Trigonale brings early music to wider audiences despite funding tensions

ORF reports that the Trigonale Festival has become an international name over the past two decades by showing the diversity of early music. Its artistic director, Stefan Schweiger, has created a close-knit atmosphere for musicians, although tensions have recently emerged over communication with the state.

Schweiger is an expert in early music and wants to inspire more people to engage with it. Originally a sound and lighting technician, he also built a concert hall for about 100 people at the Musikwerkstatt in Portendorf, using wood he cut himself and without public funding.

Dutch violinist and composer Judith Steenbrink said the programme was developed there. Classical music was increasingly becoming a niche, she said, adding that the answer was to demonstrate it with enthusiasm.

Schweiger said Trigonale concerts were suitable for everyone and required no prior knowledge. He argued that people experienced music differently depending on whether they heard Bruckner, Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann or Henry Purcell. Baroque music, he said, was in some ways close to folk music.

Much of the early music repertoire was written for courts or smaller settings, apart from large sacred works. This had a significant influence on how the music affected audiences, Schweiger said.

The festival’s programme includes music by Hildegard von Bingen, who was also a composer, as well as a concert about musical life in 17th-century London. Schweiger said early music was a broad field that was attracting more outstanding young performers than ever before. Through historical performance practice, they study how the music might have sounded and how musicians 300 years ago might have performed it.

Visitors aged up to 16 receive free admission. The festival also offers a free first ticket to people attending Trigonale for the first time, in an effort to reduce hesitation among potential audiences of all ages.

Schweiger said the festival could still afford the offer because of its relatively stable public funding, but hoped that would remain possible for as long as possible.

A dispute recently arose over the state’s invitation policy. Schweiger said the festival needed greater visibility before its events and proposed regular joint advance coverage in a periodical publication delivered to households across Carinthia. He said shrinking culture departments could no longer provide this on their own.

Schweiger also suggested allocating a small percentage of public subsidies to such promotion. The office of Carinthia’s culture minister, Gabi Schaunig of the Social Democratic Party, said she was willing to discuss the proposal in the cultural committee.

Shared meals are also part of the close-knit community among the festival’s artists.