Loyalties were thus created, sometimes disrupted by the political or societal agenda which has affected the musical world, like so many others, in recent years. And other stories began to be written. Thus the relationship that the Verbier Festival has established with Simon Rattle, new principal mentor of the Verbier Festival Orchestra who had appeared at the last minute, a few years ago, to conduct a Requiem of Mozart who remained in the memories.
He returns this summer with the 3rd Symphony by Mahler. It is a world-work, whose enormous proportions (lasting an hour and a half, it is one of the longest in symphonic history) represent an ascent in the cosmic hierarchy. Simon Rattle has no equal in illuminating the details of Mahler’s orchestration, so dense, while maintaining the unity and coherence of the whole. We will find the British conductor, musical director of the Bavarian Broadcast Symphony Orchestra after having been that of the Berlin Philharmonic, to conduct the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra with some famous soloists who have also become conductors (Kavakos, Mäkelä, Shani) in another third symphony, that of Beethoven, as well as in the Triple Concerto by the same composer.
Another figure of the baton, another Briton: Antonio Pappano. Long musical patron of the Royal Opera House in London, which he will leave this summer, and attached for the symphonic repertoire to the Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome, Pappano will also distinguish himself in the great repertoire at the head of the VFO: a first time with a Beethoven and Bruckner program (the Symphony No. 9), a second in a lighter register with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra in Rossini, Mozart and Bizet, both times in the company of great pianists, Yunchan Lim and Mikhail Pletnev.
Longer and more regular are the collaborations between the Verbier Festival and two chefs. Gabor Takacs-Nagy first, who has been associated with the event since its beginnings, and who is also one of its most popular teachers. A quicksilver Mozartian, infusing his interpretations with exceptional energy, this summer he conducts a concert version of the Marriage of Figaro of Mozart at the head of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, a group that he meets again at the end of the festival for a concert with the young pianist Alexandra Dovgan.
The other pillar, James Gaffigan, is the conductor of the third of Verbier’s orchestras, the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra, with which he will offer the Paintings at an exhibition. There will be three concerts with this orchestra, made up of young musicians aged 15 to 17, this summer, scheduled in the afternoons to complete the Mainstage offering.
But we talked about the new stories being written in Verbier, and unsurprisingly, it is around young chefs that they take place, in this spirit of meeting between generations which characterizes the spirit of the festival. And then it’s a procession of the most prominent baguettes of the rising generation. Klaus Mäkelä already lit up the festival last year. Music director of the Orchester de Paris, he will soon take two of the most eminent positions on the musical circuit, at the head of the orchestras of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Chicago Symphony. Even though he is not 30 years old! This record rise does not prevent him from returning to Verbier, both as a cellist (see above) and to conduct the Verbier Festival Orchestra in a program Rachmaninov (with pianist David Fray) and Mahler, of which he will perform hear the 5th symphony, with its Adagietto made famous by the film Death in Venice by Visconti.
Even younger, also from this Finnish school which has produced so many exceptional chefs, Tarmo Peltokoski. At the age of 24, this musician has already been appointed artistic director of five orchestras, each time after having given only a concert or two with them! A prodigy among a generation of prodigies, Peltokoski will undoubtedly cause a sensation for his first appearance in Verbier, where he will conduct the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, with pianist Lucas Debargue, in a Ravel, Gershwin and Mozart program.
Youth again, and insolence of talent, with Lahav Shani. At 35, the Israeli conductor also collects the major orchestras of which he became musical director, in Munich, Rotterdam and Tel Aviv. In Verbier he will conduct a superb Brahms and Richard Strauss program with top-flight soloists, but he will also distinguish himself as a pianist, in Beethoven’s triple concerto.
We must also mention the current director of the Royal Philharmonic in London as well as the European Union Youth Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko, who will conduct his compatriot, the pianist Nikolai Lugansky, in a magnificent Tchaikovsky program, and above all point out, in closing of the festival, the return of one of its most faithful maestros: the Vaudois conductor Charles Dutoit, who will conduct the works of Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel with his famous Bolero.
*Editions Actes Sud
