The Swiss Symphonic Treasury

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About The Programme

The beauty of Switzerland has inspired not only poets, but also numerous composers from Switzerland and abroad. We present four of them who met in Switzerland and whose biographies are closely interwoven.

Our concert evening opens with Felix Mendelssohn’s overture to “The Fairytale of the Beautiful Melusine”. This work, written in 1833 as a birthday present for his sister Fanny, deals with the legend of the mermaid Melusine and shows the composer at the height of his creative powers. Mendelssohn travelled to Switzerland three times during his life. His parents introduced him to German and French-speaking Switzerland at the age of 13, and in 1831 he undertook an extensive hike on his own initiative from Vevey through the canton of Berne and central Switzerland to St Gallen. His enthusiasm for Switzerland is evidenced by echoes of Swiss folk themes in two of his string symphonies.

In 1843 Mendelssohn was asked by the 22-year-old Joachim Raff, born in Lachen (Canton Schwyz), to appraise his compositions. Mendelssohn was so taken with them that he recommended them to the renowned publishing house Breitkopf & Härtel, who subsequently issued them. Raff’s most popular work today is probably his Cavatina for solo violin and orchestra. His symphonic poems “Two Scenes” and “The Dream King and his Love”, the only major works of this genre in Raff’s oeuvre, are veritable treasures. According to the Joachim Raff Archive, it can be assumed that they have never been performed in Switzerland.

Joachim Raff was in lively discussion with Richard Wagner, whose “Dreams” from the Wesendonck Lieder, composed in Zurich, offer an exciting comparison to Raff’s orchestral poem “Traumkönig und sein Lieb” (Dream King and His Love), both thematically and compositionally. A political refugee with a false passport, Wagner settled in Switzerland – initially in Zurich, then in Lucerne – for a total of more than 15 years. Like Mendelssohn, Wagner can also be considered a witness to the beginnings of alpine Swiss tourism. Together with his father-in-law Franz Liszt, Wagner explored the mountains, some of which were hardly accessible to tourists at the time, in a sometimes adventurous way. Wagner’s enthusiasm for Nature in Switzerland was reflected not least in the fact that he regarded the Swiss mountain landscape as a visual source of inspiration for an environment in which he musically located the Germanic world of gods.

The second part of the concert leads us to Basel and presents a key work by August Walter. The composer and conductor August Walter, born in Stuttgart in 1821 as the son of a confectioner, came to Basel at the age of 25 to take up an engagement as conductor, which from then on became the centre of his life. Highly regarded in Basel’s musical society, he was granted Basel citizenship in 1884 “in recognition of his achievements in the field of musical art in an honourable manner”. Although Walter’s Symphony in E flat major was performed continually in German-speaking countries during the second half of the 19th century and is considered one of his major works, it has now completely disappeared from concert halls – another discovery offered by the Swiss symphonic treasury.

Lineup

SWISS ORCHESTRA
LENA-LISA WÜSTENDÖRFER, conductor
MARIE-CLAUDE CHAPPUIS, mezzo-soprano

programme

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY (1809 – 1847)
Ouvertüre zu «Das Märchen von der schönen Melusine», op. 32‍

JOSEPH JOACHIM RAFF (1822 LACHEN – 1882)
Zwei Scenen, op. 199 sowie «Traumkönig und sein Lieb», op.66
für Singstimme und Orchester‍

JOSEPH JOACHIM RAFF (1822 LACHEN – 1882)
Cavatina aus «Six Morceaux», op. 85 Nr. 3,
arrangiert für Violine und Orchester von Edmund Singer (1874)‍

RICHARD WAGNER (1813 – 1883)
«Träume» aus den Wesendonck-Liedern, Fassung für Violine und Orchester, WWV 91B‍

AUGUST WALTER (1821 – 1896 BASEL)
Sinfonie in Es-Dur, op. 9

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Venue

Tonhalle

Zurich

How to get there

BY PUBLIC TRANSPORT
‍Tram lines 6, 7, 8, 13, 17 to Stockerstrasse
Tram lines 2, 5, 8, 9, 11 to Bürkliplatz
Bus lines 161, 165 to Bürkliplatz

BY CAR
Parkgarage Bleicherweg
Park Hyatt Zurich

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barrier-free access

The Tonhalle Zürich is barrier-free. The hall floor of the big and small Tonhalle can be reached via an elevator, which is located between the entrance hall and the vestibule on the left side.

PARKING SPACES
There are 8 parking spaces for people with wheelchairs on Gotthardstrasse, 6 of which are directly to the right of the entrance to Tonhalle Zürich (entrance T) and 2 of them are across the street.

WHEELCHAIR SPACES
In the Grosse Tonhalle, 8 wheelchair spaces are available on the parquet floor.
In the Kleine Tonhalle, there are 3 wheelchair spaces available on the parquet floor.
Accompanying persons receive a free ticket.
Please register with the ticket office no later than four days before the concert, by e-mail or by calling +41 44 206 34 34.

VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
Concert-goers with visual disabilities who arrive with an accompanying person will receive a free ticket for the accompanying person. On request, concert-goers with visual disabilities who arrive without an accompanying person will be accompanied from the entrance to their seat by a TGZ employee and picked up again after the concert. Please register with the ticket office no later than four days before the concert, by e-mail or by calling +41 44 206 34 34.

GUIDE OR ASSISTANCE DOGS
During the concert, guide dogs can be safely and comfortably stored in a dog crate in the cloakroom. To bring assistance dogs, please contact the ticket office team so that we can find a solution together. Please register with the ticket office no later than four days before the concert, by e-mail or by calling +41 44 206 34 34.

Garderobe

evening ticket office

Doors open / late entry

Discount

Students and trainees up to 30 years of age as well as KulturLegi owners receive a 50% discount.

Marie-Claude Chappuis, mezzo-soprano

Marie-Claude Chappuis, won 2 Grammy Nominations. She sings regularly under the baton of famous conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Daniel Harding, Emmanuelle Haïm, René Jacobs, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Jonathan Nott and Christophe Rousset to name but a few. The milestones of her career so far included Idomeneo (Idamante) staged and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Graz and Zurich, Paisiello’s Il Matrimonio Inaspettato (Contessa) under Riccardo Muti at Salzburg Festival, La Damnation de Faust (Marguerite) under Sir Roger Norrington in Leipzig and L’incoronazione di Poppea (Ottavia) at the Berlin State Opera and at the Brussels La Monnaie, to mention at least one of her numerous collaborations with René Jacobs. She is also a guest at the Maggio Fiorentino, the Theater an der Wien, the Opernhaus Zurich, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Teatro alla Scala, the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

She is coequally active on concert-stage having recently sung with the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Giardino Armonico, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Wiener Philharmoniker. Her manifold discography includes Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion with Riccardo Chailly (Decca), La Clemenza di Tito (Annio) with René Jacobs (released by Harmonia Mundi and nominated for a Grammy Award), Telemann’s Brockes-Passion and Mozart’s Requiem with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi 2017), Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony conducted by Giovanni Antonini (Sony 2018) as well as solo-albums with the lutenist Luca Pianca (“Sous l’empire d’Amour” – Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 2017) and folksongs from Switzerland (”Au coeur des Alpes“ – Sony Classical 2018). Just released: J.S. Bach’s h-minor Mass with the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, the RIAS Kammerchor and René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi) as well as Les Fables de La Fontaine with La Chapelle Harmonique (B-Records).