I’m writing this from Verbier, high up in the mountains in southern Switzerland. The weather is glorious and the town is full of people – locals, musicians (both young and old) and people in town for the festival, which has just started. The reason that I’m here is that I’m co-hosting the daily StudioVF before, in the middle and at the end of each day’s concert. The setting for the studio couldn’t be more central to what’s happening – we’re backstage in the Salle des Combins, Verbier’s 1400-seat concert hall which sits slightly on the side of the town, a semi-permanent structure which will be replaced – judging from the model in the hall’s foyer – by a beautiful new arts centre with a very Japanese feel to it.
In her piece, Charlotte Gardner gives a wonderful overview of the Verbier Festival and the amazing complexity of putting on two weeks of superb concerts with the world’s greatest artists, as well as creating and showcasing three very fine ensembles. I don’t propose lifting the bonnet on the festival’s engine in the same way, but rather give you my feel for the unique artistic climate up here in the mountains – and the memories it seems to unleash from so many people.
Yesterday, my co-host, Annie Dutoit-Argerich, and I had an evening off and returned to our place of work as consumers rather than presenters to watch the Béjart Ballet Lausanne on stage at the Salle des Combins. Earlier in the day we’d interviewed the company’s Artistic Director Julien Favreau, so it was wonderful to see the latest line-up of young dancers and see how vibrant the spirit of Maurice Béjart lives on almost 20 years since his death in 2007. Favreau danced with the BBL for 30 years and I saw him back in 1996 when he danced the role of Freddie Mercury in one of Béjart’s most enduring and popular creations, Ballet for Life. In costumes by Versace, and to music by Mozart and Queen – yes, Béjart loved these startling juxtapositions (like Alban Berg and Elton John) – the piece was powerful but also deeply engaging. At that performance at the Trocadéro in Paris, when the music had stopped, the dancers were all lying on the stage under sheets (as if dead – Mercury had left us five years earlier). Béjart himself came on stage and, with a hugely theatrical gesture, signaled for the backdrop to be raised. There, in silhouette, was a band – three people – and as the lights came up we suddenly realized they were the three remaining members of Queen, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon. They started playing “The show must go on”, and Elton John wandered in from the wings and began singing. Even 30 years later remembering it still gives me gooseflesh!
In the interval of the dance – we’d seen Béjart’s ballets to Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Stravinsky’s The Firebird – Annie and I wandered out and bumped into Mischa Maisky, a Verbier fixture since the festival started in 1991, with two of his sons. We got talking (Annie’s mother Martha Argerich and Maisky are to celebrate 50 years of performing together next week with a special concert here in Verbier) and Mischa recalled working with Leonard Bernstein in Tel Aviv in 1986, performing the Dvorak Cello Concerto (also recorded). One morning Bernstein complained of not having slept very well, and so, inspired by Maisky’s initials (he often has MM monograms on his clothes), he’d whiled away the time making a list of everyone he could think of. Maisky was thrilled that right under his name was that of Marilyn Monroe (and further down the list both Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse also appeared!). Years later Maisky managed to get hold of photos of the lists as every scrap of paper than Bernstein ever scribbled on ended up in an archive in Washington DC. And he showed me Bernstein’s lists, in the great man’s handwriting, on his phone. And it’s encounters and wonderful stories that Verbier seems to provide in abundance.
This afternoon, I’m sitting down with the conductor and cellist Klaus Mäkëlä for an informal chat in front of what I’m sure will be a sizeable audience. He just sent me a voice message that is so typical of him. He’s conducting Rachmaninov’s The isle of the dead and the Fourth Piano Concerto (with Yunchan Lim) tomorrow. “Do you know Rachmaninov’s own [1929] recording of his Vocalise with the Philly orchestra” was his slightly rhetorical question, “I’ve not heard orchestral playing like that! The strings!” I’m sure that we’ll be talking a lot about classic recordings, a shared passion, later when we meet. Amid the pressure of rehearsals and performances, people can always find time to talk about music. It’s what makes festivals so special.
Another person I’ve been teamed up with for a chat is the French film-maker extraordinaire Bruno Monsaingeon. My life, in various editor roles for Gramophone, has been focused on recordings, so it’s wonderful to encounter someone who has documented the great musicians of our time on film. Bruno, as a violinist himself (he studied with Arthur Grumiaux), has a fascination with violinists, and David Oistrakh and Yehudi Menuhin come very high up the list of those he most admires. I think it’s going to be another fascinating conversation.
Discover a fascinating Bruno Monsaingeon’s film on Klaus Mäkelä that gives a real insight into the making of one of the major musical talents of our time:
It’s probably time for a some fresh air and one of the amazing things about Verbier is that I’ll almost certainly see one or two of the greatest musicians of today just wandering along the street (it’s not a complicated layout – there are basically three roads joining at a roundabout). But even if I don’t see anyone, I know that I’ll hear little snatches of conversation where the topic is 100 per cent music – this little town is alive with young musicians and their enthusiasm and passion would light up the place if the electricity ever failed!
