Goodbye Switzerland, hello France

My stay in Switzerland was a short one, just four days, but long enough to get over jet lag as well as hear two fantastic concerts. The weather was 17C one day and 30C the next, which was perhaps the reason so many people there seemed to have colds (including two staff at my hotel  - and now I have it as well).

Jurgen from the Rinderberg told me it had been a very hot summer and that the glaciers you could see from his restaurant had receded remarkably.

Typical Swiss house
drawn from the train

Farmers were working hard making hay during my stay. Where tractors would be used they were but as I swung up to the Rinderberg by gondola I noticed people mowing steeper slopes with hand held machines. There were also a lot of folk turning the grass by hand. That is hard work. In Switzerland you have the feeling that very little is wasted.  In some inaccessible wooded places along the rail track I noticed sticks sorted by size and neatly bundled.

Both trains down the mountain from Zweisimmen to Bern then along the flatlands between Bern and Basel were empty in comparison to the very fast train from Basel to Paris. I had 4 minutes to change trains. Unfortunately the Swiss don't have those information sheets every German station has that show where each carriage of the train stops but I was lucky and I still had one minute to run down the platform to my carriage. The train was so over-full that it would have been impossible to get through the carriages to my seat had I squeezed into any other carriage.

Luggage piled between seats

On the website they say seat reservations are obligatory but there seemed to be a lot of people without seats, or who had to vacate them when others with a reservation came to claim them. Luggage was piled high in the entry gangway, (not just a couple of bags, but lots of cases and boxes and bags stacked up to the roof) between seats and in the overhead racks. But whether we were sitting or standing, the train got us and all our luggage to Paris.

Sebastian Knauer wows his Zweisimmen audience

I came to the Menuhin Festival in Switzerland to hear Jonas Kaufman sing but on the way I have discovered another fantastic musician, a pianist called Sebastian Knauer.

Zweisimmen Church

I bought my ticket to Knauer's concert (Tribute to Wilhelm Kempf) because it was on the day before the Kaufmann concert and would be held in Zweisimmen Church which is a couple of streets from my hotel.

Stumbling over something remarkable quite by accident is such a joy. I had no idea who Wilhelm Kempf was (so much in music passed me by during my scientist years) nor Sebastian Knauer but you only have to listen to Knauer play for a few minutes to realise that he is one of a kind and I was fortunate enough to hear him at practise at the church for a little while in the morning. His playing sent me into a different dimension and I immediately went off to find out more about both he and Kempf.

Split in pole holding up
The balcony

Zweisimmen church

They are both from Hamburg (I studied there and still love the place), Knauer was something of a child protegy and Wilhelm Kempf was a renowned interpreter of Beethoven. So my ears had not deceived me; this was something special.

I have a feeling that Knauer must have learned from Kempf because during his performance of Beethoven in the evening it felt as if he was channelling the composer. He took us by the hand and led us on an emotional journey and you could have sworn Beethoven was in the room. I suppose that is how Kempf must have played and I was reminded of a piano teacher I knew in Hamburg who traced his lineage directly back to Mozart through a series of teachers. That sort of pedigree does make a difference.

Sebastian Knauer has the build of a sportsman and his playing is muscular while at the same time delicate and nuanced.

At the concert in Zweisimmen Church he played mostly Beethoven for the first half then included several Schubert pieces in the second. Two hours of playing to an audience that was captivated from the first moment and which gave him a heartfelt standing ovation.  There were several piles of his CDs available to purchase and every one was sold. I think that is the first time I have seen that happen and the audience was not particularly large. I bought his Schubert compilation so, like many, I am taking a little bit of Knauer home with me.

Swinging to the Rinderberg, Zweisimmen

So what do you do when you find yourself staying in a small Swiss village in a hotel about 100m from the base station of a  gondola? Well if you are like me, you make an unscheduled trip to the building next door which, luckily for you, houses a bank. With cash in hand you can take a trip to the top most station, the Rinderberg, for your Wurstchen & Roestli lunch.

As I sat swinging in the small red cabin I remembered I am not much good at heights, but the door was securely fastened and there was no way to either fall out or turn back so I concentrated on the view instead. I had the cabin to myself but I could well imagine it full of well padded people with snow goggles and skis when the very green fields below would be white.

Up and up we swung, over fields of grazing cows, over the treetops and up and up until Zweisimmen was a tiny spot in the landscape below.

