80 years of Bartók in Saanen
Exhibition during the Gstaad Menuhin Festival 2019
11.08.2019
In 2019 an exhibition entitled "80 Years of Bartók in Saanen" was mounted in Saanen during the Gstaad Menuhin Festival.
Using documents from the Paul Sacher Foundation and the Saanen Menuhin Center, it recalled the three and a half weeks that Bartók spent in Chalet Aellen, Saanen, at the invitation of Paul Sacher in August 1939. The displays focused primarily on letters and music manuscripts regarding the Divertimento for String Orchestra, which Bartók composed there in fulfilment of a commission from Sacher.
Curated by Felix Meyer, the exhibition opened in the Kleines Landhaus on 11 August 2019 and was on display from 16 August to 6 September in the Gstaad Festival Tent.
Conrad Beck, Béla Bartók, and Paul Sacher, Schönenberg, Pratteln, 1937 (private photograph, Paul Sacher Collection)
Béla Bartók, Divertimento for String Orchestra (1939), Score draft, p. 1 (Béla Bartók Collection)