Verbier Festival: Simon Rattle Conducts Ligeti, Wagner, Rachmaninov, and Strauss

Herz — Switzerland Desk · 21 July 2026 at 22:09 · 30s summary · 2 min read

What we know

British conductor Simon Rattle led the Verbier Festival's second major symphonic evening on July 21, 2026, according to Le Temps. He was at the helm of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, a temporary ensemble gathering young musicians from around the world each summer, and serves as its artistic director.

The program brought together four musical worlds: György Ligeti's Atmosphères, Richard Wagner's Lohengrin Prelude, pages by Sergei Rachmaninov, and Richard Strauss.

The evening opened with Ligeti's Atmosphères—orchestral masses that are nearly motionless within a space without contours. The work was performed without pause before Wagner's Lohengrin Prelude, where strings in the extreme high register unfold an irradiating inner light.

Context

The Verbier Festival's first major symphonic evening in 2026 was devoted to the Turangalîla-Symphonie—a work for orchestra and two solo instruments composed by Olivier Messiaen between 1946 and 1948, commissioned in 1945 by Serge Koussevitzky.

What's happening in Switzerland

Swiss classical music will experience another notable moment on August 16, 2026, in Gstaad: British pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason will make her debut there, performing Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Budapest Festival Orchestra—a Hungarian ensemble founded in 1983—under the baton of Iván Fischer.

Isata Kanneh-Mason is the eldest of seven siblings, all of whom are musicians. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London thanks to a scholarship granted by Sir Elton John.

What remains uncertain

Available sources do not specify which specific works by Rachmaninov and Richard Strauss were included in the July 21 evening's program at Verbier.