Memorials & tributes

Île de Peilz

Type

Island / album sleeve

Address

Lac Léman, au large de Villeneuve

Set offshore from Villeneuve, at the eastern end of Lake Geneva and some five hundred metres from the mouth of the Eau Froide, the Île de Peilz is the smallest and the only natural island in the lake. A few dozen square metres, a monumental London plane tree planted in 1851 to replace poplars, a few shrubs: that is all. Local tradition holds that it was no more than a rock until 1797, before being covered with earth and ringed by a retaining wall, repaired in 1820, 1851 and again in 2010; a wooden house is said to have stood there in the nineteenth century, and nothing of it remains. The island belongs to the commune of Villeneuve and landing is not advised: it is admired from the shore. Its link with music comes down to an image. In 1976 and 1977, Yes were staying at Mountain Studios in Montreux to record “Going for the One”; a photograph of the island appears inside the record’s sleeve. The smallest piece of land in Lake Geneva thus slipped into one of the great albums of progressive rock.

Related artists :YesRick Wakeman