Dear music lovers

With «Voices Remembered» we celebrate great voices in music - and the 10th edition of the «Zwischentöne» Chamber Music Festival. As in our first season, Schubert is a focal point, beginning with his unfinished quartet D 703. Important vocal works are presented next to music by composers whose voices were not always heard for reasons we know only too well. And we commemorate some of the voices of recently deceased composers, such as Kaija Saariaho and Jürg Wyttenbach, who have enriched the modern musical landscape with their work.

Julian Prégardien, one of the most outstanding classical singers of our time, and renowned pianist Éric Le Sage are this year's special guests.  Together they will perform Schumann's Dichterliebe and Schubert's Winterreise. With fading strength, Schubert is said to have raised his head from his deathbed and wished for Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 131. In the Saturday Matinee you can hear why this complex and passionate work was Schubert’s last musical wish.  Schubert's Octet celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, and in the festival's closing concert we will celebrate this together with some of the best wind players on the circuit today. Shostakovich is an icon of systematically suppressed voices in music and the personal tragedy expressed in his 8th String Quartet is sadly still all too current. And what do the whales have to say about all this? Hear George Crumb's take in his extraordinary «Vox Balaenae».

We will once again be honored by outstanding artists such as the clarinettist Pablo Barragán, the flutist Héléna Macherel, Zora Slokar, horn, Diego Chenna, bassoon, violinist Irene Abrigo, Jürg Dähler on violin and viola, pianist Anton Kernjak and Szymon Marciniak on double bass. Milena Umiglia-Marena, who was the very first Young Festival Artist to perform at the festival in 2016, returns to the «Zwischentöne» as a mature and captivating soloist. For the late-night concert, you can look forward to Irish folk music with the sibling duo Séamus & Caoimhe Uí Fhlatharta.