Festivals 1978

Rodney Milnes

Festivals need three things: anniversaries to give shape to their programmes, visitors, and money. This year's centenaries include Schubert, Vivaldi, Janacek, Bull, Jenkins and Arne. The first two alone Wrote enough music to sate festivals for ten years to come, and plenty of it is represented this summer. Only one Janacek opera surfaces (Edinburgh), but as he is now in repertory of all our major companies, this is less of a hole than it Would have been ten years ago. No Arne Opera, which seems a pity — he wrote dozens. I am already looking forward to 1985 (if we get there), the tercentenary of Bach and Handel. That is going to be a marathon.

We are even now entering the open season for moaning about tourists in London, bless them: let us hope they Pack their rucksacks and head for Cheltenham, Nottingham and many points north. But rates of exchange being what they are, British music festivals offer amazing value for money, and not just to foreigners. Those of us who cannot con sider Salzburg at £40 or so a seat can still manage Edinburgh even with slightly increased prices — and as I never tire of writing, the Athens of the North has rather more to offer in the way of range than the Edinburgh of the South. As for money, the Arts Council and an everincreasing body of private sponsors continue to scrape the bottom of their purses. They must find it worthwhile.

But most of all, a festival has to have a setting. It may be possible, once, to promote a series of concerts and call it a festival. Seven years ago there was a festival of Reading. Some of my best friends live, well, near Reading, but somehow it is not the sort of place to spend a week listening to Schoenberg and dabbling in brass-rubbing. On the other hand there are many towns we all mean to visit — like King's Lynn — and the promise of music can tip the balance between intent and packing the bags.

It is not just the architecture, the countryside, the food, though all are important. It is the feeling of release, of getting

some return on a sore seat. Brighton, that super-stylish old tart of a town, is just the job for those who want vice as well as Vivaldi, and the escape route to London runs all night (this year's festival is over, bad luck). I know someone who visits Harrogate more than seems strictly necessary, and certainly this highVictorian spa with its Stray is redolent of twirled moustachios and venal chaperones.

Cheltenham, with its irresponsible wrought-iron balconies like a glimpse of frilly knicker beneath a nun's habit, is an ideal festival city. And what is the worm in the apparently irreproachable bud of Bath? One day I shall find out. Last year there were some chinks in the armour of Edinburgh: sunk in gloom at the prospect of a Scottish Sunday, I found my hotel bar open from dawn to midnight and coming on like the cities of the plain. There has to be something for those not just there for the Brahms and Liszt. Reading somehow didn't fit the bill. It never caught on.

Here, in no particular order, are some of the major British festivals of 1978 and what they have on offer:

Edinburgh (20 August — 9 September). Peter Diamand's thirteenth and last year running this international festival with less-than-international prices. Rumour has it that his successor is less than keen on opera, and Diamand is certainly letting rip: the much praised Ponnelle-Harnoncourt Monterverdi cycle from Zurich (which will doubtless have native musicologists spitting chips): Katya Kabanova from Frankfurt, with Hildegard Behrens; a revival of last year's Carmen with Berganza; Scottish Opera's PelMas et Melisande; concert performances of Nono's Al gran' carico del sole (getting into scandal-time we all hope) and The Damnation of Faust, with Jessye Norman. An emphasis on Schubert and Janacek in concerts by the Dresden Staatskapelle, Scottish National, London, Chicago and BBC Symphony Orchestras; conductors Abbado, Boulez, Solti, Giulini, Gibson, Previn, Barenboim, Zukerman; soloists Brendel, Stern, Fischer-Dieskau, Cotrubas. A theatre company from Moscow with A Month in the Country and Gogol's The Marriage. Diamand's last word on the Great Opera House Saga: 'I'm fed up with it.' Hear, hear.

St Magnus, Orkney (16 — 20 June). The second festival, based on the work of Orkney's resident composer. Last year's intrepid travellers reported warmly. Weather variable. A Rew Maxwell Davies , opera (The Two Fiddlers) and a new music-theatre piece, Le Jongleur de Notre Dame. Concerts in St Magnus' Cathedral by the Fires of London — Handel, Monteverdi and Bach as well as contemporary works. Street theatre. Also a Midnight Pibroch at Orkney's most famous

megalithic henge monument (by kind permission of the Department of the Environment).

Bath (26 May — 4 June). One of the great mainstream festivals, for the fourth year under the directorship of Sir William Glock. Mozart, Haydn and Schubert masses by various groups in various great ecclesiastical edifices. The newly formed Rye Spring Opera performs one-acters. Marian Montgomery and Richard Rodney Bennett with their Gershwinto-Sondheim recital, and the London Sin

fonietta. The featured composer is Robin Holloway.

