Camerata Concert: Swiss Visions

Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)

Pastorale d’été

Born in France to Swiss parents and retaining Swiss nationality throughout his life, Arthur Honegger occupied a distinctive position at the intersection of two cultures. Although closely associated with Paris and the group of composers known as Les Six, his music never belonged entirely to a single school. In his writing, the clarity and rich colours of the French tradition meet the influence of German music and the art of counterpoint.

Honegger composed Pastorale d’été in 1920, following a summer spent in the Swiss Alps. At the head of the score, he placed a line from Arthur Rimbaud: “J’ai embrassé l’aube d’été”, which may be translated as “I have embraced the summer dawn.” The work was written at Wengen in Switzerland and is one of Honegger’s earliest significant orchestral works.

From the stillness of that moment, the music gradually comes to life. A gentle, swaying texture supports the opening horn melody, before the sound begins to spread through the ensemble, opening onto a landscape that seems to awaken around it. In the middle section, the music becomes more animated and rhythmically alive, yet Honegger never relinquishes the sense of tranquillity that permeates the work. The music then returns to its opening mood and quietly fades away, leaving behind the impression of a moment that has already slipped into memory.

Rather than attempting to depict a particular place, Pastorale d’été evokes the memory of a landscape: intimate, clear and fleeting. In this sense, it offers a meaningful opening to Swiss Visions: an image of Switzerland shaped not by grandeur or spectacle, but by stillness and contemplation.

Ernest Bloch (1880–1959)

Concerto Grosso No. 2

Born in Geneva and later settling in the United States, Ernest Bloch became one of the most internationally influential composers of Swiss origin of the twentieth century. His music resists easy classification. Romantic intensity, echoes of ancient and sacred traditions, modern harmonic language and a fascination with the musical forms of the past all meet within his work.

Bloch composed Concerto Grosso No. 2 in 1952–53, nearly three decades after his first Concerto Grosso. Its title immediately evokes the Baroque era, yet Bloch was not seeking to recreate eighteenth century music. Instead, he returned to principles deeply rooted in the European musical tradition, particularly counterpoint, the independence of individual melodic lines and carefully structured forms, and brought them into a distinctly twentieth century harmonic language.

The work is in four movements:

I. Maestoso – Allegro – Maestoso
II. Andante
III. Allegro
IV. Tranquillo – Animato

In Bloch’s hands, the strings are no longer simply a unified body of sound. Each part becomes a voice with its own character, constantly listening and responding to the others. Melodic lines imitate, answer one another and merge, while the music moves between gravity and lyricism before gradually gathering energy towards its vital conclusion.

The dialogue between the musical forms of the past and a modern voice is one of the threads that runs through this evening’s programme. From here, that dialogue leads us to Johann Sebastian Bach, whose music stands at the historical roots of many of these ideas.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048

What is Johann Sebastian Bach doing in a programme called Swiss Visions?

Bach was not Swiss. His presence in this evening’s programme is not a matter of geographical origin, but of a deeper musical connection. His music forms an important foundation for the way later composers, including Bloch and especially Frank Martin, engaged with counterpoint, musical form and the traditions of the past.

One of Bach’s greatest legacies is the art of counterpoint, in which independent melodic lines coexist, interact and combine to form a unified whole. This way of thinking continued to inspire composers for centuries after Bach. For Frank Martin, hearing Bach’s St Matthew Passion as a child left an important mark on the development of his musical thought. Bloch, too, repeatedly returned to the forms and contrapuntal techniques of earlier music. The Concerto Grosso No. 2 heard before intermission is itself part of this dialogue with the Baroque heritage.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 brings this tradition into an especially concentrated form. Rather than setting a fixed group of soloists against the full ensemble, Bach divides the strings into three violins, three violas and three cellos, together with the bass line. No group retains a single role throughout. Each section alternately leads, supports and becomes an equal voice in a constantly evolving musical conversation.

The first movement is driven by strong rhythmic energy and the constant exchange of short musical ideas. The passage that serves as the second movement consists of only two written chords, creating a brief and unexpected moment of suspension before the final movement bursts forth with rapid and exhilarating contrapuntal motion.

Placed at the centre of Swiss Visions, Bach becomes the point from which the dialogue between tradition and modernity can be heard anew. From here, we move towards Frank Martin, where principles rooted in Bach’s music are transformed into a distinctly twentieth century sound world.

Frank Martin (1890–1974)

Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments, Timpani, Percussion and String Orchestra

Born in Geneva, Frank Martin created one of the most distinctive musical voices of twentieth century Switzerland. His musical language was shaped by a wide range of influences: the contrapuntal thinking inherited from Bach, the harmonic colours of French music and, later, elements of Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve tone technique. Yet Martin never belonged entirely to any one school. He absorbed these influences, transformed them and forged a language unmistakably his own.

Composed in 1949, the Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments, Timpani, Percussion and String Orchestra is one of the works that most clearly reflects Martin’s individual musical language. The concerto was commissioned by the Bernische Musikgesellschaft and premiered in Bern in the same year.

The seven wind instruments at its centre are flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet and trombone. Martin does not treat them as a homogeneous solo group. Each instrument is given a distinct personality. They converse, interrupt, respond, challenge and complement one another, while the strings create a parallel layer of rhythmic and harmonic movement.

The work is in three movements:

I. Allegro
II. Adagietto
III. Allegro vivace

The first movement opens with clear, sharply defined musical lines and a strong rhythmic impulse, gradually revealing the individual character of the instruments. In the Adagietto, the musical space becomes darker and more mysterious, carried by a persistent rhythmic undercurrent. The finale releases the energy accumulated throughout the work, bringing the ensemble into a display of virtuosity and vitality in which the percussion becomes increasingly prominent.

Frank Martin thus becomes a natural destination for the journey of this evening. The principles of counterpoint and the independence of individual voices that we encounter in Bach remain present, but they have travelled across more than two centuries into an entirely different sound world. The spirit of the Baroque now lives through the colours, harmonies and rhythms of the twentieth century.

For this reason, Swiss Visions does not present Swiss musical identity as an isolated world, but as part of a European musical dialogue unfolding across centuries. From Honegger’s encounter with French and German traditions, to Bloch’s engagement with historical forms, from Bach’s architecture of counterpoint to Martin’s transformation of these principles into a modern language, each composer offers a different vision of how the past can become part of the present.

And perhaps this is what makes the music of these Swiss composers so compelling: a strong individual identity shaped at the meeting point of different cultures, traditions and musical worlds.