Lisa Streich

WATCHMAKING AND MUSIC

A Harmonious Match

We spoke with the talented Swedish composer Lisa Streich, who told us all about her work with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and her collaboration with Carl F. Bucherer, for which she has written a musical work dedicated to the Manero Minute Repeater Symphony.

TEXT SOPHIE COLIN

With this collaboration, Carl F. Bucherer and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra are certainly reading from the same printed music. Their partnership cements not only their shared Lucerne roots but also the same exacting technical and creative imperatives the two have adopted, one in watchmaking, the other in music. The talented Swedish composer Lisa Streich shares their passion and quest in continually striving for perfection. Continuing her collaboration with the orchestra – with which she has been working for over two years – she wrote Periphery, a musical work dedicated to the Manero Minute Repeater Symphony. The result is an incredible artwork which pays tribute to the precise harmony with which the components of a watch and the instruments of the musicians in an orchestra all work together in perfect synchronization. Let the music play!

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© PETER FISCHLI

LISA STREICH, CAN YOU TELL US HOW YOU CAME TO WORK WITH THE LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA AND WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT THIS ORCHESTRA?

As long as I live, I’ll be grateful to have had this incredible experience of working with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra! In 2015, as part of the festival, I was commissioned to write a piece by the Roche Young Commission of the Swiss pharmaceuticals company Roche, which, every two years, commissions a young composer and an experienced composer to write a new composition. I worked with the orchestra and the young composer Gregor Mayrhofer. It was fantastic! We experimented with different ideas for two years. Orchestras very rarely get to do that. Usually, when you write a piece, there’s not enough time to get off the beaten track and be as adventurous as that. But the point of creating a morceau is being able to explore something you’re unfamiliar with. That was how I wrote my piece of music, and I learned so much! Today, I’m using everything I learned then in my new compositions.

FOR PERIPHERY, HOW DID YOU WORK WITH THE LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA AND CARL F. BUCHERER?

Mark Sattler (the festival’s head of contemporary music) asked me to compose a piece for a watch because he knew I was fascinated by mechanical objects. And by the connection between machines and humans. I felt incredibly honored to be working with this fabulous orchestra and such a prestigious watchmaker. It’s fantastic to work with people who are not musicians but who have the same ideas and dreams which you have. We’re like scientists: We experiment and take risks. Sometimes we fail and sometimes we succeed. We have a lot in common.

HOW DO YOU WRITE A PIECE OF MUSIC FOR A WATCH?

I wanted to reproduce the actual sounds the watch makes. I was able to take the different components of the watch and bring them together musically in different ways. It was both a simple and a sophisticated process. In the piece, you can hear each component individually and then all together. They talk to each other. No part can work without the others. It’s like the human body – it needs all its organs to be able to function. It’s amazing to see so many different components all working together! I take the audience into the interior of the watch so that they can take in what is happening, I leave them there, and then I bring them back out again.

WATCHMAKING AND MUSIC HAVE A LOT IN COMMON: THEY ARE GOVERNED BY TIME AND THERE IS THE SAME SYNCHRONIZATION BETWEEN THE PARTS OF A WATCH AND THE MUSICIANS IN AN ORCHESTRA. WHEN YOU COMPOSE, HOW DO YOU BRING ALL THE DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS TOGETHER TO CREATE THE PIECE?

I always keep in mind how the instruments fit together spatially and where the sound comes from. The recording recreates what is going on in each part of the orchestra. It’s very interesting, because time was never so present as when I was composing the piece for this watch. Periphery had to last for two minutes and 30 seconds, whereas it’s usually up to me how long my compositions last.

HOW DOES THIS SYNCHRONIZATION COME ABOUT WITHIN THE LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, WHICH IS A SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA?

What makes this festival special is that the musicians only play together during the summer. They are really good musicians, more used to playing chamber music, so you can ask a lot more of them than you would of the musicians in a regular orchestra. If you put a score in front of them, they will play it perfectly synchronized straight off. All the composer and conductor have to do is bring them together, and the sound they make is incredible.