Essentially swiss: Chamber Soloists Lucerne on stage (Picture by Sanat K. Sinha)

If you hail from a land of yodels, echoes, unmatched confection and, of course, Alpine majesty, chances are, you’ll be a content bloke. And jollity ? as an inherent philosophy ? reigned during the performance of the Chamber Soloists Lucerne under the aegis of Consular Agency of Switzerland, Calcutta, and Sanskriti Sagar at G.D. Birla Sabhagar on October 20. Notes frolicked, especially in the lower registers, supported by Jurg Eichenberger’s masterly bass during Schubert’s Streichtrio B-Dur D 471 Allegro, compelling a sense of ease ahead of the four Swiss folksongs that ensued.

The first one was reassuringly warm and soporiferous, and aptly so, as the piece sought to cajole a little girl to sleep during the cruelly icy winter months. The second, which traced its origins to the “Italian side” of Switzerland, serenaded, in contrast, the winter-induced gaiety that prevails in this neck of the woods, complemented by galloping rhythms and an all too endearing melody. “More Swissness” apparently marked the number that provided a curious peek into the psychology of “another kind of Swiss people” who are convinced that humility and providential solicitude are key ingredients in wooing: a stark beckoning element which stretched to the almost hymnal adequately represented the trepidation chronic to a potential lover in the region.

The “French face” of the country was thereafter showcased by a song that celebrated the much-vaunted Swiss terrain via earnest and full-bodied strains, in what appeared to be a guarded paean to the nation’s mountainous splendour. The quartet ended this phase of the show by going pluckily parochial, highlighting the unwavering glee that fetes the ambience in Lucerne, thanks to its enviable spate of cash-flushed tourists, idyllic lake resorts and unending Kodak moments.

With the amusing lesson on the hydra-headed sociocultural fabric of Switzerland duly absorbed, the group began an impressive session that bespoke its versatility and a keen espousal of contemporary composers.

Travelling East by Daniel Schnyder, an American with a ravenous palate for the experimental, proved an engaging amalgam of trilly and taut notes, with Yang Jing’s pipa, virtuosic and remarkably harmonic, steering the composition to a subtly oriental mould, kindling, rather deftly, an almost monastic calm, in an asthmatic interplay of Jing’s crisp, brittley punctuations and a rhythm that courted both the hillbilly and the strident.

With the lesson about, this time, the “Shanghaian side” of Switzerland, learnt, a sonic carnival waited in the wings ? and with it arrived, in Eichenberger’s words, the “classical-ness” of the concert, thanks to a gem from Mozart’s formidable oeuvre, Divertimento for strings.

A post-pubertal effort, and very much emblematic of his wizardry, the quartet’s respect for the composition was evident through its formulaic technique: the melodic structure ? urgent, steady and rigorously Mozartean ? involved a charming leitmotif being expertly interposed with an equally lyrical set of subordinate themes.

Again, it is perhaps the sunny disposition that comes as a state subsidy to those who reside in Lucerne that prevented this group from being either disheartened or viewing this concert as a non-starter, considering it played to an audience of around 50 people in an auditorium that hosts in excess of 650.