Cheltenham (7 — 16 July). Much Schubert: two Brendel recitals, and morning concerts at the Pittville Pump Room by the Chilingirian Quartet and the Parikian Trio, with Schubert tempered by Haydn and British works. The second emphasis is on British composers, with commissions or recent works from Bennett, Fricker, Hamilton (a new scena, Cleopatra, for Lois McDonall) Tate, Maw, Berkeley, Rawsthorne. The anniversaries of Bull, Jenkins and Arne are marked. Opera at the restored Everyman Theatre: Kent's excellent Seraglio and Orfeo.

Aldeburgh (8 — 25 June). With Edinburgh, one of the two really essential British festivals. Exhibitions of Henry Moore, John Piper and Reynolds Stone. Sir Peter Pears, in the midst of his heart-warming Indian Spring, sings lrl Death in Venice, speaks the Voice of God in Noyes Fludde, and conducts as well Kent Opera's Orfro is preceded by a lecture on Monteverdi by Denis Arnold. Rostropovich playing 'cello suites; Dame

Janet Baker; Mabel Mercer; the Beaus Arts; Princess Grace of Monaco; the

Amadeus. A programme of filmed musicals, from Love me Tonight (Chevalie( and McDonald) to Peter Brook's The Beggar's Opera, with Olivier.

Glyndebourne (28 May — August 7). A vintage year, with interest divided between the Zauberflote that opens the sea. son (Andrew Davis, John Cox, David Hockney) and the new Cosi fan tulle (Bernard Haitink, Petet Hall, John Bury) launched on July 9. A new Boheme ifl old sets (Cox, June 21), and revivals of last year's Don Giovanni and the Cox' Hockney Rake's Progress.

King's Lynn (21 — 29 July). A solid, middle-of-the-road festival that sounds more inviting each year. A series of David Lean films, and entertaining chat' evenings devoted to Fanny Burney, Groucho Marx and Fritz Spiegl. Meaty concerts by the Halle and the LSO, King's Singers. Contrapuncti with The Soldier's Tale. Interesting-sounding tours of town and country.

Haslemere (21 — 29 July). The oldest established, permanent floating Early Music Festival in the world. Among featured composers none of us have ever heard of this year are Froberger, GuilleMent, Schmelzer, Graupner, De La Torre, Mondonville, Fasch, Richard I and Henry VI. Phew. Handel, Vivaldi, Bach and Telemann as well.

Nottingham (2 — 18 June). Another well established middle-of-the-road festival. Prospect Theatre Company, John Lill, solid concerts (including Heather Harper singing the Strauss Four Last Songs), the Royal Ballet, and the Spinners. It's a Knock Out (ugh). Good films — Visconti's The Innocent, The Lace-Maker, Serail. Pot. the first time, a Nottingham Fringe, launched by a Sir Peter Pears master Class. Some fringe.

Greenwich (10 — 25 June). A middlebrow festival with bags of community and semi-professional participation, launched' as every by an encouraging word from the Duke of Edinburgh. Offerings range from Tommy Cooper to John ShirleyQuirk (Winterreise). Concerts in the Royal Naval College Chapel — Haydn's Nelson Mass (of course), Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette, and much else. An 'instant' Messiah in St Alphege's.

Malvern (22 May — 11 June). Shaw (performed by Abbey Theatre, Prospect and Triumph Productions) and Elgar: King Olaf and orchestral works played by the the Royal Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and London Symphony Orchestras.

Plrlochry (until 30 September). After 25 Years, in the midst of a massive rebuilding appeal. Summer season of plays by Shakespeare, Travers, Rattigan, Brecht, and two new works by fain Blair and Eric l;v1acDonald. A series of Sunday concerts taunched by Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich.

City of London (17 — 29 July). The Yeomen of the Guard in The Tower Moat with Tommy Steele as Jack Point, and bella Jones, Johanna Peters, David Hillman and Denis Wicks. Also Kent Opera, S„r Martin's Academy, London SinMnietta, Nash Ensemble.

SPItalfields (4 — 10 June). A festival of early music in Christ Church, Hawksinoor's masterpiece, given by Richard Flickox Singers, Academy of Ancient Musica Reservata, and soloists `belicit y Lott, Carolyn Watkinson, James '30wman.

Manchester International Organ Festival (I — 9 September). A new venture based 'n an organ competition for players tinder thirty years of age, with concerts an recitals as well, all at the Royal Northern College of Music.