Lucerne Festival Strings

The Lucerne Festival Strings are among Switzerland's best-known orchestral ensembles, touring widely and performing a wide variety of repertory. The group is especially noted for its large catalog of recordings, which dates back to the 1950s and includes pioneering releases of Baroque music.

The Lucerne Festival Strings was founded in 1956 and gave its first performance at the Lucerne International Music Festival on August 26 of that year. The group's co-founders were conductor <a href="spotify:artist:2tepVRLTVFTPajhZc5ekPs">Rudolf Baumgartner</a>, violinist <a href="spotify:artist:39FRKToWvMqZFNxgIbgzBq">Wolfgang Schneiderhan</a>, and Lucerne Festival director Walter Strebi. <a href="spotify:artist:2tepVRLTVFTPajhZc5ekPs">Baumgartner</a>, who remained the music director until 1998, named the group and, envisioning a busy touring schedule for the new ensemble, suggested that it always use the English words Festival Strings, altering only the word order (Festival Strings Lucerne) for French- and German-speaking audiences. At home, the group has maintained a close relationship with the Lucerne Conservatory and performs at the KKL Lucerne Concert Hall.

The Lucerne Festival Strings programmed mostly Baroque music in its early years, not a common thing in the 1950s, but it later added contemporary music to its mission and has premiered more than 100 works, including those by <a href="spotify:artist:0RFA6ka89RHDXV9VoxaURb">Frank Martin</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:399s62PfwKlLnrLvBjWFYB">Iannis Xenakis</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:0qEO82Hj3SvjoNyEfKpRku">Krzysztof Penderecki</a>. Almost from the beginning, the group attracted international-caliber soloists, including violinist <a href="spotify:artist:7o2OjTu0Ls0xiWl3RzjdVp">David Oistrakh</a>, cellist <a href="spotify:artist:42ZCvzken6DllCB1xghinZ">Pablo Casals</a>, and pianist <a href="spotify:artist:4HNzRQlaUVSYkQcBvrDJV9">Clara Haskil</a>. With a core of 21 musicians, the orchestra takes on additional players for larger works, and since the 2010s, it has often performed symphonic repertory. It should not be confused with the seasonal <a href="spotify:artist:0DX4vAO3I8ObqHKrw72E7f">Lucerne Festival Orchestra</a>, to which it is unrelated. The Lucerne Festival Strings has had only three directors over its long history; <a href="spotify:artist:2tepVRLTVFTPajhZc5ekPs">Baumgartner</a> was succeeded by Achim Fiedler, and violinist-conductor Daniel Dodds took up the baton in 2012.

The Lucerne Festival Strings' notably vast catalog of recordings, dating back to the 1950s, includes early LPs featured Baroque music that appeared on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Deutsche+Grammophon%22">Deutsche Grammophon</a> label's <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Archiv%22">Archiv</a> imprint, which had a pioneering role in the marketing of Baroque music recordings. In the digital era, the group has recorded for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Deutsche+Grammophon%22">Deutsche Grammophon</a>, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA%22">RCA</a>, and, as of 2020, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warner+Classics%22">Warner Classics</a>, where the Lucerne Festival Strings backed violinist <a href="spotify:artist:2xPfYsn4P2vH7eI6ADyFB7">Midori</a> in her first-ever recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61.