MUSICAL OLYMPICS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 544, 25 November 1949, Page 9

MUSICAL OLYMPICS

Salzburg’s Plan to Out-Festival Edinburgh

OR four magic years Salzburg had been the musical capital of Europe.- That was when Toscanini was there, from 1934 to 1938. Since 1842 the city’s Austrian burghers had honoured their greatest son Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with a summer music festival. Run at first on a small scale, the festival began after 1900 to attract music. lovers from other parts of Europe, and soon the astute citizens of the sleepy, mountainencircled, Central-European town began to realise that music could fruitfully be combined with busfhess, for Salzburg was beginning to discover the tourist trade. To pilgrims from abroad it was. not just a small provincial capital, but the ageless cathedral city of music, mountains, and bells, the birthplace of Mozart, with its attractive Festspielhaus and sunsplashed fountains in its wide squares, and its statue of the divine composer in the Mozartplatz. A healthy climate and delightful scenic surroundings made its seasonal tourist trade among the, heaviest for that part of Europe, and soon the chief occupation of the city was in catering and preparing for it. There were other small industries too such as brewing, bookbinding and the making of musical instruments, but the annual festi- val was their fountain of life during the glorious age of Toscanini, Max Reinhardt, Bruno Walter, and Lotte Lehmann. an N 1938 came the Anschluss, and the international * flavour disappeared. Under Germany’s Furtwangler the festival became a Nazi celebration. Then, in August, 1945, under the wary eye of

the American Military Government, it was revived. The result was a dismal failure. No big names came to conduct or play, and the cry of Mozart was not sufficient to bring tourists from abroad, or from the peoples of a war-cevastated Europe: Salzburg’s other great musical son, arrogant, 37-year-old Herbert von Karajan, who had made good in Germany under the sponsorship of Hermann Goering, wanted to come but was turned down at, the-last minute by the Allied Council in Vienna. In 1946, another attempt was made. This was to be the first full-blown Festival since 1937. The nostalgic people of what was once Austria’s wealthiest city hoped to recapture the pomp and glitter of the old days. There were still no big names among the performers, and onethird of the seats in the Festspielhaus were given to American G.I.’s. ©The centre box, once filled with~ European royalty and millionaires, was occupied by General Mark Clark and his family. But things were a little better, and Salzburgers were already visualising the next year’s triymph, which would put them? back in heir old position. HEN the blow fell. News came out that a former g¢itizen of Salzburg’s neighbour and rival, Vienna, was planning to set up in Scotland an insular facsimile of the old Salzburg celebrations. What Salzburg was no longer able to do, Rudolf Bing and Edinburgh

planned to do better: to become, for three weeks in each year, the musical capital of Europe. The first International Festival of Music and Drama, as it was called, was‘a smashing success. One million pounds were .spent by tourists, which more than offset the slight loss of £30,000 on the celebrations themselves. Bruno Walter was there, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, and altogether there were half-a-dozen symphony orchestras, a history-making quartet (Schnabel, Szigeti, Primrose, and Fournier), the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, the Halle Orchestra under Barbirolli; the Glyndebourne Opera Company, ahd the Old Vic and Louis Jouvet’s players from Paris. The trouble was that with its 1947 Festival, Salzburg had thought it was getting back on its-feet. But the odium of past Nazi associations was hard to live down and men like Walter still refused to come. So 1948 was to be the big year. The city -hadn’t looked so healthy for a long while, its shop windows decked out with cameras, Meissen’ china, and English woollens in preparation for the expected influx of the music-loving thousands.° It really was something like old times, and von Karajanshad been permitted to come and present Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice in what was described as one of the most splendid performances of the opera yet seen. But Edinburgh was still going one better than its rival. In two years, holding its festival also in August, Edinburgh had definitely taken Salzburg’s place as the musical capital of the world. To add salt to the wound, it had stolen Salzburg’s own private property -Mozart. Thousands had heard the greatest of*music, from Bach to Bartok, played by such orchestras as Amsterdam’s superb Concertgebouw and Rome’s famed ‘ Augusteo. They had watched »Charles Munch, Eduard van Beinum, and Boyd Neel conduct. They had heard the Mozart piano concertos played‘ unforgetably by their greatest living interpreter, Artur Schnabel. They had seen Mozart’s operatic masterpieces Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tu‘ti given by a company that is fast bec«.ning regarded as the best in the business, the Glyndebourne. They had heard super+ lative ‘choral works including Bach’s B Minor Mass, sung by a chorus with few peers, the Huddersfield Choral Society. There was also the drama, which included Jean-Louis BarrauJt in Andre Gidé’s Hamlet. t {t must have been this last straw that decided the Mayor and councillors of battered Salzburg to take their next dramatic step. Who was responsible for the idea no one’ knows, but recently a letter arrived addressed to the people of New Zealand, from the Mayor of Salzburg: "In a time which,more than ever requires our joint care for the cultural treasures of humanity as a link between the nations and a secure basis for a mutual peaceful understanding, Salzburg, the native town of Mozart, resolved to call up all nations of the world to participate in THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL MUSIC-OLYMPIAD," An enclosed leaflet gave details of the celebration that was to be so mammoth in its proportions as to wipe Edinburgh off the map, A charter of fundamental

principles laid down -that the -MusicOlympiad- was to comprise a cycle of four years and include all disciplines of music, starting in June, 1950. Men and women of every nation, regardless of race and creed, were they professionals, students, or amateurs would be allowed to compete. The first three years would be devoted to reproductive music, and the fourth to creative music. A special executive committee would meet in Salzburg each year. Three competitors or one ensemble per nation for each event would be the limit. National judges would be set up to form a grand jury of the IMO. No appeal against decisions of the jury could be considered unless accompanied by a deposit of 1000 schillings, and this sum would not be returned if the claim were made upon frivolous grounds. The prizes would be silver-gilt, silver, and bronze Olympic Mozart-medals and diplomas. An important point of the business organisation was kept to last, viz., "The executive committee has nothing to do with the travelling and housing expenses of competitors and officials. However, it will provide the competitors with furnished quarters and food at an all-inclu-sive price per head per day which is previously fixed by the National Committees. All local expenses of the organisation will be borne by the City of Salzburg." The programme sketch of the first year included a prize for the most beautiful voice (all registers) and the best choir. Prizes would be given for folksongs in ten sections -- European, Moslem, Hindustani, Far-Eastern, Australasian, South Sea Island, and Indonesian, Negro Spiritual (U.S.A.), Central African and Asiatic, and "Ancient civilisations of the Western Hemisphere (Red Indians, Inkas, etc.)." Another section covers popular songs (Viennese waltzes, yodelling, and jazz), and the final section offers a prize for the most perfect interpretation of an aria by Mozart. As far as is known, no New Zealanders have yet entered (jointly or severally), but futute developments are awaited with interest,