Nearly 50 years ago, the writer and broadcaster Bernard Levin announced a new discovery with the sort of excitement David Livingstone must have felt when he stumbled across the Victoria Falls.
Levin had heard rumours of a festival entirely devoted to the complete works of his beloved Schubert. After days of research — poring over maps, railway timetables and such scant information as the Austrian embassy in London could furnish — Levin set out to find out if it could possibly be true.
It was. He was warmly greeted by the festival administrator, a balding young man called Gerd Nachbauer, who shepherded Levin over the next few days as he sat in wonder at the musical miracles on offer, culminating with the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter playing the Trout Quintet.
Levin was hooked. He returned year after year, often with his then partner, Arianna Stassinopoulos, who went on to co-found The Huffington Post. He chronicled each trip in The Times. He returned for a BBC radio series, which then became a book. In 1983, he eulogised it again for the New York Times, speculating on how Herr Nachbauer — by then the festival director — could lure so many of the world’s greatest performers to this obscure corner of western Austria to perform for a fraction of their usual fees.
By then Levin had visited Adelaide, Bayreuth, Glyndebourne, Barcelona, Aix, Salzburg and many others in search of the perfect music festival. The greatest of them all? The Schubertiade in Hohenems.
This year the festival celebrates its 50th year. As well as a few days in Hohenems in October, it has added two weeks in the little village of Schwarzenberg in August. As in the 1970s, it attracts the very best players from around the world. And it is still being run by Nachbauer.
I tried my best to interview Nachbauer on my own first visit more than 10 years ago. He gave monosyllabic answers to most questions, especially the ones he regarded as beneath him. Had he ever considered programming some contemporary pieces? No. Had he ever thought about changing the formula at all? Sigh, no. Was there any artist he had failed to lure to this beautiful part of the Bregenzerwald? He paused for thought. “Pollini.”
Well, why would you change a winning formula? Most concerts are sold out months in advance. The musicians and the audiences keep coming back. The latter know what they like, and they like what they know.
In fact, there was one major concession in its very early years. It was simply too purist to limit the festival to the 1,000-odd works of Schubert. Bit by bit, other composers were allowed in, and today you may even hear — possibly with a slight frisson of savouring forbidden fruit — works as late as Debussy or Ravel.
In other aspects, the controlling hand of Nachbauer is a stern one. While Levin’s enthusiastic outpourings led to an influx of British and even American visitors in the 1980s, the programme notes make no concessions to language. You can get them in German or in German.
Nowadays you do hear some English spoken, but the audience is mostly German and Austrian. Some still dress up in a traditional dirndl or trachtenhose but over the years the dress, and even the general atmosphere, has become more informal.
The Bregenzerwald is an area of stunning beauty. Strap on your walking boots in the morning and head in more or less any direction and you’re guaranteed simply marvellous hikes through mountains, valleys and pastures. The only music will be provided by cow bells.
The local tourist board likes to distinguish the region from the better-known Tyrol. The unspoken implication is that the T-word is for those who like their Austria to be a bit chocolate-boxy and Julie Andrews. The Bregenzerwald, by contrast, is (they emphasise) an area of beauty, culture, contemporary architecture, traditional craft and green life. In the small village of Andelsbuch there is the Werkraum, a 700-square-metre modernist shrine to the local culture of building and living.
The 600-seat main concert venue in Schwarzenberg looks over buttercup meadows and distant hills. Imagine London’s Wigmore Hall transplanted to one of the lesser-known corners of the Lake District or a remote glen in the Highlands. This, surely, is one of the reasons so many musicians make the pilgrimage: a necessary break from their otherwise relentless routine of airports and urban recital halls.
The festival is a triumph of Nachbauer logistics. Most of the audience stay in hotels scattered around the area. A small fleet of coaches operates with military precision to gather up the concertgoers and deposit them at the hall in plenty of time before two horn players in dirndls summon them to their seats.
Most of the hotels will mould their dining arrangements accordingly. You may, if you wish, have three courses at 6pm, be on the bus at 7.11pm precisely, and be back for dessert or cheese by 10.15pm. And if you think Austrian food is a little on the stodgy side, you’re in for a wondrous surprise. I speak as a vegetarian.
And then there is the music. Over the years I have heard numerous Schubert song cycles. I’ve been treated to the varying interpretations of several top-of-their-game string quartets, I’ve sat transfixed by the piano playing of András Schiff, Igor Levit, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Paul Lewis and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Aimard even smuggled into his programme some contemporary Kurtág miniatures, presumably without Nachbauer noticing. Even Homer nods.
If you think I was being a little baldist about the festival director, it was Levin who first remarked on his appearance nearly 50 years ago. He cited Rossini’s dictum that all impresarios in his day were bald before they were 30 because of their habit of tearing their hair out in desperation at the latest disaster.
Nachbauer must have torn out quite a lot of hair over the years. But here he is celebrating 50 years of extraordinary music-making. Book early to avoid disappointment in 2027. And here’s to another 50 years.
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