The President of the Parliamentary Group for Music (PGM), Stefan Müller-Altermatt, has experienced both: deep emotional involvement at a recent live concert on the one hand and reports of active musicians withdrawing into their private lives on the other. The inertia must be overcome, the longing for "goose bumps" at live events must be spurred on. Rosmarie Quadranti, President of the Swiss Music Council, sounded the same note in her review of the past year and a half. A spirit of optimism had to be created among audiences and musicians. She pointed out the production backlog and the "lasting" gaps in the next generation of musicians. She also mentioned the danger that financial support for creative artists could be ended or converted into the granting of repayable loans.

Taskforce Culture

The work of the Culture Taskforce cannot be appreciated enough. This statement was underlined at the very end by National Councillor Sandra Locher Benguerel. She emphasized that this united voice helps enormously in addressing the concerns of cultural professionals in the political process. She advised that we should continue to work with the existing bodies and provide as many arguments as possible as to why cultural professionals should continue to be supported. The National Council's Committee for Science, Education and Culture will discuss the extension of individual provisions in the Covid-19 Act at its meeting on November 4, while the Council of States will do the same on November 16.

The parliamentarians wanted to be informed about the current situation at their meeting with delegations from the music associations at the Hotel Bern on September 30. They were also interested in how they assessed the prospects with regard to the upcoming amendments to the Covid-19 Act. The speakers complied with this request. In addition to Rosmarie Quadranti, Luana Menoud Baldi, President of the Swiss Wind Music Association, Christoph Bill, President of the Swiss Music Promoters Association, Alexander Bücheli, Managing Director of the Swiss Bar and Club Commission, and Marlon McNeil, Managing Director of Indie Suisse and representative of Sonart - Musikschaffende Schweiz, spoke about the specific problems facing their organizations. They expressed their gratitude for the help they have received so far. The speakers also mentioned a certain frustration regarding the willingness of the authorities to engage in dialog. They also mentioned the planning uncertainty caused by the constant change in regulations and the different restrictions in the cantons.

Radio and sound film helped music to spread enormously during the Weimar Republic and the enthusiasm for the new media and new sounds continued unabated after the Nazis came to power. Although the National Socialists did not pursue a clearly conceived music policy, popular music played an important role as a means of communication during their rule.

On the one hand, the research project focuses on the question of political influence and repression by those responsible under National Socialism. On the other hand, the actions of individuals against this political background. The research team will trace the lives of musicians in the Nazi state, including Franz Grothe, composer and conductor of the Deutsches Tanz- und Unterhaltungsorchester.

More info:
https://unterhaltungsmusik.uni-mainz.de/das-forschungsprojekt/
 

String quartets are still the gold standard of ambitious composing. It is therefore gratifying that two new contributions to the genre by Swiss female composers were premiered within two weeks. So the highest laurels are still being reached for. It doesn't matter that both works are not quartets in the strict sense, but simply pieces for string quartet. They were presented at quartet evenings of the highest standards.

Especially the 1994 born Verena K. Weinmann found itself in respectful surroundings. Klangundszene invited visitors to the Zurich Kunsthaus under the motto "Freedom above all else" on September 25 and 26, combining a late Beethoven string quartet with one from the 20th century - and on Saturday evening with a world premiere. So it came about that Weinmann's agobio served as a prelude to Shostakovich's 8th and Beethoven's C sharp minor Quartet op. 131. Mind you, this was after Beethoven's op. 95 and Schoenberg's F sharp minor Quartet op. 10 had already been played in the afternoon. These are all legendary works that have been shrouded in myth throughout music history. And as if that were not enough agobio for voice and string quartet and thus places itself directly in the line of succession to Schönberg's op. 10, a work in which he not only violently shook the boundaries of tonality for the first time, but also broke the genre norm by adding a voice part. A few hours earlier, it had been performed by the soprano Anna Gschwend together with the Arditti Quartet was breathtaking. Incidentally, this performance was all the more astonishing given that the Ardittis had stepped in at short notice and only had one rehearsal with Anna Gschwend.

The composer, who lives and studies in Barcelona, confronted this difficult starting point with astonishing fearlessness and countered the works of her predecessors, which ventured into extreme regions of expression, with committed and combative music. "Agobio" means overload, excessive demands, and Weinmann, who also describes herself as an activist on her website, reacts aggressively to the feelings described in Ana Martinez Quijano's poem. In the program booklet, she writes of anger.

