Suisse de Musicologie (SSM)

Swiss Musicians' Association (SMV) / Union Suisse des Artistes Musiciens (USDAM)

Schweizerischer Musikpädagogischer Verband (SMPV) / Société Suisse de Pédagogie Musicale (SSPM)

SONART - Musicians Switzerland

Swiss Youth Music Competition Foundation (SJMW)

Arosa Culture

SUISA - Cooperative Society of Authors and Publishers of Music

Swiss Association of Music Schools (VMS) / Association Suisse des Écoles de Musique (ASEM)

 

A gaucho in Geneva
Puzzle by Dirk Wieschollek

________________________________________

Order issue for CHF 8.- (+ CHF 2.- shipping costs)

Abruptly in the middle of the piece, the quieter stream of sound breaks off abruptly, the musicians pause, a loose thread still seems to float lost in the air. And the Italian composer Clara Iannotta also speaks of being lost in her commentary. An illness forced her to change in 2020. Instead of being able to concentrate on her work, "I felt lost [...], I don't yet know who I am and what my music will be". Her piece where the dark earth bendscomposed for the incredibly subtle trombone duo Rage Thormbones and the SWR Symphony Orchestra, was nevertheless a first highlight. The way in which the solos, the orchestra and the electronics merge into a single unit was simply masterful. The ear was drawn in.

Diffuse and pale

This was not always the case at this year's Donaueschingen Music Days. Indeed, a sense of forlornness hovered over many a piece this year, but the music rarely managed to gain a presence. Some of it remained too diffuse and powerless. Even the poetic and convincing composition Haze - as if everything is coming backwhich Elnaz Sayedi created together with the poet Anja Kampmann, seemed at times like a dystopian idyll.

Perhaps it is due to the circumstances of the times, no: these brutally warlike months, that a certain hopelessness is spreading, disillusionment that may not gain traction. The saxophonist Matana Roberts, for example, in their Elegy for Tyre: "Welcome to the World through my eyes ..."which commemorates an African-American killed by police officers in Memphis, the SWR Symphony Orchestra improvised on a text score, which unfortunately developed too little expressiveness. The orchestral sounds were less depressing than the whispering at the end. The attempt by the US-American Jessie Marino to create a murder ballads to banish violence against women through gentle songs faded completely. The piece by the otherwise brilliant percussionist Tyshawn Sorey, For Ross Gay (the biographer of basketball legend Julius Erving), rose to a glistening crescendo at the end after an even conduction.

Nuanced and impulsive

In her first largely self-directed year, festival director Lydia Rilling has set herself the theme of "collaboration" (in addition to a high degree of diversity). Although this is certainly present in the "classical" tradition, it is limited to certain areas such as text setting or interpretation. The fact that an orchestra improvises or at least creates large parts of a score that may no longer exist or is graphic is the great exception. French composer Éliane Radigue, however, demands precisely this from her musicians. In her orchestral piece Occam Océan Cinquanta the SWR Symphony Orchestra played according to the instructions of co-composer Carol Robinson from the moment, whereby the playing style and also the form had been worked out in broad outline beforehand. The result was an extraordinarily nuanced performance, a vast soundscape.

However, when it came to the flexible juxtaposition of free playing, improvisation, concept and score interpretation, their jazz colleagues were far better placed. For the great New York quartet Yarn/Wire (with two pianos and two percussions), saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and trumpeter Peter Evans created two diverse and stimulating pieces that once again brought a lot of life and drive to this festival. A conclusion full of contradictions after this weekend.

Touching and ecstatic

As is so often the case, however, it was turned on its head in the final concert. Younghi Pagh-Paan commemorated in her touching orchestral piece Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for? of her late husband Klaus Huber. The Italian Francesca Verunelli played in Tune and Retune II with various detunings - and received the SWR Orchestra Prize for it. Finally, Steven Kazuo Takasugi's piano concerto once again tore down all walls of sound: splintering layers, probably generated in the electronics with the help of algorithms, continued in the orchestra, poured down on the audience, very loud in passages: a real joy! Nothing more of lostness ...

