Dialect art songs and symphonic music from Switzerland

These days, the feuilletons of major newspapers are constantly talking about the crisis in classical music: the events in large halls such as the Zurich Tonhalle, the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre, the Berlin and Cologne Philharmonics as well as in the well-known opera houses sold out less and less often. The audience consisted primarily of older visitors who can afford the tickets; Most of the time, the same great works of classical and romantic music were performed by well-known stars... In other words: the classical concert business was congealing into a ritual: there were lacking new ideas and faces that brought a breath of fresh air into the concert business. Not all music enthusiasts share this assessment but point to new forms of events with lesser-known artists from certain eras and genres that also inspire a younger audience.

It is still little known in this country that there were many Swiss composers who created great music during the early classical period, the Romantic period and the early modern period in the first half of the 20^th century. They have not yet received the attention they deserve from directors, musicians, orchestras and, not least, musicologists. It is all the more welcome that there are more and more committed musicians who are breaking new ground by taking on Switzerland’s independent contribution to European music history. This can only be a good thing for concertgoers, as they are increasingly enjoying hearing this music.

Folk Song and Art Song

It is probably common knowledge that Switzerland has a broad tradition of folk music. Who doesn’t know the ‘Guggisberg song’ from the early 18^th century, which tells of the tragic love of Vreneli and Simes Hansjoggeli, or the ‘Rigilied’ ‘Vo Lucerne uf Weggis zue’ with the description of a journey across Lake Lucerne from Lucerne via Weggis to Rigi Kaltbad. Folk songs have been passed down orally through the centuries and are intoned again and again on communal occasions.
  The art song, which is available in musical notation, has a sophisticated melody for voice and piano; a well-known composer composed it into a text that is available as a poem. The performance – usually as part of a song recital – requires the performers’ classical education and training. Little is known yet that also Switzerland has a rich tradition of art songs, but they are still rarely performed.

“Songs from Home” –
Swiss German dialect songs

The Swiss dialect piano-song experienced its golden age in the first decades of the 20^th century. As in the rest of Europe, the desire for a stronger national identity increased here, which found expression in the publication of five volumes of poetry between 1861 and 1906.
  The soprano Regula Mühlemann (*1986), who comes from central Switzerland and is now present on all opera stages in the world, began to search for Swiss composers of art songs: she found what she was looking for and discovered a true treasure. The lyrics revolve around themes such as home, love, nature and hiking. Accompanied by the Russian pianist Tatiana Korsunskaya, Regula Mühlemann organised many song evenings entitled ‘Songs from Home’. The audience is immediately infected by her enthusiasm and stage presence; Her bright likewise full voice, effortlessly overcoming all challenges, immediately mesmerises the listener. A CD with the same title followed.
  The title harks back to Friedrich Niggli (1875–1959), who attended the composition class of the Frenchman Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924). His particular concern was setting songs in the Swiss dialect – this is how several song cycles were created. His song collection ‘Lieder der Heimat’ (Songs of the Heimat) contains a hundred texts. The numerous Swiss song composers include Wilhelm Baumgartner (1820–1867), who was friends with Gottfried Keller and Richard Wagner, Othmar Schoeck (1886–1957), a student of Max Reger, and Richard Flury (1896–1967), who set to music a miniature of the playwright Ferdinand Schell (father of Maria Schell) with the title ‘Wandern mit Dir’ (Hiking with you), to name just a few. The Biel composer Richard Langer (1907–1967) melodised ‘Fünf Lieder in Schweizer Mundart’ (Five Songs in Swiss Dialect) including ‘Edelwyss’.

Edelwyss
Es blüeht es Blüemli ganz allei
hoch obe uf de Flueh,
ganz zuserschtus uf Felsestei,
wo niemer cha dezue.

Es blüeht es Blüemli dört,
wo nur de Sehnsucht ghört,
es luegt an Himmel ue
und grüesst is Tal eim zue,
es blüeht im Alpeparadies
das schönste Blüemli Edelwyss.

