Classical music
Oskar Jüttner
Oskar Jüttner (born 1863 in Liegnitz, in Prussian Silesia) was, from 1889 to 1906, the conductor of the orchestra of the Casino-Kursaal de Montreux, at the heart of the resort’s social life in the belle époque. Appointed at twenty-six, he made music one of the attractions of the spa town, before giving way to Julius Lange and then Ernest Ansermet.
Oskar Jüttner, the music of belle-époque Montreux
The conductor of the Casino-Kursaal, morning and evening
In the belle époque of tourism, the reputation of a resort like Montreux rested as much on its palaces as on the quality of its music. Appointed at twenty-six, in 1889, Oskar Jüttner gave daily concerts, morning and evening, for seventeen years at the Casino-Kursaal, the forerunner of the Casino de Montreux.
His repertoire blended the great classics, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, with the new French school of Chabrier, Massenet and Vincent d’Indy.
The great soloists of Lake Geneva
Jüttner drew to Montreux soloists of the very first rank: the violinists Pablo de Sarasate and Joseph Joachim, the cellist Pablo Casals, the pianist and future Polish statesman Ignacy Paderewski. He left the town in 1906, opening the way to Julius Lange and then, from 1912, to the young Ernest Ansermet.