The strings usually play "transitions": those between different playing techniques on one pitch or those between pitches, i.e. glissandi. The result is a constant restlessness and sounds whose most prominent characteristic is a signal effect. The text is predominantly declaimed to this music on alert, even if the transitions between the many different expressive spectrums of the voice are again fluid. Additional spoken interjections by the instrumentalists give the impression of witnessing a self-conjuration that becomes more and more intense as it progresses, without ever being resolved. A haunting piece, which was written by the still young Nerida Quartet and again Anna Gschwend was impressively realized.

Of a completely different temperament Cécile Marti in Ellipse for string quartet, and this also applies to the event at which her new piece was presented. Ellipse was commissioned by the Othmar Schoeck Festival (OSF) was created in Brunnen and premiered there on September 11 as part of a concert with works by Arthur Honegger, Richard Flury and, of course, Othmar Schoeck.

So while Verena K. Weinmann had to assert herself in the midst of former neo-toners, Marti's piece resounded between three Swiss composers who never functioned as the spearhead of the avant-garde. Of course, Honegger is now regarded as a modern classic, but his modernity was more that of a cheeky pluralist. And while Richard Flury at least scratched the boundaries of tonality in some works, Schoeck remained a late Romantic through and through throughout his life.

Interestingly, Flury's 1st String Quartet, the youngest of these three composers born within 15 years of each other, turned out to be a late Romantic mass product, while the quartets of the other two, their second in each case, were enthusiastic. The Belenus Quartet once again proved what a great ensemble it has developed into in recent years. In the case of Schoeck in particular, its captivating performance made it clear why many composers from this generation, who used to be decried as backward, are now experiencing a revival.

For the fine sounds of Martis Ellipse In any case, the arrangement was a stroke of luck. For where Weinmann relies on the immediate effect of sound, Marti, who also works as a sculptor, trusts in the effect of carefully designed form processes and made this unmistakably clear with her choice of title. An image projection, in which a rough stone was turned into a sculpture, underlined this interest in form in the most general sense. It is not a work that immediately grabs you. Rather, it invites you to follow its course. To discover how the simple motif wanders through the instruments and through time. How it and the whole music returns again and again, slowing down and speeding up again, compressing and stretching.

A journey that one would like to undertake again afterwards. Particularly because the previously constant presence of the simple motif is only broken with its prominent appearance at the end of Ellipse really become aware of it. The second time you would certainly be more attentive ...

"Salomé" in French was of particular concern to Richard Strauss: he wanted to present more than a mere (re)translation. He therefore drew on the original French text of Oscar Wilde's play and completely rewrote the vocal parts in order to adapt them perfectly to the prosody of the language - a unique case in the history of opera. This completely different-sounding version is now available for the first time as a printed score.

The "Dresden retouched version" from 1929/30 is also part of the new "Salome" volume: an arrangement for lyric soprano in the title role, which celebrated its premiere in Dresden in 1930 with Maria Rajdl under the direction of the composer. Strauss deliberately lightened the orchestral accompaniment for the title role in order to be able to cast it with a lyrical rather than (as usual) dramatic voice.

More info:
https://badw.de/die-akademie/presse/pressemitteilungen/pm-einzelartikel/detail/neuerscheinung-richard-strausselektra-und-zwei-unbekannte-fassungen-der-salome.html

According to a statement from the Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences Switzerland, Michael Bühler has a broad professional musical education, which he expanded with an Executive MBA from the Universities of Zurich and Stanford (U.S.) and a doctorate from the University of Gloucestershire (UK). For more than ten years, he was artistic director and managing director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, before that he was executive director of the Swiss Youth Music Competition Foundation and orchestra director at Zurich Opera House. In addition to providing a professional musical education, the new rector also wants to prepare the students of the Kalaidos University of Music specifically for the "entrepreneurial challenges of the modern music market".

Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences Switzerland would like to thank the outgoing Rector Frank-Thomas Mitschke for his great commitment "as well as for the expansion and continuous development of the programs over the last six years or so."
 

An encouraging signal to the choral scene was sent by the German Choral Association with the successfully implemented choir.com. The unsettled sector was finally able to meet, exchange ideas and encourage each other again at the major specialist conference in Hanover - albeit under protective measures such as 3G. More than 270 workshops and reading sessions dealt with topics such as intergenerational choral work, singing with children, rehearsal methodology and choral works for small ensembles. Non-musical ensemble leaders discussed other areas from the heterogeneous field of amateur singing: generational change in structures, choir-specific target group work and diversity.