Born in Zurich in 1930, Fritz Muggler studied piano, school music, organ and later musicology at the University of Zurich with Paul Hindemith and Kurt von Fischer, as well as art history, journalism, music theory and composition. He was organist in Schlieren for 35 years and wrote for various newspapers, including the NZZ. He studied recorder with Hans Martin Linde at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He founded the NewConsortZurich, an ensemble for early music in combination with contemporary music. He attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music for many years. He also chaired the Swiss section of the International Society for New Music (IGNM).

In January 2008, the SMZ a music protocol with Fritz Muggler by Johannes Anders. It contains somewhat more detailed information about his biography (Download PDF).

Fritz Muggler has reported on the Donaueschingen Music Days in the SMZ for many years. Some PDFs for download:

2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012

 

Chronicler of post-war modernism

Obituary for Fritz Muggler by Max Nyffeler
(published slightly abridged in the Swiss Music Newspaper 12/203 of November 29, 2023, p. 31 f.)

Comprehensively educated music critics who are equally well versed in early and contemporary music and are also active as practical musicians are rather rare today. Fritz Muggler, who died in Zurich on September 25 at the ripe old age of 93, was one of them. The public hardly noticed. He had long since retired from the critics' business and only appeared at concerts that interested him personally. And as far as contemporary music was concerned, these were fewer and fewer; he let the latest developments pass him by.

Contemporary of the post-war avant-garde

Born in 1930, Fritz Muggler belonged to the same age cohort as the protagonists of the post-war avant-garde: Ligeti, Stockhausen, Nono, Boulez, Kagel, Schnebel ... He trained his criteria on their works. He had acquired in-depth musical knowledge during his piano and organ studies at the Zurich Conservatory and in musicology with Paul Hindemith, who taught at the University of Zurich from 1951. However, as a young, curious musician, he also attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses at an early age. This made him one of the few connoisseurs of the emerging serialism of the time. I gained an impression of his expertise at the beginning of the 1960s when, as a budding musicologist, I took part in a seminar on music in the 20th century with Kurt von Fischer in Zurich - an absolute novelty at a university at the time. At this seminar, von Fischer invited Muggler to give a guest lecture on Stockhausen - he himself was not so well versed in this new subject. Muggler's appearance was a benefit for everyone.

His professional career spanned more than half a century. After journalistic beginnings with the daily newspapers National law and The deed he was appointed in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung for decades to become an important voice for all things contemporary, and he also wrote a great deal for the Swiss Music Newspaperor later for the Swiss Music Newspaper. He was always there when there was something new to hear, whether at home or abroad. At one meter ninety, he was an unmissable figure, and as a conversationalist he was exceptionally friendly - an attentive listener who was tolerant of other opinions and discreetly withdrew his own ego. As a wide-awake music critic, he noted down his impressions and reflections at the moment of listening - in shorthand, so that he could keep up with the music in writing. His notebooks are a huge store of knowledge acquired through listening and must have filled shelves.

Facts instead of opinions

Excited disputes about right and wrong, once a specialty of avant-garde circles, were just as little his cup of tea as criticism or its opposite, today's widespread pandering and frenemy journalism. Nor did he engage in socio-political debates, a perennial topic in feature pages and specialist circles after 1968, and their by-product, book-filling theorizing. He preferred to stick to the recognizable facts and sound results and strove to communicate them to his readers in simple and clear language. His role was that of the rationally arguing observer, open to anything new, who put his impressions and reflections down on paper in a matter-of-fact, modest tone - more of a soberly judging recorder of events than an advocate of artistic utopias. With this attitude and his profound knowledge, Muggler became an important chronicler of post-war modernism.

