Portrait d’une famille suisse
Portrait of a Swiss family

À la famille Gilg et Schneider
Dedicated to the Gilg and Schneider family

for clarinet, baritone saxophone, alphorn, and string sextet
Composed: in Lucerne and Vienna between July 2022 and December 25, 2023
Duration: ca. 45 minutes

    I Panorama 1 : Un joueur de cor des Alpes à l’église de Rifferswil
(An alphornist at the church in Rifferswill)
Vienne, décembre 2022, duration 1‘16“

    II Une vie en accéléré (Bernhard)
(Life in the fast lane)
Vienne, le 20 janvier 2023, duration 2‘32“

    III Portrait d’une dame avec la pipe sur la chaise-longue (Ruth)
(Portrait of a lady with a pipe on a chaise-longue)
Vienne, le 1er mars 2023, duration 4‘53“

    IV Panorama 2 : Joueurs de cor des Alpes sur le lac de Lucerne
(Alphornists at Lake Lucerne)
Vienne, le 6 mars, 2023, duration 1‘

    V Un enfant suisse en grand voyage de découverte (Adelheid)
(A Swiss child on a great journey of discovery)
Vienne, le 20 avril 2023, duration 2‘25“

    VI Un gardien et protecteur avec du cœur et de l’humour (Felix)
(A guardian and protector with courage and humor)
Vienne, le 14 mai 2023, duration 5‘05“

    VII Panorama 3 : Randonnée dans la neige entre Rifferswil et Knonau
(Hiking in the snow between Rifferswil and Knonau)
Vienne, le 1er juillet 2023, duration 54“

    VIII Vivre entre tradition et modernité (Thomas)
(Life between tradition and modernity)
Vienne, le 28 juillet 2023, duration 4‘40“

    X Panorama 4 : Beatenberg: Une vue sur les glaciers de l’Eiger, du Mönch et de la Jungfrau
(Beatenberg: a view of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau glaciers)
Vienne, le 29 juillet, 2023, duration 0‘40“

    X La curiosité pour l’histoire et l’actualité (Oliver)
(Die Neugier auf Geschichte und Gegenwart)
Vienne, le 1er septembre 2023, duration 3‘35“

    XI Une approche lente et ludique dans les nuages de la sensibilité (Susanna)
(A slow, playful approach to the aura of sensitivity)
Vienne, le 24 septembre 2023: duration 4‘02

    XII La guérison de la nature et de l’âme (Pascal)
(The healing of nature and the soul)
Vienne, le 8 octobre 2023, duration 5‘36“

    XIII Panorama 5 Le Mont Blanc et la Bise
(Mont Blanc and the Bise)
Vienne, le 11 octobre 2023, duration 0‘25“

    XIV Un médecin passionnée et un cuisinier gourmet (Adelheid et Felix)
(A passionate doctor and a gourmet chef)
Vienne, le 30 octobre 2023, duration 2‘30“

    XV Les amis de la famille (Dr. Reto Cadisch, „Ricarda“ Kolkmann, Benno Hegi, Prof. Dr. Bruno Truniger)
(Family friends)
Vienne, le 17 décembre 2023, duration 5‘14“

    XVI Vue sur les Alpes au départ de l’avion
(View of the Alps during takeoff)
Vienne, le 25 décembre 2023, duration 1‘29

About the composition:

The sixth and last of the Divertissements Suisses op. 10 No.6 was written between 2022 and 2023. With its sixteen movements, more than 130 pages of score and 1500 measures, a nonet instrumentation (which can, however, also be performed by seven musicians, provided the wind player can play all three instruments), and a duration exceeding 45 minutes, it is by far the most extensive work in this cycle, the culmination, so to speak, of the development of a harmonic idea inherent in this cycle.

It was commissioned by Adelheid and Felix Schneider-Gilg, friends and private patrons of René Staar's work.

The six individual movements entitled "Panorama 1-6" constitute the framework of the Divertissements. They are memories and dreams of the Swiss landscape, its mountains, and its nature. They function as spiritual impulses for this multilayered Divertissement, whose diverse ideas develop from preformed harmonic processes. These panoramic movements reveal the perspective of the work's inner movements, which combine loosely connected dance movements that function as portraits of the family members.

The first large musical part consists of the first three movements. The first movement (Panorama 1) is inspired by the experience of hearing an alphorn solo (Un joueur de cor des Alpes à l'église de Rifferswil) at the funeral of Ruth Gilg-Ludwig; it leads attacca into the second movement, a portrait of Bernhard Gilg, a renowned Swiss engineer and builder of dams in the Swiss Alps, the Middle East, and South America during the 1950s. This movement, entitled "Une vie en accéléré" (Life in the fast lane), consists of the parts "Arpentage" (Inspection), "Conception" (Planning), "Construction" (Building), and "Monument" (Monument), reflecting the way an engineer divides a large building's different phases of construction.