Stephan Doormann, artistic director of chor.com, spoke of a positive signal from the vocal scene, which, after a long period of standstill, is responsibly practising singing together again and emphasizing its social relevance. The almost one thousand participants discussed controversially how the new start should be organized: back to a pre-corona state or emphatically towards choral work that reflects social change in a sustainable way? It is not yet certain whether the audience will attend the numerous planned events; there is also concern that older choir singers in particular will not return to keep their respective choir home alive. It is feared that the "lost" 18 months will have a serious impact on the recruitment of new talent, particularly in the children's choir sector.

This year's focus was on all aspects of Nordic choral music: masterclasses (including with Grete Pedersen from Norway) and reading sessions provided an opportunity to get to know new choral literature and work from Scandinavia in greater depth. At one panel, Florian Benfer (Gustav Sjökvist Chamber Choir Stockholm) reported on the advantages of composers having choral experience. In Denmark and Sweden, people (still) sing together as a matter of course at small and large events, there is a rich repertoire that is created in elementary school and connects the generations.

Despite pandemic-related admission concepts, an extensive program with 33 concerts was performed by professional ensembles such as the Norwegian Soloists' Choir, the Collegium Vocale Gent, but also high talents such as the Landesjugendchor NRW and the Rundfunk-Jugendchor Wernigerode. In the city churches of Hanover, the NDR broadcasting hall and the university, happy concertgoers were also able to enjoy completely new choral music: the Audi Youth Choir Academy had 16 world premieres by young composers in its luggage, multi-faceted and performed at a high level. The Leipzig Synagogal Choir, on the other hand, put together masterpieces of the synagogue and newly arranged Yiddish songs in a touching and entertaining program.

The trade fair connected to the congress, with 52 exhibitors, was very popular as a place to stock up on literature, discuss the dos and don'ts of online rehearsals and get to know what the associations have to offer. In 2022, the Federal Music Association Choir & Orchestra will once again provide funding for choirs in the New Start Amateur Music" program provide.

The four-day event gave an important signal of departure in a thoroughly ambivalent situation and gives hope that the European choral scene will regain its former strength.

The orchestra of the over 300-year-old Meiningen Theater has been called the Meininger Hofkapelle again since 2006. The name is a reminder of the ensemble's great tradition at the end of the 19th century. Philippe Bach has been General Music Director (GMD) of the orchestra since the end of 2010.

Philippe Bach was born in Saanen, Switzerland, in 1974. He studied horn at the Musikhochschule Bern and the Conservatoire de Genève and then conducting at the Musikhochschule Zürich and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. From 2006 to 2008 he was Assistant Conductor at the Teatro Real in Madrid and assistant to Jesús López Cobos. From 2008 to 2010 he was principal conductor and deputy GMD at Theater Lübeck.

Bach has been chief conductor of the Bern Chamber Orchestra since 2012 and has also been chief conductor of the Kammerphilharmonie Graubünden since 2016.

The names of the prizewinners had been known since May of this year. The ceremony in the presence of Federal Councillor Alain Berset took place for the first time in September in Ticino, at the LAC (Lugano Arte e Cultura) cultural center in Lugano. Each of the eleven artists was introduced with a short excerpt from the video, which portrays the award-winners individually and can be viewed on the Website schweizerkulturpreise.ch can still be seen.

The award winners took to the podium and expressed their great joy and gratitude in creative statements. But questions were also asked: Whether it was the right time for such prizes and whether they reached the prizewinners in good time and in an appropriate amount. Stephan Eicher, a "grand seigneur of European chanson" (Website BAK) was awarded the Swiss Grand Prix Music for his multifaceted work. Together with Viviane Chassot, Lionel Friedli and Simon Gerber, he reinterpreted some of his chansons before the honorees and invited guests were dismissed to the buffet and party.

The award ceremony can still be seen on the Swiss Cultural Awards" website.

Laurence Desarzens chaired this year's Federal Jury for Music, which included Sarah Chaksad, Anne Gillot, Simon Grab, Johannes Rühl, Nadir Vassena and Sylwia Zytynska.
 

Inside the LAC, photos of the award winners were projected onto the wall.

Names highlighted in blue below the photos lead to larger articles, which can be found in the Swiss Music Newspaper have been published on these artists, either online (direct link) or in the printed edition (PDF).