Sharp statements

For all his liberalism, he did not shy away from sharp statements. His reports from the Donaueschingen Music Days, which he organized until 2012 in the Swiss Music Newspaper are a treasure trove of pointed criticism. A few tidbits (from the PDFs listed above for download):

• The composition Apon by Beat Furrer also ran itself to death in the small sound groups, which then always gave the speaker space for a text that you still couldn't understand. Furrer tried to recreate the sound of speaking orchestrally, which he obviously did not succeed in doing.
• About Bernhard Lang, Monadology IXThe constant small-scale repetitions, which seem chatty and don't bring anything new, get on your nerves in a good 65 minutes.
• A fundamental problem for many composers in post-modern orchestral music, however, is filling the body of sound, which used to be done with chordal material. Both the Italian Aureliano Cattaneo (...) and the Paris-born Franck Bedrossian in Itself accomplish this with simple groups of notes that are endearingly banal, with the latter's blah-blah interspersed with awkward bursts of power. This is music that obviously doesn't expect you to listen to the details, that only cares about the superficial.

Condemnation and praise in the same breath

But in the same breath, the master of the succinct critique also knew how to praise:

• About Isabel Mundry, Me and youThe piano, even if soloistic and extremely virtuosic, is totally integrated into very precisely eavesdropped, beautifully balanced, highly complex sound combinations with a whirring, interwoven piano sound. In contrast, Enno Poppe in Old building with tonal gimmicks and imbalances.
• What Jennifer Walshe, Clara Maïda and Iris ter Schiphorst demanded was completely unimaginative, eternally repetitive, yet highly demanding singing, pimped up for fun with gestural, mimic and percussive actions, and only the Berliner Sarah Nemtsov with her Hoqueti was to be taken seriously in her typesetting skills and sensibly used additional effects.
• About Globokar, Radiographie d'un romanFor over three quarters of an hour, it was incredibly dense and, despite the variety of sounds and actions, including theatrical elements, formally completely convincing. The enthusiasm of the audience, especially the young ones, was huge.

Organist, IGNM President and radio critic

In addition to his profession as a music critic, Fritz Muggler was also very active. He studied recorder with Hanns-Martin Linde at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and then founded the New Consort Zurich, as well as playing the organ in a church in Schlieren. His commitment to contemporary music found its organizational expression in his many years as president of the Swiss section of the International Society for New Music (IGNM) and as director of the IGNM World Music Festival, which took place in Zurich in 1991.

Muggler also focused intensively on the topic of music in the media. In the NZZ he published detailed radio reviews for many years, a type of text that would be important in the media age, but unfortunately no longer finds a place in the print media today. And what goes far beyond the scope of music criticism: as a passionate radio listener, he recorded countless music programs from Swiss, German and Austrian stations between 1954 and 1991, creating a unique archive of sounding documents.

Securing the legacy

The material has been conserved and inventoried since 2016 as part of a research project by the Zurich University of the Arts with the support of Memoriav, the association for the preservation of Switzerland's audiovisual cultural heritage; it will be available to interested parties on request in future. Originally, it comprised a total of 946 analog tapes with over 18,000 pieces of music from the Middle Ages to the present day, jazz and ethnomusicology. According to project manager Lukas Näf, a few hundred more tapes will now be added following a thorough review of the estate.

In addition, Muggler's extensive written legacy will also be evaluated and inventoried. Näf hopes that the huge amount of information that the tireless journalist has absorbed over the decades, both at home and abroad, and incorporated into his texts will provide a wealth of insights into recent Swiss music history. An initial project entitled "Heard abroad" will use Muggler's writings to document the presence of Swiss composers and performers at international new music festivals. A long-term side effect of such activities: As the collection and preservation of cultural data used to be criminally neglected by the responsible institutions in Switzerland, the evaluation of private sources now offers the opportunity to at least somewhat compensate for the omissions and thus strengthen historical awareness.

Fritz Muggler's archive will be a treasure trove for anyone who wants to delve into the recent history of music and its interpretation, as well as the changing musical tastes of the time. The sprightly author and collector, who is well over 80 years old, personally supervised the initial archiving work at the ZHdK. The results of his lifelong work as a chronicler in sound and writing will keep his memory alive.