Das Blüemli blüeht as wie ne Stärn
i sammetweichem Gwand.
Ich ha das Blüemli drumm so gärn,
will’s ‘s schönste isch im ganze Land.

Es blüeht es Blüemli dört,
wo nur de Andacht ghört,
wo alles Schwiege seit: 
bi nur für dich bereit.

Edelweiss
A little flower is blooming quite alone
high up on the pasture,
far out on a rocky outcrop
where no one can reach it.

A little flower is blooming there,
a flower that belongs to longing alone.
It gazes up to the sky
and greets someone down in the valley.
It is blooming in this Alpine Paradise,
the most beautiful little flower, an edelweiss.

This little flower is blooming like a star
in its soft satin garment.
I like this little flower so much
because it is the most beautiful
in the whole land.

A little flower is blooming there
that deserves only to be worshipped
where all silence says:
I’m waiting for you alone.

Regula Mühlemann also draws on Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), who already expressed his connection to Switzerland with his opera ‘Guillaume Tell’ and the piano piece ‘Au Rutli’. Rossini set ‘La pastorella dell’Alpi’ (The Shepherdess of the Alps) by Carlo Pepoli, an Italian poet and librettist, to music. With the composer and pianist Marguerite Roesgen-Champion (1894–1976), a woman also joined this group by setting texts by the French authors Guy Lavaud and Jean Moréas to music. And Walther Geiser (1897–1993), the composer from Zofingen and student of Ferruccio Busoni, set Romansh song lyrics to music. Regula Mühlemann thus managed to create an impressive musical monument to her homeland with songs in all four national languages by still unknown Swiss composers.

‘Plangliedli [Songs of longing],
Lanzigliedli [Springsongs],
Herbstliedli [Autumnsongs], Heim-
wehliedli, [Songs of Homesickness]’

This is the title of a CD with Swiss German dialect songs, which was realised by the pianist Fabienne Romer and the soprano Sybille Diethelm – a matter of the heart for both of them, as they emphasise. They studied at a Swiss music college, but to their astonishment they hardly came into contact with Swiss music or composers. On the occasion of the 150^th birthday of the dialect and local poet Meinrad Lienert (1865–1933), who came from Einsiedeln, they looked for settings and, to their astonishment, came across a whole series of German-Swiss composers who combine ‘folkloric lightness with poetic finesse’ and bringing together ‘the Swiss folk music with the long tradition of art songs’, as the booklet says. They also organise song evenings, which are enthusiastically received by the audience.
  After studying law in French-speaking Switzerland and Germany, Lienert worked as a notary and editor. He moved with his wife to liberal Zurich, but always felt closely connected to his hometown of Einsiedeln and the pre-alpine sceneries with its residents. The experience of home is the predominant theme of his dialect poetry, which is characterised by poetic elegance, powerful images, subtle humour, but also melancholy. He takes Swiss German as seriously as ‘our all-German written language,’ because for him ‘dialect’ means that ‘it comes fresh from the spring of mouth and heart’. His great friend and supporter is the Swiss poet and Nobel Prize winner for literature Carl Spitteler (1845–1924), who says about him: “I cheer, I cheer when I think of the poet Lienert. An overflowing feeling of happiness, like when you walk across an alpine pasture,” such as in the following poem that Volkmar Andreae (1871–1956) set to music:

‘s Gspüslis Auge
Äugli hät mys Schatzeli
Wien ä Bach wänn’s dunkled.
Wänn drususe d’Stärneli
Still und heimli funkled.
Wänn um’s Wasser d’Zitterhälm
Stönd wie Augehöirli;
Wänn’s eim aluegt i dr Nacht,
Rüebig, teuff und g’föihrli.
Äugli hät mys Schatzeli
Wie dr Bach wänn’s taged,
Wänn drus alli Näbeli
D’Morgelüftli haged.
Wä’me alls im Bach gseht,
Himmel, Wält und Sunne,
Blöiss die arge Fischli nüd
Und’rem Bachport unne.

