Festival premiere at the Zurlaubenhof

The first edition of the ‘Sommerflausen’ festival was marked by spontaneity. The rain became a charming punchline.

The church bells in Zug struck half past eight on Friday evening as the first raindrops started to fall on the gravel paths of the Zurlaubenhof. What had begun as a summer open-air concert ended with a spontaneous move to the nearby St. Michael's Church. This unforeseen change of venue that made the premiere evening of the Zurlaubenhof Festival ‘Sommerflausen’ (summer fun) an authentic experience, and lived up to the festival's title, considering the capricious weather had also forced courtyard festivals to improvise in past centuries.

The project by art historian Brigitte Moser and cello virtuoso Jonas Iten deliberately revives historical cultural forms: ‘Cultural history comes alive here,’ explained Brigitte Moser on Friday evening, initially in bright sunshine, on the residential garden stage. This central location within the grounds is itself a testament to the history of the garden: the original representative Baroque parterre of the wealthy Zurlauben family gave way to a more intimate design around 1900; the ‘bosquet’ (a small grove of trees), once a privacy screen, now forms a natural shell for a concert.

The garden is just one element of the prestigious complex: the ‘Hof am Schilt’, which was built in 1597, gradually developed into a ‘mini Versailles on Lake Zug’, especially in the 18th century under the last descendant of the family, Beat Fidel Zurlauben. The property included a noble half-timbered manor house, a private chapel, a rose-covered loggia and festival building full of Rococo murals à la Watteau.

The City of Zug purchased the listed complex from the Bossard family for CHF 65 million in 2022, turning the once private property into a public cultural heritage.

The concert was planned to take place outdoors, if the weather permitted         
The sounds seemed even more haunting in the neo-Gothic church architecture      Photos: Alexandra Wey

An experience for all the senses
‘The acoustics don't have to be worse in nature,’ commented Jonas Iten with a smile on his experiment that defies concert hall conventions. The festival focuses on a sensory experience, he added – ‘an evocation of a time when the scent of orange blossoms still wafted through the ornamental garden’.

After Brigitte Moser's ‘Hofgeschichten’ (Court Stories), star violinist Daniel Dodds played his Stradivarius together with the Festival Strings Lucerne Chamber Players: Vivaldi's Spring and Summer Concertos recalled the historical heyday of the Zurlauben family, while Piazzolla's tangos carried the atmosphere of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires to Zug, where the ensemble had performed a week earlier. Tchaikovsky's ‘Souvenir de Florence’ completed the musical journey through time between southern longing and northern Alpine elegance, which, due to the weather, took place in Zug's largest church.

Authenticity through unpredictability
The weather also played a part in the festival's dramaturgy on Saturday. While rain poured down outside, the children's concert with Jonas Iten on the cello and Priska Weibel on the theorbo (a bass lute) took place in the afternoon in the courtyard barn. Children listened to stories about tarantella and gavotte in a relaxed atmosphere.

The highlight of the second and final day of the festival was the evening performance by soprano Mojca Erdmann with a ‘personal bouquet of songs’, ranging from Clara Schumann's “Mondgesänge” to Schönberg's ‘Verklärter Nacht’. In the neo-Gothic church architecture, the night-time sounds seemed even more haunting than in the planned garden setting.

A successful experiment
The premiere showed that the concept works. The interplay of court stories, classical music and culinary delicacies from the Schiff restaurant created a unique atmosphere. Even the clouds in the sky lent the festival a charming authenticity.

It remains to be seen whether the Zurlaubenhof Festival will become a tradition. The response is encouraging. And perhaps the weather will be kinder to the organisers next time. They deserve it!