Out of spectacular boredom

The hip-hop dance group from the Protestant community in Davos has set up outside next to the brass band. The mixed choir is positioned behind a piano trio in the bar of the Hotel Schweizerhof. At 5 pm sharp, everyone starts singing and playing at the same time. Although the hip-hopper dancers have their ghetto blasters with them with the appropriate music, they are also accompanied by the marches of the Davos Music Society. Brahms' first piano trio meets folk songs in Swiss dialect. The Mozart divertimento of the string orchestra in the foyer is accompanied by a somewhat penetrating rattle. Everyone is serious and fully engaged. The audience moves freely between the ensembles and solo musicians - across staircases and corridors. Bratwurst is served outside. John Cage's Musicircus The opening weekend of the 30th Davos Festival is a small happening. Conventional concert patterns are broken up. The boundaries between musical styles have been erased. This is very important to the artistic director Reto Bieri. "For me, this performance is also an interesting social study. The music groups are completely free in their interpretation. It's exciting to observe who is more reserved or who simply plays louder in order to be heard."

The seven wind players of the Austrian formation Federspiel wander between the individual ensembles and focus on working together. "Let's improvise", trumpeter Simon Zöchbauer asks the woodwind trio of the Spanish Azahar ensemble. The key and tempo are briefly clarified. And the Rondino finale of Erwin Schulhoff's Divertissement is heard in a completely new version - with trumpet repetitions and an organ point in the trombone. What happens here on a small scale also happens on a large scale. Young, highly talented musicians get to know each other and develop something new together. Around 70 music students from 20 European countries are on site for the entire two-week festival. "Something special has to happen here in Davos. We need time for that. And boredom. Spectacular boredom," remarks the artistic director in the press conference.

In addition to the 45 chamber music concerts at twelve different locations, including the train station and Stafelalp, there are also spontaneous sessions in the hotel lobby, for example when a few string players play jazz or the members of the chamber choir, which invites guests to "Sing for everyone" every morning at 10 a.m., delight the hotel guests at midnight with artfully composed folk songs. The total budget for 2015 has been slightly increased to around 630,000 Swiss francs. At 65%, the proportion of sponsors is above average. 24 % of the budget is financed by admission prices, while subsidies amount to 11%. In Davos, everything is produced in-house and exclusively - an important unique selling point in the interchangeable festival business. The proportion of new music is high. Bieri's predecessor Graziella Contratto, who directed the chamber music festival from 2007 to 2013, had already brought a breath of fresh air to Davos, bringing young early music specialists to the festival and opening up the repertoire to jazz. Dance courses in a carpentry workshop, hotel concerts, conducting for children, hiking concerts and the recital on the Schatzalp were among her innovations.

Bieri wants to anchor the festival in the heart of life and also attract audiences who have not previously found their way to the concerts in the well-known climatic health resort. This is why the Parsenn Yodel Choir and the Alphorners Davos-Klosters are also taking part in John Cage. That's why there is a listening tour through the forest for children and young reporters reporting on the festival. The concert motto "Roundabout" is deliberately taken from everyday life. Many Swiss towns are characterized by traffic circles. Davos doesn't even have a traffic light. The entire festival program is about repetitions and cycles, junctions and even the odd dead end that leads nowhere artistically.

"RoundAbout" is the name of the opening concert in the rather dull, carpeted hall of the Hotel Schweizerhof. Martin Meuli, head physician at Zurich Children's Hospital, gives a refreshing lecture on cell division and metabolic cycles. And the circles are also explored musically. Joe Zawinul's The Harvest ends as it began - with tone-bound rhythms that the musicians of Federspiel drum onto the mouthpieces of their instruments. Schubert's Andante from the string quartet Death and the girlThe variations of the piece, which the young musicians of Cuarteto Gerhard are not quite up to, are cyclical in nature. The spoked music by Basel artist and instrument inventor Lukas Rohner on a converted bicycle is original, but does not lead to a clear artistic statement.

The composer in residence is the French composer Marc-André Dalbavie. He composes the rhythmically concise, thoroughly melodic-tonal Piano Trio No. 1 in a captivating interpretation by Gilles Grimaitre (piano), Jonian Ilias Kadesha (violin) and Vasthi Hunter (cello). During the interval, you stand in the backyard of the hotel in the dark, sipping your glass of champagne. The glamor factor tends towards zero. Like many other hotels, the Schweizerhof is closed in summer.

How well the summer balance turns out depends heavily on the weather. This year, there were 16 percent fewer overnight stays by Germans due to the high Swiss franc exchange rate. "However, we were able to make up for this with guests from other countries such as Poland, Hungary and Scandinavia," says Paul Petzold, Head of Tourism at Davos-Klosters. He does not believe in special discounts for Germans, as offered by some Swiss resorts. "A huge mistake! How can we justify something like that to our other guests?" Davos is also one of the top destinations where visitors are less price-sensitive. The Davos Festival has hardly any effect on the number of overnight stays here. There is no real festival audience that comes for the concerts. Most concert-goers are Davos or Zurich residents who have a second home in the climatic health resort at 1560 meters above sea level. Or holidaymakers who are already in Graubünden anyway. They come to the open-air concert in the Kurpark despite the rain, where the cheerful, highly musical Federspiel brass players manage the balancing act between yodeling and jazz and can even sound like a Mexican mariachi ensemble. Around 200 guests stand with their umbrellas between the wet beer benches and listen intently to what the likeable guys from the neighboring country can combine.

"Young Artists in Concert" is the subtitle of the chamber music festival founded by Michael Haefliger in 1986. There are many talents to discover, such as the formidable Dudok Kwartet from Amsterdam, which performs Brahms' second string quartet in the Alexander Chapel with wonderful transparency and homogeneity. "But we also have some more experienced musicians here, such as the members of the Amaryllis Quartet, who act as teachers and sit at the first desks in the Davos Festival Camerata. This exchange is important to me," says Reto Bieri. The unconventional 40-year-old Swiss doesn't have a cell phone. It only distracts him. Moreover, without a cell phone, agreements are highly binding. But he can still be found. "I'm always circling around here during the festival anyway." At the Kreisleriana concert, works by the distantly related Fritz and Georg Kreisler come together. Schumann's Kreisleriana must not be missing in the somewhat colorless interpretation by Oliwia Grabowska. The Amaryllis Quartet roughens up Beethoven's String Quartet op. 59/3. And they deliver a highly dramatic finish that makes the older audience, which is made up of young festival musicians, scream.