Lionel Friedli, Roland Moser, Stephan Eicher, Manuel Troller

Conrad Steinmann, Chiara Banchini, Yilian Cañizares

Nils Wogram, Viviane Chassot

Roli Mosimann, Alexander Babel, Christine Lauterburg, Jürg Frey

Louis Jucker, Tom Gabriel Fischer

The musician Matías Lanz, born in Winterthur in 1992, studied harpsichord at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), where he completed his master's degree in music education with distinction in 2016, according to the city's press release. He completed a further master's degree in basso continuo/ensemble conducting at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, which he also completed with distinction. He also studied organ at the ZHdK from 2010 to 2012 and attended various masterclasses for both harpsichord and organ.

His artistic work focuses on arrangements of baroque instrumental works for various keyboard instruments, the creation of unconventional programs with works by unknown masters as well as the combination of music and text. Lanz was a scholarship holder of the Hirschmann Foundation and a founding member of two vocal and instrumental ensembles: Ensemble Pícaro (2012) and Cardinal Complex (2017). He has been organist at the Reformed Church Zell/Kollbrunn since 2011 and at the Reformed Church Winterthur Veltheim since 2013.

Since February 2020, Lanz has been a harpsichord teacher and lecturer in basso continuo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He also cultivates his second mainstay, Argentine tango, with great passion and continues his education in various master classes. He has also been involved with the Obertor theater ensemble in Winterthur for many years. Matías Lanz is a versatile and outstanding musician with great potential.

The 2021 sponsorship prize of the city of Winterthur is endowed with CHF 10,000. It is publicly advertised annually. Eligible are people up to the age of 35 who have lived in the city of Winterthur for at least three years without interruption or whose artistic work has a special connection to cultural life in the city of Winterthur. Fifteen artists from various cultural fields applied for the 2021 prize.

The award ceremony will take place together with the presentation of the Culture Prize on November 30, 2021 at the Winterthur Photo Center.

After graduating in psychology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena with a focus on work, industrial and organizational psychology as well as clinical psychology, Jana Leidenfrost completed her doctorate at the Alpen-Adria University in Klagenfurt.

Since 2010, she has been working as an entrepreneur in the field of international management and organizational development as well as psychological mentoring. She has lectured at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, among others.

In her new role at the Institute of Musicology Weimar-Jena, she will offer block seminars and mentoring on practice-relevant topics such as leadership skills, cooperation, potential development, self-management and organizational development.

Sonart awards the prize to private radio stations that are committed to Swiss music. According to the data collected by Suisa for all Swiss private radio stations, Radio Fribourg (the German-language edition of the bilingual station) broadcast a record-breaking 23.8 % of Swiss music in 2019. Only Radio BeO was higher, but the Bernese Oberland radio station already received the award for 2016. Due to the pandemic, it was not possible to present the award last year, which is why it is now called the "#SwissMusicOnAir-Award 2021".

23.8 % is a remarkable figure, because the average for Swiss music in Switzerland is otherwise only around 10 %. In addition to the high proportion of Swiss music, a survey of Swiss indie labels was also decisive. The label promoters surveyed all rated the collaboration with Radio Fribourg as very good. No other radio station in Switzerland reported so often on unknown bands, invited so many newcomer artists for interviews and gave Swiss music so much space.

On Friday, September 24, 2021, the symbolic prize, a wooden radio, was presented at a festive ceremony. This is the last time Sonart will be presenting this award, as Nick Werren, Head of Pop/Rock Projects, confirms: "Unfortunately, with Radio BeO, Kanal K, Radio Canal 3 français and now Radio Fribourg, all private radio stations (with the exception of special-interest radio stations such as Tell, Eviva, Maria or JAM) that are particularly committed to Swiss music have already received the award. The figures for all other stations were shockingly low. This makes it extremely difficult for unknown, regional acts to reach the public, and the majority of copyright fees are thus going abroad instead of into the domestic scene." Sonart continues to campaign for a higher proportion of CH music on Swiss private radio stations.
 

The conference "Choral Life in Switzerland" achieved what is rare enough: it brought together experts from western and German-speaking Switzerland in equal measure. It thus facilitated a highly interesting exchange on the differences in choral culture between the two parts of the country, including Romansh-speaking Switzerland. Only Italian-speaking Switzerland was somewhat neglected. The fact that the polyglot conference chair, the Brazilian musicologist Caiti Hauck, is at home in French-speaking Switzerland was probably the reason for the successful bridging of the Romansh divide. She is conducting research in Bern and has been tracing the history of one choir from German-speaking Switzerland (Berner Liedertafel) and one from French-speaking Switzerland (Société de Chant de la Ville de Fribourg).