My Sweatheart’s Eyes
My sweatheart’s eyes
are like a brook in the gloaming
when the little stars
twinkle in it, tranquil and furtive;
when the quaking reeds fringe
the water like eyelashes;
when the gaze at me at night,
calm, profound and menacing.
My sweatheart’s eyes
are like the brook at dawn,
when the morning breezes
chase away all the swathes of mist;
when you can see everything in the brook,
sky, world and sun,
just not the cunning little fish
beneath the brook’s embankment.

It was important to Meinrad Lienert that his poems be set to music in the ‘artless sounds of the redbreast’ and in the way ‘nightingales sing’. In other words: They should be set to music in simple tunes that can be easily sung by anyone and in piano songs with a high level of artistry. The ten composers immortalised on the CD were important musicians who were active in the cultural sector, worked as concert pianists, lecturers, internationally sought-after orchestra and choir conductors and/or as founders of important institutions such as the International Music Festival of Lucerne (now the Lucerne Festival) and the Collegium Musicum Zurich or the Paul Sacher Collegium.

Swiss symphony revived

Asking Swiss interested in classical music whether they can name a local composer and one of his works, you will rarely get a spontaneous answer. Unfortunately, this is no coincidence, but is because Swiss symphonic music unfortunately carves out a wallflower existence: the programs of concert halls and classical music festivals primarily focus on German, French, Italian, Russian and English composers and their symphonic works.
  The revival of Swiss symphonic music has a name, an orchestra and a performance venue: the conductor Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer (*1983) founded the Swiss Orchestra in 2018, the resident orchestra of the Andermatt Concert Hall in Andermatt (Canton of Uri), which is primarily dedicated to performing and disseminating Swiss symphonic music. The other classical repertoire is also maintained.
  Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer studied musicology, violin and conducting, learning from the conductors Sir Roger Norrington and Claudio Abbado. She is in demand as a guest conductor with many prestigious orchestras. The focus of her research activities is, among other things, Swiss music history. She is doing pioneering work in the improvement the largely unknown Swiss repertoire, which is reflected in the Swiss Orchestra’s program design.
  It consists of 50 professional musicians of the younger generation and performs with great success in all regions of Switzerland. The focus of the repertoire is Swiss symphonic music from the early classical period to the early modern period. In order to document, promote and make this music known to a larger audience, CDs with first recordings are published, most recently the double CD ‘swiss dreams – stalder, huber, strong, suter u.a. (and others)’. of 2023. The booklet points out that Swiss music history should be seen ‘neither in isolation nor in complete dependence on Germany,’ but rather has its own profile: “There is Joseph Stadler, who was born and died in Lucerne, Jean Baptiste Edouard Dupuy, whose roots lie in Corcelles on Lake Neuchâtel and who moved to Stockholm, Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee from Lucerne, who made his home in Frankfurt am Main, Hans Huber, who was born in Eppenberg and died in Locarno, the native New Yorker George Templeton Strong, who ended up in Geneva, Hermann Suter from Kaiserstuhl in Aargau, who had a significant impact in Basel, and Paul Huber, a native of Kirchberg, who died in nearby St. Gallen. A story that runs from north to east, from Ticino to French-speaking Switzerland, and which repeatedly provides points of contact with countries near and far.” The selection of pieces of music is diverse; the genres of symphony, overture, violin concerto and serenade are represented as well as a concerto for dulcimer and string orchestra. With this repertoire and their refreshing interpretation, the musicians succeed in inspiring the listener.
  With the construction of the Andermatt Concert Hall, which opened in 2019, and the founding of the Swiss Orchestra, it was possible to create a new venue of distinction in Central Switzerland that complements the previous concert halls in Switzerland very well, especially since Switzerland’s musical heritage is maintained here and has been made accessible to a broad public.  •