 

Fritz Muggler's tape collection at the ZHdK:

https://www.zhdk.ch/forschungsprojekt/tonbandsammlung-fritz-muggler-553597

Research project "Heard abroad":

https://www.zhdk.ch/forschungsprojekt/im-ausland-gehoert-schweizer-komponisten-und-interpreten-an-internationalen-festivals-neuer-musik-569891

Memoriav: https://memoriav.ch/de/projects/fritz-muggler/

The website for the List of Living Traditions of Switzerland states: Naturjodel and Jodellied are widely regarded as the forms of singing that represent Switzerland. The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage obliges the acceding countries to draw up such a list. Yodelling, the list continues, is "a vocal form of expression in which phonetic syllables are sung in frequent alternation between the chest and head registers". This change of register creates laryngeal beats, which are made more or less audible depending on the singing tradition. And sequences of tonally different, alternating low and high tones are formed. The singing technique can be found on all continents in a variety of forms characterized by vocal formations, languages and dialects. Yodeling is also used in Georgia as "Krimanchuli" or in Northern Europe. There, the Sami people yodel.

Geographical connections

In their documentary, directors Lea Hagmann and Rahel von Gunten and producer Thomas Rickenmann portray these Sami and Georgian singing traditions alongside the Appenzell Rugguusseli. The young Appenzell yodeller Meinrad Koch, who has "absorbed the typical regional style of natural yodeling with his mother's milk", as he says, provides the narrative link. For the film, he travels to Georgia to meet Tbilisi music student Ninuca Kakhiani and to Norway to meet Marja Mortensson, who is as good with reindeer as she is with her voice. Together with drummer Jakop Janssønn and tuba player Daniel Herskedal, she fuses modern soundscapes, sampling and modal jazz with the traditional Joik of the Southern Sami in a fascinating way. Herskedal also composed the atmospherically harmonious title melody for the film.

Ideologically divisive

Beyond Tradition is primarily characterized by the stupendous, virtuously composed images of the Norwegian, Appenzell and Georgian landscapes. Many of them, shot with a drone, aestheticize and transfigure the scenarios: The migrations of the northern reindeer herds look like flocks of birds from a distance, the desolate Georgian prefabricated housing estates develop a poetry of their own. The visual language is so strong that it threatens to push the actual theme of the film into the background and also to conceal thematic gaps: on the one hand, there is the question of how the raw primitiveness of nature's voices can become an art form when these two phenomena are actually mutually exclusive. Secondly, the production company Extramilefilms explicitly mentions "the critical examination of tradition and the inclusion of innovation and youth culture" as the motif of the documentary. The fact that tradition and renewal are often perceived as a conflict and that this is carried out emotionally is hardly noticeable in the film: how traditionalists view the innovative approach to the old is left open.

In addition to these differences, there are others: both Marja Mortensson and Meinrad Koch have a rather special relationship with food that takes some getting used to. Koch is a food technologist studying the potential of insects as a future source of protein, while Marja Mortensson bakes pancakes from the blood of slaughtered reindeer. The latter in particular breaks through the feel-good atmosphere of the film and hardly seems organically embedded in the overall narrative context.

Bulky topics

Other, more irritating or unwieldy topics that could disturb the peace are only mentioned and not really elaborated on: For example, one becomes perceptive when the charismatic choirmaster Tamar Buadze in Georgia rather incidentally addresses the conflict between the legacy of art socialization in the Soviet Union and modern cultural understanding (which incidentally also applies to some extent to Sami culture). The repressive policy of the Scandinavians, who pushed yoiking into obscurity with state bans, is also merely touched upon.

We would also have liked to know more when Meinrad Koch admits that the witty, creative and original approach of the "Hitziger Appenzellerchor" - the film clips with the ensemble founded by Noldi Alder are highly refreshing - to Appenzell's cultural heritage did not only arouse enthusiasm among traditionalists. What remains of the film experience are touching, sometimes overwhelmingly beautiful images and the successful synthesis of landscape poetry and vocal textures that make you forget time and the present in the cinema.

