MUSIC
STAGE AND SCREEN
Festiva Maxima Plena THE peony must lend us its resounding title ; nothing less is adequate for the conglomeration of events that are to take place in the five weeks between St. George's Day and May 28th next. These events include performances of all the Symphonies of Beethoven, in their numerical order two by two, like the animals in the Ark, excepting the Ninth, which is to be accom- panied by "Leonora No. 3" and a couple of movements from the Prometheus music. This would provoke solemn thoughts, were it not that the conductor is to be Signor Toscanini, who will no doubt, as usual, achieve the seemingly impossible. He will also conduct two performances of the Mass in D, which is to provide the climax of the series. For these concerts the seats will be allotted by ballot—it is the one " flutter " of the year for music-lovers and for others who hope to make a few shillings by the re-sale of tickets. In addition to these seven concerts, the B.B.C. Orchestra will also play at two other Beethoven concerts containing three Pianoforte Concertos and the Violin Concerto with Backhaus, Solomon and Adolf Busch as soloists under Sir Adrian Boult's direction. For these concerts "tickets can be obtained in the usual way."
Then there are to be special performances of opera at Covent Garden, though I shall be much surprised after the experience of the Coronation season if they differ from other performances at that theatre nowadays, and at Sadler's Wells. There are to be concerts by the Lefler Quartet, which will no doubt provide a welcome opportunity for a restful evening in the midst of so much junketing—nowadays this concert always acts on me as a gentle soporific—by a brass band (with fireworks) at Ken Wood, and it is rumoured, by an orchestra on a barge proceeding to Chelsea as the musicians play Handel's "Water Music." Various popular celebrities will give recitals during these weeks, as they do in other years, and the public is to have the privilege of hearing the orchestras of our chief Conserva- tories of Music at work—which it may do by taking a little effort during any term. The still unwearied, and opulent, enthusiast may add further to his experience by taking train to Oxford, to Cambridge or to Hampton Court, while the drama will provide for his spare evenings at Stratford and the Old Vic.
All these diverse activities are included in "The London Music Festival of 1939." But a name is not a piece of string kr tying parcels tcgether, and a festival is, or should be, something more than a collection of imposing names. It is difficult to define what makes a festival ; it is a matter of the spirit and of individual character. Spirit and character are not to be conjured by the wave of a wand, even in Tos- canini's hand. They must grow, and growth implies a small beginning. That is how the Salzburg Festival came into being. It originated in a congress of musicians intent upon joining up broken threads of international intercourse after the \Var. It developed into something quite different, a happy gathering of enthusiasts, then suffered from becoming fashionable, and finally was gleichgeschaltet out of recognition and lost its virtue. The point is that it did have a mood of its own. Bayreuth and Stratford have their festivals, built upon the different foundation of one man's genius, as Salzburg might have built upon Mozart's. London is too vast and diverse to provide the intimacy of festival-conditions, one of which is that everyone attending the occasion should see and meet everyone else every day—or at least have the fun of avoiding such meetings as they do not desire. Nor has London a genius loci, unless he be Handel, and Handel has not recovered from the pious orgies of Victorian festivals at the Crystal Palace, while Sir Henry Wood has just extinguished any reviving sparks of interest in his less familiar oratorios with that gargantuan performance of Judas Maccabaeus.
Let us rather have a festival of more modest dimensions and less inclusive programme at some more companionable place. Bath has been mooted and I can think of no more charming site, provided that the summer months, when Bath is Turkish, are not chosen for the event. But let there be no imitation, no advertising of it as an " English Salzburg." There is sufficient beauty and individual character in the place to provide an atmosphere sui generis for a well-chosen programme
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