Many years ago, when I climbed the north face of the Eiger, we sang snatches
of The Marriage of Figaro all the way up the mountain, competing raucously
with the alpenhorn player serenading the tourists 5,000ft below. Music
belongs in the mountains. It articulates our deepest romantic response to
wild, grand scenery and, for me, the two seem inseparable. Unfortunately,
the reality of climbing can be a crude, uncomfortable business, and our
execrable singing was a travesty of Mozart, surpassed in awfulness only by
the alpenhorn’s folksy dirge. What we really needed was the nobility of a
world-class orchestra.
That desire to experience the finest music in the mountains — to marry urbane
civilisation with sublime scenery — was realised for me last summer at the
Lucerne Festival. There are several magnificent Alpine music festivals, but
Lucerne seems to have the best of everything. The mountains are close, but
they’re not breathing down your neck. There is space and light. There is the
almost impossibly picturesque old city, lapped by the peacock-blue waters of
the Vierwaldstättersee, the lake that lies at the heart of the four original
forest cantons of the Swiss Confederation; and poised over the water,
mirroring its glassy sheen, the immense floating roof of Jean Nouvel’s
swaggeringly modern Kultur und Kongresszentrum Luzern (KKL), one of the
finest concert halls in Europe.
It was 20 years since I had last passed through Lucerne on the way back from
the Eiger. Keen to see the new KKL, I walked out on our first afternoon to
view the hall from the medieval covered bridge. From this angle, the tapered
roof was a gleaming ice dagger, framing the mountains to the south.
The next morning, we caught a paddle steamer and headed towards those
mountains, drawn into the heart of the Alps. We were mesmerised by the same
towering cliffs that Turner, Ruskin and Inchbold had painted between the
1840s and 1860s as they popularised our modern romantic notion of “the
sublime”. How fitting to return that evening to Sibelius’s Second Symphony.
He may have been a Finn, brooding on a darker northern landscape, but he
speaks to the same emotions — and the symphony’s soaring, yearning, noble
finale evokes the grandest mountains imaginable. What a treat, I thought, as
I leant back in my stalls seat and remembered harsh, shivering alpine
bivouacs, to be sitting here, clean, in a suit, among all these
expensive-looking people, immersed in the perfect acoustics of this stunning
hall, built to reinvigorate the festival that Toscanini founded in 1938.
On the following two evenings, there were no tickets left for the Berlin
Philharmonic. But there were other things to do, such as eating a sumptuous
dinner on the veranda of the gorgeous Montana Art Deco Hotel, as the lake
faded to black and the jagged outline of Mount Pilatus smouldered in a
purple sunset. And by day, we explored the old town and visited the medieval
Rathaus, then crossed back over the Reuss to admire the rococo ceiling of
the Jesuit Church.
Lucerne’s newest temptation is the Rosengart Collection. One afternoon, I
visited its founder and director, Angela Rosengart, who told me how she had
built up the collection with her dealer father, and how, unmarried,
childless and now quite old, she had decided recently to donate it to the
city. “The council had spent all its money on the new KKL, so I had to buy
this building myself,” she explained. “But it meant I could hang the
pictures exactly as I wanted.” And they are hung beautifully, with lots of
room to breathe. The basement is devoted entirely to Paul Klee, the top
floor to a fairly comprehensive coverage of big 20th-century names and the
middle floor to the biggest name of all, Picasso.
“I have hung them in exact chronology,” Fraulein Rosengart enthused, “the
chronology of Picasso’s wives and mistresses. Look at this one, with the
little cupid in the corner” — she pauses, a hint of wistfulness in her smile
— “even at 90, he was still thinking about that.”
On our last day, we took the world’s steepest rack railway up Mount Pilatus. I
glanced nostalgically out of the carriage window at limestone cliffs where I
had climbed 20 years earlier. Then I looked south to the wilder
Uri-Rotstock, which I had climbed on skis earlier that same year. Then west
to the distant Finsteraarhorn, scene of another winter adventure. Then
further west again, to that dark, implacable pyramid — the Eiger. These
Alps, more than any other mountains in the world, are redolent with layered
experience, towering as much in the imagination as in physical reality, always uplifting and suffused with a nostalgia for adventures past.
How perfect, on our last evening, to be treated to more Sibelius — this time
the Violin Concerto, with Gil Shaham bringing a passionate intensity to the
achingly beautiful slow movement. Listening to the famous cor anglais solo
resonating so perfectly under the high, starry ceiling was like hearing it
for the first time. As for the final movement, no recording will ever
re-create the thrilling blaze of trombones that night, nor the rapturous
applause and encores, before we all flooded out onto the terrace to gaze
across the lake to those dark, silent mountains filling the horizon.
FESTIVALS AT THE KKL
There are three big set-piece festivals based at the KKL.
Highlights at the Easter Festival (April 1-9) include Verdi’s Requiem,
conducted by Mariss Jansons; the Hilliard Ensemble singing Elizabethan
music; Bach’s St John Passion and Mass in B Minor; and Richard Strauss’s
Four Last Songs, composed in the Alps.
The Summer Festival (August 10 to September 17) has 30 symphony concerts by
famous orchestras and conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Michael Tilson
Thomas and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra’s chief conductor, Claudio Abbado.
It also offers “Debut” concerts for young artists; and Pierre Boulez’s
Lucerne Festival Academy, with young musicians concentrating on modern
repertoire.
Finally, the Piano Festival (November 20-26) hosts classical and jazz piano
music, modern and historic instruments, films, exhibitions, workshops and
recitals by big names such as Alfred Brendel and Evgeny Kissin.
For details of all three, call 00 41-41 226 4480 or visit www.lucernefestival.ch.
WHERE TO STAY
A relatively cheap option in the old town is the Jailhotel
Löwengraben (41 410 7830). Yes, it’s a former prison, with doubles
from £90, B&B.
For something grander, with stunning views across the lake, the beautifully
refurbished Montana Art
Deco (41 419 0000) has doubles from £125, B&B (rising to £370
for the Tower Suite). Even if you don’t stay, the hotel’s Louis bar is
famous for its jazz jam sessions.
WHERE TO EAT
The Montana Art Deco also has an excellent restaurant, with balcony tables
overlooking the lake. Four-course set menus start at about £30.
The Old Swiss House
(Löwenplatz 4; 41 410 6171; closed Mondays) is probably Lucerne’s finest
restaurant, with a photo gallery of famous visitors, from Ronald Reagan to
Simon Rattle. The four-course set menu costs about £40.
For something cheap and cheerful (relatively — this is Switzerland), try the
riverside Nix restaurant, at Reussteg 9.
MUSEUMS
Kunstmuseum Luzern is the main art gallery in the KKL
(Tue-Sun; £4.50, children £1.75; 41 226 7800).
The Rosengart Collection is
near the railway station at Pilatusstrasse 10. It is open daily (£6.50,
children £3.50; 41 220 1660).
GETTING THERE
Airlines serving Zurich (40 miles from Lucerne), include: Swiss
(0845 601 0956), from Heathrow, London City, Birmingham, Manchester and
Dublin; British Airways (0870
850 9850), from Heathrow, Gatwick and Bristol; Helvetic
Airways (020 7026 3464), from Luton; and Aer
Lingus (0818 365000), from Dublin. Trains from the airport to Lucerne
take about an hour, and cost £23 return, through Swiss
Railways.
