65th Gstaad Menuhin Festival & ACADEMY | 16 July – 4 September 2021

London – a European music city

Between Yehudi Menuhin's meeting with Edward Elgar in 1932 and his being knighted in 1993 as “Lord Menuhin of Stoke d'Abernon”, 61 years had passed. Although Menuhin was a citizen of the world, his biography spans the British metropolis from one end to the other. It was here that the young violinist (born in 1916) developed his artistic identity, impressed from his first visit around 1930 by people's open-mindedness and acceptance. 1959 saw him and his wife, Diana Gould, settle permanently in London, just as the couple began construction of their chalet “Chankly Bore” in Gstaad. Today he rests in Stoke d'Abernon, in the garden of the Yehudi Menuhin School which he himself founded there.

Yehudi Menuhin had the rare privilege to be personally acquainted with the two icons of English music of the past 150 years: Edward Elgar and Benjamin Britten. While Elgar's music still belongs to the post-Romantic era, Britten's is part of the avant-garde of the mid-20^th century. He established a very close relationship with each of them, one that strongly influenced the rest of his career.

They celebrated this friendship by inviting each other to their respective festivals: Britten in Aldeburgh, Menuhin in Bath and Gstaad, where Britten the pianist played the first notes of the Menuhin Festival in 1957, alongside his partner Peter Pears, cellist Maurice Gendron, and of course Menuhin.

London musical life in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries was ironically driven by musicians from continental Europe. Composers such as Handel and later Johann Christian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (who travelled there with his father Leopold at the age of eight), Joseph Haydn, followed by Felix Mendelssohn and Antonín Dvořák, were captivated by the artistic vitality of the city, which provided so many opportunities and, beyond its walls, such romantic scenery of untamed nature! It was only at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries that authentically English composers such as Elgar, Delius, Bridge, Vaughan Williams, Holst or Britten gained real popularity, putting an end to centuries of continental supremacy.

London today is punctuated by a rich and varied musical life that breaks down the barriers of genre, and whose heart and driving force are undoubtedly to be found in the summertime “BBC Proms”. With more than 70 concerts attended each evening by over 5,000 people in the Royal Albert Hall and other venues in the city, they celebrate the world and the magic of music.

It would be an impossible task to bring together all the musical richness of this City of London in a single edition of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival & Academy; however, many facets of this affluence will be featured in Gstaad next summer. From July 16 to September 4, 2021, we would like to invite you to take part in this great musical celebration.

Welcome to the 65th edition of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival!

Yours truly,

Christoph Müller, Artistic Director

Friday 16 July 2021
7.30 pm, Saanen Church

Chamber music
Daniel Hope & Friends I – Menuhin in London I

Transformation

12 July — 31 August 2024

Cycle «Change II» 2023 — 2025

65th Gstaad Menuhin Festival & ACADEMY | 16 July – 4 September 2021

London – a European music city