Festival of Music
CHF
105 / 90 / 75 / 60 / 45
About The Programme
In 1888, the German philosopher and scholar Friedrich Nietzsche wrote one of the most scathing yet entertaining polemical pamphlets in the history of music. It was about his former friend, the composer Richard Wagner, whom he had once held in high esteem. Entitled The Case of Wagner. A Musician’s Problem, it was just under 60 pages in length. Nietzsche began its preface with a charming understatement: “I am writing this to give myself a little relief”. He then proceeds to take the composer and his music apart using every rhetorical trick in the book. The sound of Wagner’s orchestra, thus Nietzsche, is “artificial” and “brutal”, his art itself a conjuring trick, the composer a “clever rattlesnake”. “He is a master of hypnotism, upending even the strongest like bulls”. As his positive counterexample, Nietzsche chooses none other than Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen. Once an ardent Wagnerian, Nietzsche claims that listening to Carmen has turned him into both a “better philosopher” and even a “better human being”. Its music, he says, is light, charming, rich and cheerful. It “doesn’t sweat”. Bizet’s atmosphere – figuratively speaking – is dry, pure and clear, thus Nietzsche. His music symbolises a return to “Nature, health, cheerfulness, youth and virtue”.
But what does any of this have to do with this concert by the Swiss Orchestra? Well, first of all, there’s Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy for violin and string orchestra, which brings the loveliest melodies from Bizet’s opera into the concert hall. And that’s not the only thing that would have delighted Nietzsche. Much of the rest of our programme would also match his criteria for “good music” (criteria that were admittedly rather different in his earlier writings), for these works are cheerful, youthful and very much in touch with Nature. First we have two Nature-inspired pieces for the unusual combination of string orchestra and alphorn (played here by Lisa Stoll): Hans-Jürg Sommer’s Alp-Sommer and Leopold Mozart’s Sinfonia Pastorella. Edvard Grieg’s Two Nordic Melodies for string orchestra, as their title suggests, are derived from Norwegian folk music, though with a deeply atmospheric sense of harmony. Alexey Shor’s Violin Concerto (with Yuki Hirano as soloist) combines virtuosic passages with youthful cheerfulness. Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings offers a very different mood – it’s even been voted the saddest piece of classical music by listeners of the BBC. But a little metaphorical counterpoint of sadness in an otherwise cheerful programme surely wouldn’t offend Nietzsche’s ears!
Lineup
LISA STOLL, alphorn
YUKI HIRANO, violin
SWISS ORCHESTRA
LENA-LISA WÜSTENDÖRFER, conductor
programme
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 (“Alpine summer”) 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
The “Festival of Music” will bring all-day performances to Andermatt Reussen in a myriad of musical styles.
concert hall
Andermatt
How to get there
Details on how to get there can be found on the ANDERMATT MUSIC website.
barrier-free access
The Andermatt concert hall is barrier-free. Wheelchair tickets are available via email at info@andermattmusic.ch or at Andermatt Alpine Apartments at +41 41 888 78 00.
Seating on the balcony is recommended for people with reduced mobility. Chamber music concerts and New Folk Music concerts usually do not have grandstand seating: Here, all seats are accessible without steps.
The Andermatt concert hall has an inductive listening system.
Garderobe
evening ticket office
The box office opens 1 hour before the start of the concert.
Doors open / late entry
Admission to the concert hall is 30 minutes before the start of the concert. Late admission is only possible during applause between plays and on the guidance of the hall staff.
Discount
Discounts are available for children, students and members of the Gotthard MemberClub. Details about the benefits can be found here.
Lisa Stoll discovered the alphorn and her passion for wind music when she was 10 years old. Originally rooted in folk music, Lisa continues to cultivate this style in her concerts to this day. At the same time, she performs in a wide variety of ensembles – such as with organ, vocals, wind orchestra, strings, symphony orchestra, big band and more. In doing so, she impressively demonstrates just how versatile the alphorn can be: from classical and modern to pop-inspired sounds. Lisa is regarded both nationally and internationally as the “Swiss lady” of the alphorn and as a musical ambassador for Switzerland. Her performances have taken her to numerous countries and cities, including Dubai, Kuwait, London, China, Moscow, Japan, Sri Lanka and Florida, as well as to renowned concert halls such as the KKL Lucerne, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Zurich, the LAC Lugano and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.
Yuki Hirano was born in 2004 and grew up in Sapporo, the capital of Japan’s northern island. She began playing the violin at the age of five. In 2025, she won First Prize at the 7th Jascha Heifetz International Violin Competition in Lithuania. She also won First Prize at the Vienna Classic Violin Competition, which led to her performance in the Grand Final in Dubai, where she earned multiple distinctions and performed with several orchestras. Yuki has appeared as a soloist with orchestras such as the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, Gunma Symphony Orchestra, Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, Madrid Philharmonic Orchestra, Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra and Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra. She plays a 1764 Nicolò Gagliano violin, generously loaned to her through the cultural project “Tora ni Tsubasa”.
For everyone who wants to hear Swiss symphonic music, and to live it too
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