Gala concerts can be self-indulgent, over-long, and a complete dog’s dinner when it comes to repertoire. But they can also be extraordinary – like the one last week that celebrated 25 years of the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.
A sort of music factory in the mountains, Verbier is famous as a glitzy meet for megastars. But as the festival will tell you, many of these stars were youngsters when they first started going there and became known as the “Verbier Artists”: it’s as much a place for nurturing talent as for genuflecting to the famous.
