Festivals began with a primarily religious function on the feastdays of the church and employed music widely for processions and celebratory songs. Later, secular feasts included masques and ballets. Music festivals as such began in Europe in the 18th century with the celebration of particular composers, and especially of Handel. These proliferated in the 19th century with that century’s emphasis on nationalism. Later festivals have centred on a particular place, from the “magic” of Glastonbury to the 18th-century elegance of Bath, or on a particular composer or genre.
Because opera houses tend to have seasons when five or six operas are performed for a few weeks, opera festivals are a natural development. The most famous of these is the Bayreuth Festival founded by Richard Wagner in 1876 for the propagation of his own works. After his death in 1883, the management of the festival was assumed by his widow, Cosima, and in the 1990s was still under the direction of his grandson Wolfgang. The festival has provided a platform for many of the 20th century’s greatest performers, including conductors Arturo TOSCANINI and Wilhelm FURTWÄNGLER, and singers Birgit Nilsson and Lauritz MELCHIOR.
The Salzburg Festival in Austria began in the 1920s to celebrate the city’s most famous son, Wolfgang Mozart. Opera first featured in the festival in 1922 and Mozart remains the focal point but works by many other composers can also be heard, especially those of STRAUSS and MAHLER. In the U.K., the most famous opera festival venue is Glyndebourne, in Sussex. This festival was founded and the opera house built by the enthusiasm of one man, John Christie. It opened in 1934 with the German conductor Fritz Busch—who had fled the Nazi regime—as musical director, and has remained one of the best-loved venues. A larger hall seating 1,200 was opened on May 28, 1994, with a performance of Mozart’s La nozze di Figaro conducted by Bernard Haitink.
Other smaller opera venues in Britain and Ireland that have earned recognition include Garsington in Oxfordshire, where performances are outdoors in a Glyndebourne-like ambience, and Wexford, near Dublin in Ireland, which has become a valuable nursery for young singers.
Many festivals have been built round a particular theme or place. One of the most venerable in the U.K. is the Three Choirs Festival which uses the cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester as a centre for choral concerts. This festival began as early as 1715 and has been an invaluable platform for the performance of works by English composers. In the early part of the 20th century, the works of Edward ELGAR were given performances under his direction. These concerts helped to establish the composer after he had failed in London. First performances of works by Peter Maxwell Davies, Richard Rodney Bennett, and Malcolm Williamson among others have been heard at the festival.
The Aldeburgh Festival, based in the old malthouse of Snape Makings in Suffolk, was the brainchild of Benjamin BRITTEN and Peter Pears with the English Opera Group. It was founded in 1948 and became the venue for first performances of many of Britten’s works but also of works by modern composers as diverse as Dmitry SHOSTAKOVICH, Aaron COPLAND, and Francis POULENC
Both early and modern music now have festivals to promote works and performers. Arnold Dolmetsch was one of the first musicologists to revive the interest in early instruments and music and founded the Haslemere Festival in Surrey in 1925 to give this revived repertoire an airing.
Festivals of contemporary music also play a central role in giving composers a platform. Germany is home to two of the most famous: the earliest festival to devote itself to contemporary music was founded at Donaueschingen in 1913. At first, it concentrated on chamber music and was associated closely with Paul HINDEMITH but has now broadened its remit to include larger works. The now biennial Darmstadt Summer School for new music has provided a venue for young composers to gather and hear each others’ works and the works of many modern composers, including Luigi NONO, John CAGE, and Olivier MESSIAEN—each of whom also appeared at the summer school as lecturers.
Another forum for modern music was started by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). Begun in 1922 in Salzburg, the ISCM festivals have been held at various venues worldwide and, despite internal controversy, have provided premieres for many modern works including pieces by Pierre BOULEZ and Anton WEBERN.
The antipathy of jazz musicians to timetables and organisation made jazz a latecomer to the festival scene and the first important jazz festivals were held in Europe. The Nice Jazz Festival in France was one of the first, founded in 1948, with Louis ARMSTRONG as a headliner. The Festival International de Jazz, in Paris, followed in 1949 with appearances by Charlie PARKER, Miles DAVIS, and Sidney Bechet. Since 1968, the Django REINHARDT Festival has been held in Samois-sur-Seine and has made a feature of jazz string players, especially guitarists.
Perhaps the best-known Continental jazz festival is held in Montreux in Switzerland. That festival began in 1967 and is very prestigious and wide-ranging in interest with many performances recorded.
Festivals featuring nearly every kind of music have become a significant part of the American cultural experience. As city orchestras extended their seasons into the summer months, they took summer locations which led to the founding of the music festivals organised around them. Tanglewood, Massachusetts, is one of the most famous. The first concert series was presented there in 1934 by the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra. In 1936, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of Sergey KOUSSEVITZKY, was invited to participate in a festival. At the same time, the Tappan family gave their Berkshire estate, Tanglewood, to the orchestra. From then on, the Boston Symphony Orchestra established its summer residence at Tanglewood. Conductors over the years have included Aaron Copland, Leonard BERNSTEIN, and André PREVIN.
Since 1915, an annual festival has been held at Ravinia Park, near Chicago, which includes concerts of all kinds, with the exception of opera which was last staged there in 1932. Performed in the acoustically perfect Ravinia Park Pavilion and attracting conductors and soloists of international renown from all over the world, the Ravinia Festival features orchestral and chamber music, popular symphonic concerts, ballet, jazz and folk music, theatre, dance, and children’s programmes. Other venues include the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at Meadow Brook, Michigan; and the Philadelphia Orchestra at both the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at Saratoga Springs, New York.
More recently, several world-renowned jazz festivals have been created throughout the United States. The best known and largest of these events is the annual Newport Jazz Festival, now known as the Kool Jazz Festival. Originating in 1954, in Newport, Rhode Island, this festival remains the largest and most prestigious of its kind in the United States. Currently held in New York City, the festival continues to attract the finest musicians in jazz, including instrumental groups, vocalists, big bands, and small combos. The Monterey Jazz Festival, which first took place in 1958 in Monterey, California, is the second most famous U.S. jazz event, and is held each September.
The continued success of such classical, folk, and jazz festivals led to the introduction of rock-music festivals in the 1960s. The first of these was the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and this was followed by the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in Woodstock, New York, in 1969.
With increasing internationalism of music and the enthusiasm of sponsors and audiences for large-scale events, festivals of all types appear likely to continue into the 21st century.
Judi Gerber
SEE ALSO:
FOLK MUSIC; JAZZ; OPERA; ORCHESTRAL MUSIC; ROCK FESTIVALS.
FURTHER READING
Gottesman, R. The Music Lover’s Guide to Europe: A Compendium of Festivals, Concerts and Opera (Chichester: Wiley, 1992).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Best of Woodstock; Ella at the Newport
fazz Festival: Live at Carnegie Hall;
Liszt: Faust Symphony (Tanglewood Festival Chorus and Boston Symphony Orchestra).