The Swiss bird's-eye view was complemented by reports from the German choral tradition, represented by Friedhelm Brusniak. The Würzburg professor of pedagogy has done pioneering work in reappraising the history of popular vocal music in Germany. The diverse and problematic links between Switzerland and its monarchist and National Socialist neighbors to the north were by no means ignored, especially with regard to Othmar Schoeck's oeuvre. The latter were traced by Strasbourg church music specialist Beat Föllmi.

The audience listened with great interest to musicologist and translator Irène Minder-Jeanneret's presentation on the early history of the Société de musique de Genève. It was astonishing to learn that this society was founded in 1823, not least for touristic reasons, as travelers expected evening entertainment in the city on their way to the Mont Blanc region.

Aurore Cala-Fontannaz, currently a doctoral student at the Sorbonne in Paris, highlighted the importance of the vocal composer Louis Niedermeyer, who is hardly known in German-speaking Switzerland and who founded a singing school in Paris and reformed church music. The historian Anne Philipona from Fribourg also showed how the choral tradition in French-speaking Switzerland is influenced by Catholicism: during meetings between choirs from German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland in the mid-19th century, republican sentiments and conservatism loyal to the Roman Empire clashed during the Sonderbund War.

The choral scene in French-speaking Switzerland was influenced not least by ambitious combinations of singing and theater. As the Fribourg musicologist Delphine Vincent pointed out, the Théâtre du Jorat, located just outside Lausanne, is a good example of this. Gustave Doret, Arthur Honegger, Frank Martin and André-François Marescotti, who is hardly known today, wrote music and choral parts for the stage works performed there. In addition, Vevey's gigantic winegrowers' festival also enlivened the choral scene, most recently in 2019, when it traditionally celebrated the Ranz des vachesthe "Blues of the Alps". A folk jury had put together a group of tenors, including farmers, electricians, teachers, engineers and road maintenance workers, who celebrated the "Lyoba". This hymn of the alpine herdsmen and the Hymne à la Terrea hymn of praise written by Blaise Hofmann especially for the most recent Fête des Vignerons, was analyzed by the composer Noémie Favennec-Brun.

Denominational aspects may play a role in shaping the singing cultures of the language regions. The final discussion between the choir representatives from Western and German-speaking Switzerland revealed clear differences in mentality - also reflecting political attitudes. While the repertoires in German-speaking Switzerland are micro-local and differ from canton to canton, even from region to region, the common repertoire and aesthetics seem more uniform in French-speaking Switzerland. Apparently, the willingness to revitalize the repertoire with challenging new compositions from the tradition of contemporary art music is also much greater there than in German-speaking Switzerland. East of the Saane, the scene is now characterized by project choirs with a wide variety of styles, from pop, gospel and jazz to barbershop and a cappella formations in the style of the Prinzen or Flying Pickets. The self-exploitation of self-arranging choir directors has reached such an extent that the ensembles are no longer prepared to pay an appropriate sum for an externally commissioned composition.

It fits into the federal picture: It was probably not least due to animosity and mistrust that, following the abolition of radio choirs, only in exceptional cases has it been possible to fund a professional choir in German-speaking Switzerland over a longer period of time. The Swiss Chamber Choir ultimately fell victim to the unwillingness of several cities to support such an institution financially, as Lukas Näf, the son of founder Fritz Näf, outlined at the conference.

Whether Appenzell Innerrhoden "Rugguusseli", Appenzell Ausserrhoden "Zäuerli" or Toggenburg "Naturjodel" - yodelling has a long tradition in the region around the Alpstein. Typical of this tradition, which is mostly learned and passed on orally, is the polyphonic yodeling. The Roothuus Gonten, the center for Appenzell and Toggenburg folk music, has an impressive collection of them.

How do yodellers manage to memorize a wealth of yodelling melodies? This question was addressed by a research team from the Lucerne School of Music in a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF. "Natural yodels may sound quite similar to the uninitiated, but on closer inspection they differ significantly, for example in terms of the melodic progression or tempo," says project leader and ethnomusicologist Raymond Ammann. Together with his team, he examined empirical and music-analytical data in sound, images and literature and compared it with statements made by yodelers.