140 horn players aged 7 to 80 were taught by 15 instructors - making the Solothurn Horn Days one of the largest horn festivals in Europe.

Internationally renowned personalities such as Frøydis Ree Wekre, Pascal Deuber, Jörg Brückner, Christian Lampert, Anneke Scott, Olivier Darbellay and other top-class solo hornists from Paris, Budapest, Lucerne and music teachers from Switzerland formed a friendly team.

The three concerts were major highlights: Straussʼ Alpine Symphony with organist Nadia Bacchetta in the Reformed City Church and the solo gala concert by the lecturers in the concert hall offered the highest level of horn artistry. Finally, all participants performed a varied program in the auditorium of the cantonal school - an impressive testimony to what can be achieved in just a few days of rehearsals.

The main aim of the horn days was to play together in small and larger ensembles in order to put into practice in groups what had been learned during the year in individual lessons. This goal was fully achieved in various performance groups. The ensemble lessons were supplemented with individual lessons, which could be attended as desired.

The Horn Days were rounded off with exhibitions by Music Spada AG, Zoltan Juhasz Naturhörner and Buffet Crampon.

Due to its success, it was decided to hold the next event from September 13 to 15, 2024.

The program includes the Brahms Violin Concerto and the Mozart Requiem. In between, Peter-Lukas Graf, the doyen of the flute guild, will perform Mozart's Andante in C major, KV 315. The concerts with ticket sales will take place from October 27 to 29 in Zurich, Lucerne and Bern. The dress rehearsal on October 26 in Basel's St. Martin's Church is open to the public. The soloist in the violin concerto will be Elea Nick on the first two evenings, while Alexandre Dubach will perform in Lucerne and Bern.

Further information:  https://www.philharmonicacademy.ch

Interview on SRF on Peter-Lukas Graf's 90th birthday

https://www.srf.ch/news/90-geburtstag-peter-lukas-graf-ein-leben-mit-der-floete

How the Musikkollegium Winterthur Dominik Deuber is leaving the ensemble at the end of July 2024. He has led the ensemble since August 2020 and "in his function as Director
and helped to develop it into a nationally and internationally respected institution". Today, the Musikkollegium Winterthur is excellently established throughout Switzerland and Europe. Under his leadership, the number of subscribers has tripled.

According to Philipp Stoffel, President of the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the orchestra is reluctant to let Deuber go, but sees the opportunity offered to him at Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The succession plan will be initiated.

With her death at the beginning of December 2022, we not only said goodbye to a great musician and pianist, but also to an extraordinary woman who had been a meaningful person for countless people on their own journey through life. Eva Serman's passion for music went hand in hand with a deep reverence for life, an awareness of the uniqueness of every person and a palpable gratitude for the gift and task of being able to dedicate her life to music and people.

Born in Keszthely/Hungary in 1937, she began her piano studies in Budapest and continued with Hubert Harry at the Lucerne Conservatory after emigrating to Switzerland in 1958. She taught piano and chamber music there for 40 years from 1963. She also trained pianists through the Swiss Music Pedagogical Association, was involved in the board, was responsible for the classification of piano literature for the level examinations and was a sought-after expert. She was also a regular member of the jury at competitions, including the Swiss Youth Music Competition.

Eva Serman cultivated a broad pianistic and chamber music repertoire and was always keen to explore and grasp a wide variety of musical genres in greater depth. She had a special love for historical keyboard instruments. On these as well as on the modern grand piano, she was a confident teacher and concert pianist, including at the Lucerne International Music Festival.

Eva Serman was a competent and committed teacher and pianist for her students. In addition, she had the gift of not only seeing pianistic abilities in the person opposite her, but also perceiving them with the various facets of their humanity. She was a valuable support for many in the university, an inspiring musician and a person to whom we will remain grateful beyond her death.