Towns & landscapes

Type

Riviera town

Address

1814 La Tour-de-Peilz

Wedged between Vevey and Montreux, La Tour-de-Peilz holds a discreet but real place in the Riviera’s musical history. It was here that Patrick Juvet spent his whole childhood and youth, and worked at the organ of the Temple Saint-Théodule long before disco; it was in that same temple that his family and friends paid him a last tribute in 2021. Every late August the Jardin Roussy hosts Nox Orae, a single-stage contemporary music festival that closes the summer season, and on the neighbouring quays the pop-up guinguette La Boélande programmes concerts and DJs through the fine season. Like many towns, it has its Fête de la Musique: four days in mid-June, from Thursday to Sunday, where the music runs from jazz to rap across a handful of venues, the Domaine de La Doges, the harbour, the market, the lakeside castle, La Boélande and the Temple Saint-Théodule.

La Tour-de-Peilz: organ, brush and open-air stage

Patrick Juvet, a local son

It was in La Tour-de-Peilz that Patrick Juvet grew up, long before disco glitter and “Où sont les femmes?”. As a child he practised the organ at the Saint-Théodule church; it was in that same church that his family bade him farewell in 2021. The town thus keeps the trace of his beginnings, between the discipline of the keyboard and the freedom of the dancefloor.

Gustave Courbet, exile by the lake

In 1873, the French painter Gustave Courbet, leader of Realism, took refuge in Switzerland after the Paris Commune and the fall of the Vendôme column. He settled in La Tour-de-Peilz, in the Bon-Port house facing Lake Geneva, and painted there until his death on 31 December 1877. The town now honours this exceptional neighbour, whose late canvases are among the treasures of the region’s museums.

A castle, a games museum, a composer

By the water, the castle of La Tour-de-Peilz, built in the 13th century by Peter II of Savoy, houses the Swiss Museum of Games, one of a kind: it runs through the whole history of games, from Antiquity to video games. Art music has roots here too: the French composer Henri Duparc, a master of the mélodie, lived in La Tour-de-Peilz from 1906 to 1913.

Nox Orae, La Boélande: the Riviera celebrates

On the stage side, La Tour-de-Peilz closes the summer in music. Each late August, the Jardin Roussy hosts Nox Orae, a single-stage contemporary-music festival by the lake, while the pop-up La Boélande guinguette programmes concerts and DJs in the fine season. All year round, classical concerts also enliven the Château de Sully.

Related artists :Patrick JuvetCarlo BollerRichard WagnerCarl SchurichtHenri DuparcGustave Courbet