Lucerne Festival Strings/Fiedler Poltera, Goldsmiths' Hall, London
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Raised on a dais amid the splendours of the Goldsmiths' Hall in Foster Lane, the 17 young players of the Lucerne Festival Strings were ardent and polished under their conductor, Achim Fiedler, for their appearance in the Swiss-themed City of London Festival.
They opened and closed with two of those crisply proficient string symphonies that Mendelssohn was already composing in his early teens – a curious mix of neo-baroque formality, lightness and dash. The one-movement Symphony for Strings No 10 in B minor opened gravely, but was soon scudding along with Mendelssohnian intentness, while the Andante of the Symphony for Strings No 9 in C major featured a mysterious walking fugato that foreshadow the "Pilgrims March" movement of the Italian Symphony, still a decade in the future.
The heart of the concert, however, was devoted to two works by the Swiss master Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957), less known in Britain than he deserves to be, but who made highly distinctive contributions to 20th-century opera and song.
The two late works we heard tended to look back at the romanticism of Schoeck's youth. Indeed, the long opening movement of the 35-minute Cello Concerto Op 61 had something of the elegiac, nobly sequential feel of a Swiss Elgar – except that he composed it in the wake of the Second World War, not the First. An uneven work, perhaps, which seemed to change direction stylistically as it proceeded towards its crazily upbeat ending – but projected with an unflagging security, eloquence and warmth by the young Swiss cellist Christian Poltera in a solo part that barely lets up for a bar.
Yet the real find of the concert was a one-movement nocturne for strings, based on a poem about harvesting in moonlight by Schoeck's compatriot, Gottfried Keller, composed in 1945 and entitled Sommernacht. This crepuscular web of unfolding lines, later yielding to a kind of tranced, lilting dance touched by high sonorities and nightingale figuration for solo violin, provided 14 minutes of mystery and enchantment, beautifully played and warmly received.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments