Outside the Festspielhaus, visitors are already gathering for the performance on the Seebühne, while inside, violinist Dorice Köstenberger, bassoonist Ryo Yoshimura, and solo cellist Michael Vogt make their final preparations. In an hour, they will take the stage for the Opera at the Lake. For now, they share what it is like to work with their instruments, their lifelong partners in both triumph and challenge. For Dorice Köstenberger, the bond with her violin was so vital that, as a talented young girl, she spent a whole year looking for her violin: A more than 400-year-old instrument by Dutch violin maker, Hendrik Jacobs, known for its colorful and nuanced sound. “It has a little belly,” Köstenberger says affectionately. The happiest days come twice a year when she brings it to her luthier who has “made it bloom.” But there are also challenging days. 

Michael Vogt can confirm this. Since 2012, he has been playing a 1705 cello provided by a private foundation. “The instrument wants to breathe,” he explains. “It responds, for instance, to thermal changes, which can completely alter its responsiveness. Here in Bregenz, the air is more humid than in Vienna, or even up in the Bregenzerwald, where I live during the festival season. You have to adjust and play differently—something you learn over many years.”

As Vogt adds, an “ordinary musician” could never afford such an instrument, “unless perhaps as a highly paid soloist.” The same applies even more so to the violin that Dalibor Karvay, the Wiener Symphoniker concertmaster, has been playing for the past two years: A true Stradivarius, made in 1694 and, as Karvay says, “in excellent condition.” “Few cracks, plenty of original varnish,” he explains over the phone from Vienna. “It’s a special instrument and initially did not want to cooperate fully—it can’t handle too much pressure. But now we know each other pretty well.” One can sense how many great violinists have played it before. Named after one of its early owners as the “Ex-Bennecke” Stradivarius, it is part of the Austrian National Bank’s extensive collection, not only demonstrating Austria’s deep connection to culture but also serving as a lucrative investment. Prices for top-class instruments rise year after year, driven by wealthy investors. Dorice Köstenberger notes that recently a violin bow as sold at an auction for eleven million euros—mind you, just the bow, which is at least as important as the instrument itself.

Ryo Yoshimura faces different challenges with her bassoon. After waiting two years for a newly built instrument from the leading maker Heckel, she now faces a daily challenge: To decide which reed to use, sometimes even having to shave it to perfection. “I carry a box of reeds with me,” she explains. “What I use in the orchestra concert in Vienna doesn’t always work here in Bregenz. Sometimes the choice depends on the work we’re performing.” The musicians and their instruments—an almost inexhaustible topic. Jan Nast can certainly attest to this. As a trained horn player, he has been director of the Wiener Symphoniker since 2019 and for 22 years he has been working as orchestra director of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, one of the world’s oldest orchestras.

“While old instruments are highly prized among strings—even though modern replicas can sound excellent, the situation is quite different for wind players,” he explains. “Brass instruments wear down over time, and instrument-making has made enormous advances in the last fifty years.” Recently in Bregenz, he met a trumpeter with several large cases: “He had ordered five different models to try out, showing them to his colleagues to ensure that the new trumpet would also be suitable in terms of sound”

With this variety of instruments, the musicians of the Wiener Symphoniker nevertheless must produce a unified sound. A sound that carries a sense of effortless magic—and for which Jan Nast and the three musicians have, indeed, their own explanations. Nast highlights three particularly special instruments: the Vienna oboe, the Vienna horn, and the specially headed timpani. He also mentions the soft, slightly sweet tone (“not so masculine, rather feminine”) and the gentle imprecision in playing. Finally, even during auditions, they pay attention to where someone studied. “People need to come together in harmony,” says Michael Vogt. “They have to learn that they are part of a whole.” Dorice Köstenberger adds that “It’s important that the vibrato matches, and that we breathe together. Intuition plays a big role.” Truly, a small miracle. Köstenberger has played first violin since 1986; soon she will retire. “That will be difficult,” she says. An orchestra like this is also a home.

Since the festival’s founding in 1946, the Wiener Symphoniker have spent every summer as the “orchestra in residence” at the Bregenzer Festspiele, living and working for over six weeks in their second home at Lake Constance. In addition to performing as the orchestra for productions on the Seebühne and in the Festspielhaus, the devoted summer musicians of Vorarlberg traditionally present three orchestra concerts with renowned conductors and soloists from classical music.