Zweisimmen

I was the lone guest in the Rinderberg Restaurant and as my Wurstchen was being cooked the young owner Jurgen told me his story.

He was from Düsseldorf and had worked all over the world in other people's restaurants but he really wanted his own place.

Now this was his, the Rinderberg (cattle mountain) Restaurant and although it was a difficult place to make a living he was doing okay.

Zweisimmen is just to the right of the pylon.

He ran events. Next weekend is an event for 17 year olds then the following event was for 70 year olds. He wanted everyone to come, no matter what their age and sees his job as "making them happy". He shouted me a drink as we sat and chatted.... Vodka and green 'Spritze' - now that's novelty with a sausage lunch!

Jurgen said he had just run a four day Techno festival which had been really successful. He'd got a police licence so when the lone farmer with a shed nearby complained to the police they just said 'Well he has a licence, there's nothing we can do'.

" And anyway," said Jurgen, "the cows came to watch and I they stayed. I think they really enjoyed it too."

He said that he was now getting calls from other venues asking how he managed to get a licence and how he organised the party because they wanted to put on something similar.

The party finished last Monday ("I did 60 straight hours behind the bar" ) and they were still cleaning up. They had already cleaned three times and would do a fourth clean tomorrow. He obviously fits well into Swiss society. (I watched the cleaner do my room out yesterday and marvelled at her thoroughness, speed and efficiency. She'd win a competition hands down.)

I will remember my ride up to the Rinderberg with pleasure and I think the Swiss are lucky to have such a committed restaurateur as Jurgen in their midst.

Gstaad - playground of the 1%

I  have belatedly read the wikipedia entry for Gstaad:

"Gstaad... is a bilingual village in the German-speaking section of the Canton of Bern in southwestern Switzerland... and is known as a major ski resort and a popular destination amongst the high society and the international jet set."

So no wonder the prices are exorbitant and they have to bus people in for larger concerts.

Gstaad promenade (from Wikipedia)

"Gstaad is home to one of the largest ski areas in the Alps (220 km (137 mi) of slopes). The middle of the village features a picturesque promenade bounded by numerous shops, restaurants, art galleries, and hotels. Designer labels including Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Chopard, Brunello Cucinelli, Prada, Moncler, Ralph Lauren, and Cartier all have stores in Gstaad, while many smaller boutiques stock labels such as Chloe, Dolce & Gabbana, Tod's, Burberry, Dior, Oscar de la Renta, and Marc Jacobs."

Funny isn't it that shopping takes pride of place in the list of attractions. I guess you come here to buy the things that mark you out as one of the 1%, otherwise who would know?

Art galleries are included in the list above so I plan to do a gallery-crawl before the Kuafmann concert.

Zweisimmen

Zweisimmen is picturesque, even on a wet day, a perfect place to spend time recovering from a long haul flight.  

Everything is green, the wooden houses all have geranium filled window boxes and the vege patches in front gardens show how fertile the soil is. But it is cold, about 17C.  I see some locals still wearing T shirts which reminds me of Dunedin in New Zealand.

Gstaad, home of the Menuhin Festival

Where do you go if you want to hear tenor Jonas Kaufmann sing and you find all his opera performances are long since sold out? Well, if it's August, you go to Switzerland, to a tiny place called Gstaad, high up in the mountains.  The road/rail ends at Gstaad - it is as far as you can go before the rock face to the south cuts you off. Over the mountain is Italy.

Switzerland: Zweisimmen (red arrow left) and
Gstaad (red arrow right) and lots of ski-lifts

Gstaad seems an unlikely choice for a famous-tenor concert, particularly when you find Kaufmann is singing in a tent (yes really!), but then you discover this concert is part of the Menuhin Music Festival and that Yehudi Menuhin lived in Gstaad and it no longer seems so outlandish.

Festival Tent in Gstaad

I discovered this concert a few months ago when there were still tickets available and here I am, jetlagged but ready to listen.

I am not in Gstaad yet actually but in nearby  Zweisimmen. A bed in Gstaad costs CHF300 (AUD$412) - way too expensive for artists, or many people really.  There is a piano recital (also part of the Menuhin Festival) in the Zweisimmen church the night before Kaufmann sings, so it seemed an ideal place to stay. I did check the train timetables and yes, there is a late train back to Zweisimmen! I have since discovered that a shuttle bus services operates from Bern and Lausanne for the major concerts so perhaps even the Swiss find accommodation prices in Gstaad a little overwhelming.