More than 40 mountain peaks over 4,000 metres, some 1,500 lakes, large and small, thousands of rivers and streams, and perhaps the highest number of herb gardens per square kilometre in Europe. The per-capita musicality is also substantial, in both quality and quantity.

It is estimated that in the city of Basel (around 185,000 inhabitants) alone, there are 10,000 piccolo players and thousands of drummers, including some of the world’s very best. Music is in Basel’s DNA – with countless amateur choirs and orchestras, professional music schools and academies, as well as several professional orchestras and choirs.

This musicality is not confined to Basel, but extends from Graubünden to Geneva, from Ticino to the Appenzell region. It is not uncommon, for instance, for a group of accordion players (Schwyzerörgeli, Handörgeli or Örgeli) from the canton of Basel-Landschaft to give a spontaneous concert in a restaurant in St. Imier (canton of Bern).

An old Örgeli

Schoolchildren regularly give street concerts, and in many mountain locations, music festivals take place at remarkable altitudes. The highest city in Europe, La Chaux-de-Fonds, even boasts the world-famous Salle de la Musique – just as Montreux welcomes the world’s jazz and pop elite every year.

The quality, quantity and diversity are too overwhelming to list. Yodelling (the Swiss Yodelling Festival will take place in Basel in 2026), folk music, classical, pop, jazz and other genres are present in all forms.

Unfairly, yodelling abroad usually elicits little more than a pitying smile. Yet it is often music of the highest quality – frequently combined with instruments and sometimes with other vocal disciplines.

Hence, here is just a small tribute to one of the many local musicians – simply, in a beautiful Romanesque church and in a restaurant in St. Imier. In the realm of music, too, Switzerland is a bottom-up country – with the highest quality at the top.

This is not self-evident or a given, but rather part of culture, tradition, discipline, organisation, training, and successive generations, even as the system is in decline at the political, journalistic, and governing levels.

Musikweg Unteres Fricktal