The Lucerne Festival Strings is one of

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

's most frequently touring

chamber orchestra Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

s, which for decades was closely associated with the

Lucerne School of Music The Lucerne School of Music (''Hochschule Luzern – Musik'') is a professional school for musicians located in Lucerne, Switzerland, and closely associated with the city's annual music festival. It is a division of the Lucerne University of Appl ...

, being for many years an "ensemble in residence".

History

The orchestra was founded in 1956 by Wolfgang Schneiderhan and Rudolf Baumgartner as part of the Lucerne International Music Festival (today:

Lucerne Festival Lucerne Festival is one of the leading international festivals in the world of classical music and presents a series of classical music festivals based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Founded in 1938 by Ernest Ansermet and Walter Schulthess, it curr ...

); the latter directed it until 1998. His successor as artistic director was Achim Fiedler who held the position from 1998 to summer 2012.The Australian-Swiss violinist Daniel Dodds has been artistic director since the 2012/2013 season. Managing Director is Hans-Christoph Mauruschat. In recent years, the CD label

Sony Classical Sony Classical is an American record label founded in 1924 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. In 1980, the Columbia Masterworks label was renamed as CBS Masterworks Records. The CBS Records Group was acquired ...

and

Oehms Classics Oehms Classics is a German classical music label founded in 2003 by Dieter Oehms (born in Manderscheid, Bernkastel-Wittlich in 1941), a former manager for 35 years with DGG/ Polygram and Arte Nova/ BMG.The gramophone: Volume 80, Issues 963-966 ...

have released CD recordings of the ensemble. The Festival Strings Lucerne began in the first year of their existence to acquire an excellent international reputation with recordings for

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

, with which they had an exclusive contract till 1973. From the late 1950s onwards, the Lucerne Festival Strings were among the pioneers of

's "Archive" series, which at the time made record history with the first publication of works by forgotten or hardly known composers, especially from the

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

period, such as

Giuseppe Tartini Giuseppe Tartini (8 April 1692 – 26 February 1770) was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era born in Pirano in the Republic of Venice (now Piran, Slovenia). Tartini was a prolific composer, composing over a hundred pieces for the ...

(1959).

External links

* {{Authority control Musical groups established in 1956 Orchestras in Lucerne Chamber orchestras Lucerne Festival 1956 establishments in Switzerland String orchestras