Lucerne Festival – The Top Swiss Classical Music Event

Many top European orchestras, like the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam and the Leipzig Gewandhaus visit regularly to perform. It is also a premier showcase in Europe for many American ensembles like for example the Cleveland Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. So if those two world famous orchestras are performing at the Lucerne Festival, it shows how important it has become.

The Italian conductor Claudio Abbado, who founded the festival orchestra is an important musical presence still led by him. The orchestra gathers leading players from across the continent who meet for a few weeks a year.

Conductor Claudio Abbado has a touch of the enfant terrible who can desire whatever he wants and usually gets it. For this reason, he can put together a Festival Orchestra made up of his choice of the world’s best instrumentalists, who come together under ideal conditions to do his bidding. Money is rarely an object at this Festival and its sponsors are willing to share Abbado´s uncompromising vision. And with his incredible charisma, the musicians play as if each note might be their last. These are indeed unique circumstances.

The Festival from Lucerne was founded in 1938. Since that first year during the summer, it featured outstanding conductors like Mengelberg, Ansermet, Toscanini and Walter. During the early years at the beginning of the Second World War, it became an important alternative to many musicians. At that time, the artists were unable or unwilling to travel to the Salzburg festival after Austria fell under Nazi sway.

Today, it encompasses the summer festival, a training academy for young musicians that is focused on contemporary music, an Easter Festival and a Piano Festival in the month of November.

Lucerne Festival in Summer
The Festival in Summer is the largest of the distinguished threesome with more than one-hundred events. Every year since 2003, it has opened with a concert of the festival orchestra. This élite ensemble is conducted by Claudio Abbado and composed of internationally renowned soloists, chamber musicians, professors and some fifty members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Pierre Boulez founded the festival academy in 2004. The idea was to give the festival its own educational institution for highly gifted young musicians. It appoints star artists who are actively involved in designing the festival’s programs. The Festival during the summer is annually from 12 August – 18 September.

Lucerne Festival at Easter
Founded in 1988, the Lucerne Easter Festival spans ten days during the Passion season. It ends on Palm Sunday and places especially an emphasis on sacred music. The Easter Festival is held every year from 19 March – 28 March.

The Piano Festival
This is the youngest of the three festivals, held annually each November since 1998 and devoted exclusively to the art of pianism. Many classical pianists and well known jazz musicians, new virtuosos and established masters, organists, pianists and harpsichord players show up for a week in Lucerne to demonstrate the halls with recitals, concertos and improvisations.

Return from Lucerne Festival to Switzerland Tourism

Return from Lucerne Festival to High End Travel Switzerland Home Page