The third movement, entitled "Portrait d'une dame avec la pipe sur la chaise-longue" (Portrait of a lady with a pipe on the chaise-longue), is dedicated to Bernhard Gilg's sometimes eccentric wife Ruth Gilg-Ludwig. The movement's title refers to the moments when the lady of the house would make herself comfortable on her sofa after lunch while reading the Zürcher Zeitung and lighting a pipe. She was an extremely active educator, the principal of a private school in Zurich, and was interested in current affairs and cultural events. The parts of this movement aim to trace her diverse activities, from her garden parties ("Une fête dans le jardin") to her educational cooperation projects in Kyrgyzstan, India, and Nigeria (portrayed by the parts "Danse Kirghiz," "Les Odeurs de l'Indie," and "Juju," a Nigerian dance with a markedly syncopated profile). The movement concludes with the short section "Le dernier domicile de Mme. Ludwig." Mme. Ludwig was Ruth's mother, and spent the last years of her life in an extension the family had built on their villa in Rifferswil.

The second part comprises movements 4-6. Once again, a panoramic movement (Joueurs de cor des Alpes sur le lac de Lucerne – Alphornists at Lake Lucerne) leads into two further movements: the fifth movement, "Un enfant suisse en grand voyage de découverte" (A Swiss child on a great journey of discovery), and the sixth movement, "Un gardien et protecteur avec du cœur et de l'humour" (A guardian and protector with courage and humor). Adelheid was Bernhard and Ruth's daughter, and her first great journey in her father's car from Switzerland to Turkey via the Balkans kindled her curiosity and desire for foreign cultures. The fifth movement begins as a dance journey with a Swiss Ländler, and then traverses a large territory that extends from Yugoslavian Kolo and Greek Rembetiko all the way to an Anatolian Asak, while in the following sixth movement Felix, Adelheid's husband, represents the preserving and protective element of the family with a Sarabande and a Gavotte.

The third part of the Divertissement consists of the eighth movement, which is surrounded by two panoramas and is dedicated to Adelheid's brother Thomas, who plays the alphorn. "Vivre entre tradition et modernité" (Life between tradition and modernity) characterizes an open-minded Swiss youth during the 1960s and 70s with all the problems this attitude entailed, such as the gradual repression of youthful dreams, the agony of choosing a career, and the regulatory apparatus of military service. Dance elements, an erratic clarinet solo, and a pseudo-patriotic march are parts of this constantly evolving movement. The two surrounding panoramic movements are the seventh movement, entitled "Randonée dans la neige entre Rifferswil et Knonau" (Hiking in the snow between Rifferswil and Knonau), and the ninth movement, entitled "Beatenberg - une vue sur les glaciers de l'Eiger, du Mönch et de la Jungfrau" (Beatenberg: a view of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau glaciers).

The fourth part comprises movements 10-12, which explore the personalities of the family's three children. The title of the tenth movement, "La curiosité pour l'histoire et l'actualité" (Curiosity about history and current affairs), depicts the life of the first-born son Oliver, for whom the drums became a refuge while he was a teenager and living under family stress – hence the dance-like content and a noisy section with a howling saxophone. The texture of the eleventh movement, "Une approche lente et ludique dans les nuages de la sensibilité" (A slow, playful approach to the aura of sensitivity), is more relaxed, almost playful. Dedicated to Susanna, the daughter of the family, it concludes with a breath in almost solitary tenderness in order to make way for the brash, ambitious twelfth movement, which is intended for the youngest member of the family, Pascal – an environmental researcher and technician: "La guerison de la nature et de l'âme" (The healing of nature and the soul). A broad, seemingly inquisitive saxophone solo also appears during the course of the movement.

In the final section, two panorama movements once again frame two portrait movements embedded within them. The fifth panorama, and the thirteenth movement overall, is entitled "Le Mont Blanc et la Bise," and makes the listener feel the bitterly cold wind blowing down from the glaciers of Mont Blanc. "Un médecin passionée et un cuisinier gourmet" (A passionate doctor and a gourmet chef) is the title of the fourteenth movement. Our doctor drives through Switzerland in her Alfa Romeo to save lives, while her faithful companion conjures up one gourmet meal after another, and with his culinary skills keeps her energized and full of life. In the fifteenth movement, "Les amis de la famille" (Family friends), Dr. Reto Cadisch, "Ricarda" Kolkmann, Benno Hegi, and Prof. Dr. Bruno Truniger appear one after another following an introductory polonaise. Shorter, ironically dancelike sections characterize the figures from the past and present, whereby rhythmic formulas and developments take up phrases from the first movements, varying and combining them in new ways. Echoes of jazz and a concluding mazurka lead to an fff climax, which is followed by an interwoven, fragmented chorale that functions as a farewell and a transition to the last movement, the sixth and final Panorama. "Vue sur les Alpes au départ de l'avion" (View of the Alps during takeoff) is the title of the sixteenth movement, whose main task is to dissolve the work's complex harmonies into nothingness, into the most distant, quietest dynamics, from six voices to a single voice, from the lowest to the highest possible register, and finally to fade away.