FESTIVALS GUIDE 1968

The number of arts festivals has increased to such an extent that ills hard to know what is taking place and when. All programmes in this guide (Which is not exhaustive) are subject to alteration.

rrnocrrav 12 Apn1-5 October Well entrenched in the tourist brochures as 'Scotland's theatre in the Highlands,' Pitlochry's season is already in progress. As well as the plays—a genuinely motley repertoire includes Boeing-Boeing, J. M. Barrie, Thornton Wilder and Hamlet—there is a good programme of music and ballet: Goossens, Fou Ts'ong, the SNO and the Royal Ballet.

BRIGHTON 27 April-12 May One year old and showing every sign of establishing itself as a first-class festival, the programme ranges over a variety of themes : theatre, cinema (a series of SF movies plus a weekend SF symposium -with Asa Briggs and Edward Lucie-Smith), exhibitions, poetry read- ings with Lucie-Smith and Logue and music. Performances by Malcolm Williamson (con- ducting Julius Caesar Jones), Barenboim, Du Ashkenazy, Arran, Menuhin. Master- classes by Menuhin, Gendron, Barenhoim and a first performance of Birtwistle's Verses. Also: Dankworth, Cleo Lane, Ian Carmichael . . . and Reginald Leopold's Palm Court Trio.

LAKE DISTRICT 12-24 May A particularly enticing festival, thanks largely to the setting, though Geraint Jones, of course, as festival director, has a good deal to do with it. Concerts take place at six lakeside towns, with recitals by John Ogdon and John Williams, Annon Lee Silver, Stephen Bishop, Helen Watts. A rarer delight will be the appearance at Carttnel Priory of the Manitoba University Consort playing mediaeval music on the appro- priate instruments : lyres, vielles, rebecs, psalteries and krurnmhoms.

GLYNDEBOURNE 23 May-4 August Founded in 1934 by the Christies, the original programmes were devoted more or less exclusively to Mozart. Though this tradition died long ago, evening dress and a supper interval are still very much part of the occasion. This year the festival will include its first Russian opera, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, a revival of last year's L'Ormindo by Cavalli, Mozart's Die Entfiihrung aus dem Serail and Donizetti's Anna Bolena.

tirrLE FESTIVAL OF POETRY, CLEY-NEXT-THE-SEA (Norfolk) 5-8 June.

A tiny festival, proud of its eighteen year's continued success. Readings by Patric Dickin- son and a roaming homage to Crabbe and Fitzgerald.

ALDEBURGH 8-30 June Originally Peter Pears's idea in 1947, when Albert Herring was touring Europe and under the direction of Benjamin Britten whose original policy was to 'present performances given by friends.' The English Opera Group will appear in two first performances : Birtwistle's Punch and Judy, and The Prodigal Son, the latest of Britten's Church Parables. Also featured in the programme are the Amadeus Quartet, Arran, Insogen Hoist, Malcolm, Menuhin, Pears, Rostropovich, Shostakovich and the Hungarian National Puppet Theatre. BATH 19-30 June Menuhin directs and John Wood'a architec- ture provides an elegant setting. A new produc- tion of Mozart's The Impresario and John Arden's version of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale provide the main operatic attractions, while concerts and recitals feature, among others, Hephzibah and Yehudi Menuhin, Igor Oistrakh, Tippett, Malcolm, Goossens, several young international competition winners and the Batsheva Dance Company from IsraeL Also a new work by Maconchy.

ENGLISH BACH FEs-rivat. (Oxford and London) 22 June-7 July As always, Lina Lalandi has organised a first-class programme. Bach, of course, pro- vides the basic theme of the festival, notably this year with the Si John Passion and the solo cantatas. However, a good deal of time and talent will be devoted to other composers also, in particular to Berlioz (Damnation de Faust); Couperin it being his tercentenary; Rossini, to celebrate his centenary; Debussy on the fiftieth anniversary of his death and Messiaen on the sixtieth of his birth. An impeccable cast of per- formers and masterclasses by Rostropovich and others.

/mown, 22 June-7 July Foutded in 1960 for a performance of Coma in its original setting, the main feature since then has usually been a Shakespeare play —this year Richard III in the inner bailey of the castle (grandiose ruins and superb acoustics) where, appropriately, the Princes were lodged before being taken to London and murdered. Also concerts and a recital at Croft Castle.

won't (Kent) 26-30 June A highly successful five-day event devoted mainly to mediaeval and renaissance music, the high spot being a recital on the Colt collection of early keyboard instruments by Fritz Neu- meyer and Rolf Junghanns. In addition, a recital on recorders by Rene Clemencic and on the Saturday the Defier Consort and the Colic- glum Musicum de Strasbourg with Bach's Mag- nifica and Purcell's Te Deum and Jubilate. The Collegium Vocale der Rheinischen Musik Schule Cologne will give a first performance of a new work by Stockhausen.

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON POETRY FESTIVAL Each Sunday from 30 June-25 August.

Possibly one of the best poetry festivals in the country, with readers from the RSC and discussions. Cecil Day Lewis is to be Poet of the Year and the readers—who choose their own anthologies—include Vivien Merchant, Harold Pinter and Edith Evans.

BEAFORD ENTERTAINMENT (Devon) 1-31 July A lively if somewhat dubious attempt to 'bridge the gap between 'Culture" and popular entertainment.' Theatre ranges from Yeats to Winnie the Pooh, music from the Incredible String Band to Imrat Kahn.