More info:
https://www.hslu.ch/de-ch/hochschule-luzern/ueber-uns/medien/medienmitteilungen/2021/09/24/jodeln-im-kopf/

On Sunday, September 19, 2021, ninety young horn players from all over Switzerland made their way to Lucerne to play a concert on the motorboat "Diamant" during a cruise on Lake Lucerne. All their parents and relatives were there too. Before the cruise, the meeting was ceremoniously opened next to the Culture & Convention Center Lucerne in a mighty choir. All participants then went on board, where they were able to present their skills in seven ensembles to an audience of almost 400 people in the ship's large inner hall. Rehearsals took place on Friday and Saturday at Dreilinden Castle in Lucerne. The event was organized by a team of horn teachers from Central Switzerland (Stephan Bühlmann, Silja Grimm, Sebastian Kälin, Joseph Koller, Andrea Rüegge, Renato Spengeler, Anita Surek) under the direction of Kilian Jenny.

A sheet measuring 17.5 x 8 cm, i.e. not even a third of the size of this newspaper, closely written on in tiny, seemingly illegible script. However, it contains: two not too short poems, a longer essay on Kleist as a playwright and a dramatization entitled The European. This microgram, which was given the number 400 by the executor of the estate, was probably written by Robert Walser in September 1927. Even if a few passages from the other texts can be found in the poems, one wonders what connects the four writings in three different text genres and why they have come together so densely on this sheet. A playful and plausible solution to this puzzle was presented on September 18 in the Rösslisaal in Trogen. Roland Moser's new music theater was performed there for the second and third time, having first been heard a month earlier in Cernier and now again as part of the Rümlingen New Music Festival.

The Basel-Landschaft festival, which stands for experimentation and open-air events, had relocated to Appenzell because of Walser. He had spent the last 23 years of his life in the Herisau sanatorium and nursing home and died in 1956 while walking in the snow. Contemporary music, which - not only in Switzerland - has dedicated itself to the texts and figure of this great Swiss poet with a crescendo over the last fifty years, has once again placed him at the center of attention.

A rich program was on offer over four days, for which the Rümlingen crew teamed up with musicologist Roman Brotbeck. He has just completed a major book on Robert Walser and music, and the Robert Walser Society also devoted its symposium in Herisau to this topic. Long sound walks were offered in a landscape through which Walser himself had once hiked with Carl Seelig, stopping less for a beer than for music, in barns or forest clearings or villages. Some successful pieces and performances could be experienced, for example by Brigitta Muntendorf, Sylwia Zytynska, Stephan Froleyks, Paul Giger/Andres Bosshard. But even the successful examples showed how difficult it is to capture Walser's character, this quirky sadness and inscrutability mixed with cheerfulness and playfulness. This was probably achieved most beautifully in the performance Es cho + es gofor which Gisa Frank and Urban Mäder worked together with wind players and actresses, mostly amateurs from the village of Rehetobel, to create a wondrously bizarre performance.

There were also four musical theater events: Patient no. 3561 by the collective Mycelium, based on Walser's medical records; a new version of Georges Aperghis' Witnesses (with the hand puppets by Paul Klee); the somewhat indecisive Tobold by Anda Kryeziu and in the middle of it all Moser's European. He succeeded in creating a production that was Walserian in spirit because he didn't want to cram too much onto it. Moser took the microgram sheet as a unit, so to speak, and unfolded it.

Moser (who was awarded a Swiss Music Prize in Lugano on September 17 together with Conrad Steinmann and other musicians) has already worked with strange text genres, such as letters, several times in his music theater work. He sees them as stimuli to juxtapose different ways of speaking, declamation and singing. Leila Pfister (mezzo-soprano) as the European and Niklaus Kost (baritone) as her friend delivered a subtle vocal duet, which was commented on by Jürg Kienberger (speaking); he also read the Kleist essay. The drama was thus rather reduced, the emotionality undermined, and yet the emphasis, strangely combined with restraint, remained intact. Flexible melodies and haltingly steady rhythms seem to alternate without further ado. It was hardly possible to identify with any of the characters, everything was contradictory. What was essential, however, was the addition of Helena Winkelman's viola and Conrad Steinmann's recorders (including ocarina), two other characters who declaimed wordlessly but very explicitly. Ingrid Erb had staged all this discreetly and without much effort. And so one felt closer to this strange poet in an intangible way. As it says at the end of one of the poems. "The clock slowly strikes seven, / and everything has remained completely incomprehensible to him."