Music: An Alpine Idyll

An Alpine Idyll

ON a recent gray July morning in the Alpine village of Verbier, Switzerland, pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Christian Tetzlaff were sounding the final notes of a recital encore— the scherzo from Brahms’s Sonata in D minor—when they were joined by the soft murmur of distant thunder. It rumbled through the performance space, a church referred to (simply) as L’Eglise, at exactly the right instant, creating the impression that a gentle timpani roll had been intended all along for the ending of this piece, and everyone, audience members and artists alike, broke into broad smiles.

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Stuart Isacoff

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An Alpine Idyll

ON a recent gray July morning in the Alpine village of Verbier, Switzerland, pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Christian Tetzlaff were sounding the final notes of a recital encore— the scherzo from Brahms’s Sonata in D minor—when they were joined by the soft murmur of distant thunder. It rumbled through the performance space, a church referred to (simply) as L’Eglise, at exactly the right instant, creating the impression that a gentle timpani roll had been intended all along for the ending of this piece, and everyone, audience members and artists alike, broke into broad smiles.