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Colorful music programs and glorious weather at the Lake Constance Chamber Music Festival

Date: 05.09.2024

The Lake Constance Chamber Music Festival from 23 to 25 August offered surprising, touching and virtuoso concerts at the Lilienberg Center under the motto “Colorful Leaves”. The large audience responded enthusiastically to these programs and to the amazing performances of the young and youngest musical talents in the matinee concert.

If the weather cooperates, as it did this year, the backdrop of the Lilienberg becomes even more fascinating for the festival: be it during the drinks break or the culinary finale in the open air afterwards. The view of the colorful park and across Untersee lent an additional dimension to the festival theme “Colorful Leaves”. There was a wonderful atmosphere among the visitors. One lady put it like this: “You feel like you're part of a big family because you can enjoy the weekend together on the Lilienberg and meet each other again and again: at breakfast, in the park, at the concert, in the pool and at the meals.” 

Character pieces and deafness

The title of the festival comes from Theodor Kirchner's collection of 12 miniatures for piano trio, with which the Swiss piano trio opened the festival on Friday. The enchanting character pieces swirled like colorful leaves through the packed concert hall and immediately captivated the audience. The piano trio “erinnert” by Matthias Roth from Toggenburg, composed in 2023, was vividly introduced by Artistic Director Martin Lucas Staub. It impressively depicts Beethoven's tragedy of his loss of hearing by increasingly alienating and distorting the music until it falls completely silent at the end. The Swiss piano trio broke the almost oppressive silence with the very last Allegretto from Beethoven's pen, whose floating character conveyed the redemptive message that Beethoven's music lives on despite his deafness.

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, performed by Canadian clarinet master James Campbell in a transparent arrangement for clarinet and string quartet, was equally weightless and touching. The work developed an incredible intensity and expressiveness in this chamber instrumentation, particularly in its simplicity. 

Symphonic finale after further discoveries

Bach's “Goldberg Variations” in an arrangement for string trio by Dmitri Sitkowetsky was also performed in an unusual setting on Saturday. Violinist Angela Golubeva, violist Ivona Krapikaite and cellist Paul Marleyn interpreted a cleverly composed selection of this work with great joy and virtuosity, qualities that also characterized the performance of Beethoven's “Gassenhauertrio”.

A Swiss premiere was “Shadows Fade to Blues” by Canadian composer Allan Gilliland, in which James Campbell, Angela Golubeva, Paul Marleyn and Martin Lucas Staub played in an astonishingly jazzy manner and drew rapturous applause from the audience. Walter Rabl's Quartet op. 1 for the same instrumentation, which already inspired Johannes Brahms with its freshness and overflowing melodic richness, was also a discovery.

Brahms himself stood at the beginning of the final concert on Sunday. The violinist Rustem Monasypov played his Violin Sonata op. 100, written on Lake Thun, with an intimate and warm tone. This was followed by a contrasting, more recent piece of music with Peter Schickele's Quartet for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, an original work with a meditative third movement and a finale featuring crazy time changes, jazz elements, pirate music and a virtuoso ending. The four string players, joined by double bassist Josef Gilgenreiner, brought the concert to an almost symphonic close with Antonín Dvořák's String Quintet op. 77. With grand gestures and musical interplay, this final concert also ended in a standing ovation from the enthusiastic audience.  

Young, younger, youngest

The matinee of the young and youngest violinists on Sunday morning was equally enthusiastic. On Friday and Saturday, these talented musicians were taught in a public workshop by Liana Tretiakova, violin teacher and director of the Zakhar Bron School of Music in Zurich. The audience's reaction ranged from amazement at the performance of Vivaldi's “Spring” by the 9-year-old and youngest participant Katharina Filimonova to admiration for Sophie Branson in her performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. The level of all the performers, who were sensitively accompanied by pianist Kateryna Tereshchenko on the grand piano, amazed and delighted the visitors. 

And so, at the end, Managing Director Roland Meier was once again able to look back on a successful Lake Constance Chamber Music Festival, to which the excellent cuisine of the Lilienberg, the outstanding service and the beautiful surroundings made a significant contribution. 

The Lake Constance Chamber Music Festival is back on the Lilienberg from August 29 to 31, 2025, and you too can become part of this music-loving extended family. Further information can be found on the organizer's website.