CHELTENHAM 3-12 July Fortunate in having the backing of a par- ticularly go-ahead corporation, Cheltenham is one of the best modern music festivals in the country. This year—its twenty-fourth—there will be no fewer than nineteen first per- formances, as well as other new works and a series of concerts featuring Hungarian music and musicians. Composers include Crosse, Smith Brindle, Maconchy, Hoddinott, Orton, and many others. (The Cheltenham festival of literature will be held from 30 September to 5 October.) CITY OF LONDON 8-20 July Four new works have been specially commis- sioned for this year : a Magnificat by Lennox Berkeley; a work by Alexander Goehr for speaker, singer, two mime clowns and en- semble; Roger Smalley's Spatial Motet with the London Choral Society and the London Per- cussion Ensemble and a Gorden Crosse compo- sition for the Academy of St Martin-in-the- Fields. Menuhin, Igor Oistrakh, Goossens, Harper, Tippett, Fou Ts'ong and Peggy Ash- croft; the EOG with the Church Parables and a fair in the Tower moat.

INTERNATIONAL EISTEDDFOD (Llangollen) 9-14 July Though following the traditional pattern of eisteddfods, this is a competitive event in which not only the Welsh but some twenty-five different countries will also be taking part. The competitions (choral, solo voice, dance, folk song, etc) give way to concerts by professional artists in the evenings (Budapest Symphony, etc.).

IIASLEMERE 12-20 July A small festival, though it boasts a fervent international following. Founded by Arnold Dolmetsch in 1925, now directed by his son, the festival is principally devoted to little-known sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century music performed on original instruments from the Dohnetsch collection: these include re- corders, viola da gamba, harpsichord, the lyre, a Snetzler organ (1764) and an 1890 forte piano. Couperin, on his tercentenary, will be given special attention.

BATTLE 17-28 July Though on a modest scale, the smallness of this festival is part of its appeal. The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields will be performing in the parish church and there is to be a concert champetre with Jill Nott-Bower, lute. flute, harpsichord, guitar.

CAMBRIDGE 17 July-I August The NPO, Phoenix Opera, Prospect Produc- tions and the Ballet Rambert, plus the usual programme of music (college choirs, madrigals on the Cam) and theatrical oddities (work- shops and `caricature theatre).

xmo's LYNN 26 July-3 August One of the 1951 Festival of Britain originals and under the chairmanship of Ruth, Lady Fermoy, this is one of the best of the smaller festivals, a scaled-down version of Aldeburgh. Pears, Britten, the EOG and The Prodigal Son, Barbirolli and Flora Robson.

NATIONAL EISTEDDFOD (Barry) 4-10 August Purely a Welsh language event so far as the competitions are concerned, though there are other musical events in the evenings. The pro- gramme of evening concerts centres mainly on choral works—the Mozart Requiem Mass, Verdi's Nabucco, Mahler's Symphony No. 2, Haydn's Creation, Noye's Fludde, and-works by contemporary Welsh composers. Among the singers: Watts, Price, Bowen, the Eisteddfod Choir and the Welsh National Opera Company.

HARROGATE 8-17 August Started in 1966 as a festival of the arts and sciences, the scheme has been an undisputed success. The science theme -is " to be 'The Con- quest of Disease,' whilst a principal feature of the arts side of it will be the first northern performance (by the Ecoo) of Britten's The Prodigal Son. The RPO, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, a concert of choral music by Byrd and a recital given by Galina Vish- nevskaya, accompanied by Rostropovich. Paul Tortelier will be giving masterclasses as well as a recital, and the York University Music Department performs a new Orton work.

EDINBURGH 18 August-7 September The composers who are to merit special, though not exclusive, attention this year are Schubert and Britten. Schubert works will in- clude the Mass in E flat major and his opera Alfonso and Estrella. As well as having a unique reputation Edinburgh is a comparatively wealthy festival: amongst those engaged for this summer are the USSR State Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio OrcVstra, Boulez, Fischer- Dieskau, Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya, David Oistrakh, Klemperer, Sviatoslav Richter, Demus, Menuhin, Britten, Pears, Du Pre, Barenboim. Tom Courtenay stars in Hamlet, the Polish Laboratory Theatre, Wroclaw, makes its first appearance in the utc, and also the Trinity Square Rep from Rhode Island, USA, with the British premiere of Years of the Locust. Also the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, the Traverse and Prospect Productions.

THREE CHOIRS 25-30 August

This being its 241st year makes it the oldest musical festival in Europe. It is Gloucester's turn to play host this year, and one of the prin- cipal features • will be A- performance .of Sir Hubert Parry's Symphonic Variations, under Sir Adrian Boult, to mark the fiftieth anniver- sary of the Gloucestershire composer's death.

ABBEY DORE (near Hereford) 13-15 September A small festival, now in its fourth year., The abbey itself, founded in 1147, counts John: Betjeman among its admirers—`a superb ex- , ample of early English architecture.' Rostro- povich and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, who will be singing six of Pushkin's songs set to music for her by Britten, provide the principal attraction. Also performing will be the English Chamber Orchestra.

LITTLE MISSENDEN 3-6 October The concerts are held in the church (bad sight lines but a perfect Saxon nave) set in the heart of the Chilterns. Roger Smalley. Ian Partridge, the English Consort of Viols, and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

HEXHAM ABBEY 12-19 October

Though the programme is not yet fully com- plete, there will be three concerts of mediaeval and renaissance music (Musica Reservata), an exhibition of early musical instruments, a mystery play and the John Aldis Choir.

STROUD 13-26 October Styling itself a festival of religious drama and the arts, this is (like most other 'small' festivals) mainly an amateur event and now, thanks to extreme local fervour, in its twenty- first year. The Gloucestershire Youth Orchestra will perform a specially commissioned work by Maxwell Davies; the EOG with The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son; and a new choral work by Michael Hurd.