The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially classical music) and the performing arts are invited to join the festival. Visual art exhibitions, talks and workshops are also hosted.
The first 'International Festival of Music and Drama' took place between 22 August and 11 September 1947. Under the first festival director, the distinguished Austrian-born impresario Rudolf Bing, it had a broadly-based programme, covering orchestral, choral and chamber music, Lieder and song, opera, ballet, drama, film, and Scottish 'piping and dancing' on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, a structure that was followed in subsequent years.[1]
The Festival has taken place every year since 1947, except for 2020 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] A scaled-back version of the festival was held in 2021.
The idea of a Festival with a remit to "provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit" and enrich the cultural life of Scotland, Britain and Europe took form in the wake of the Second World War. The idea of creating an international festival within the UK was first conceived by Rudolf Bing, the General Manager of Glyndebourne Opera Festival, the arts patron Lady Rosebery, theatre director Sir Tyrone Guthrie, and Audrey Mildmay (wife of John Christie) during a wartime tour of a small-scale Glyndebourne production of The Beggar's Opera.[4]
Rudolf Bing conceived of the festival to heal the wounds of war through the languages of the arts. This is its principal raison d’être. It was first financed by Lord Rosebery with the £10,000 winnings of his horse Ocean Swell that won the only two major horse-races run in wartime including the Jockey Club Cup in 1944. This sum was matched by Edinburgh Town Council and then some money in turn was matched by the Arts Council of Great Britain under the chairmanship of John Maynard Keynes. Bing also co-founded the Festival with Henry Harvey Wood, Head of the British Council in Scotland, Sidney Newman, Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, and a group of civic leaders from the City of Edinburgh, in particular Sir John Falconer.
Bing had looked at several English cities before shifting his focus to Scotland and settling on Edinburgh, a city he had visited and admired in 1939. In particular, Edinburgh's castle reminded him of Salzburg where he had been the festival director before the war. Harvey Wood described the meeting at which the idea was hatched:
The Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama was first discussed over a lunch table in a restaurant in Hanover Square, London, towards the end of 1944. Rudolf Bing, convinced that musical and operatic festivals on anything like the pre-war scale were unlikely to be held in any of the shattered and impoverished centres for many years to come, was anxious to consider and investigate the possibility of staging such a Festival somewhere in the United Kingdom in the summer of 1946. He was convinced and he convinced my colleagues and myself that such an enterprise, successfully conducted, might at this moment of European time, be of more than temporary significance and might establish in Britain a centre of world resort for lovers of music, drama, opera, ballet and the graphic arts.
Certain preconditions were obviously required of such a centre. It should be a town of reasonable size, capable of absorbing and entertaining anything between 50,000 and 150,000 visitors over a period of three weeks to a month. It should, like Salzburg, have considerable scenic and picturesque appeal and it should be set in a country likely to be attractive to tourists and foreign visitors. It should have sufficient number of theatres, concert halls and open spaces for the adequate staging of a programme of an ambitious and varied character. Above all it should be a city likely to embrace the opportunity and willing to make the festival a major preoccupation not only in the City Chambers but in the heart and home of every citizen, however modest. Greatly daring but not without confidence I recommended Edinburgh as the centre and promised to make preliminary investigations.[5]
Wood approached Falconer, who enthusiastically welcomed the initiative on behalf of the city. As it was too late to finalise arrangements for 1946, plans were made for the following year.
It was first financed by Lord Rosebery with the £10,000 winnings of his horse Ocean Swell that won the only two major horse-races run in wartime including the Jockey Club Cup in 1944. This sum was matched by Edinburgh Town Council and then some money in turn was matched by the Arts Council of Great Britain under the chairmanship of John Maynard Keynes. Bing also co-founded the Festival with Henry Harvey Wood, Head of the British Council in Scotland, Sidney Newman, Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, and a group of civic leaders from the City of Edinburgh, in particular Sir John Falconer.
Features of the festival
The first International Festival took place between 22 August and 11 September 1947, and it remained an event straddling August and September until 2015, when the dates of the Edinburgh International Festival was brought forward to begin and end in August. This brought the International Festival back in sync with the Fringe which had shifted dates several years earlier.[6]
Bruno Walter, who appeared at the festival in 1947, 1949 and 1953.
From the beginning, the festival had a broad coverage, but with an emphasis on classical music, a highlight of the first season being concerts given by the Vienna Philharmonic, reunited with their erstwhile conductor Bruno Walter, who had left Europe after Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938.[7]
The founders of the Edinburgh Festival had been closely connected with the Glyndebourne Opera and from the beginning opera was an important part of the programme.
The city did not have, and still does not have, ideal facilities for creating original staged opera productions, so guest companies were invited to the festival. In the early years, Glyndebourne fulfilled this role, bringing two productions a year between 1947 and 1951. Hamburg took over in 1952, with no less than six productions. Glyndebourne returned from 1953 to 1955, now with three operas each year, with Hamburg coming again in 1956 with four productions.
One of the festival's first dramatic success came in 1948 when an adaptation of Sir David Lyndsay's The Thrie Estaites was performed to great acclaim for the first time since 1552 in the Assembly Hall on the Mound.[8] The work was revived in 1948. 1949, 1951, 1959 and 1973.
The second decade of the festival began with Monet in 1957, followed by two exhibitions, Masterpieces of Byzantine Art and the Moltzau Collection (Cézanne to Picasso) featured in 1958, Masterpieces of Czech Art in 1959, German Expressionist Painting in 1960, and an Epstein Memorial Exhibition together with a selection from the Bührle Collection (Zürich) in 1961. Modern Primitive Paintings from Yugoslavia and Matisse and After (from the Sonja Henie — Niels Onstad Collection in Oslo in 1962. Modigliani and Soutine were shown in a double exhibition, together with Music and Dance in Indian Art, in 1963. There was an exhibition of Delacroix in 1964, Corot in 1965, and Rouault in 1966.
The third decade began with Derain in 1967, followed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Wotruba, a Boudin to Picasso exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy, and Canada 101, a focus on contemporary Canadian art, all in 1968. Sixteenth century Italian drawings from British private collections (at Merchants' Hall), Contemporary Polish art, and Jack Coia gold medallist were shown in 1969. For 1970, the exhibitions were Early Celtic art and Contemporary German art from Düsseldorf. The Belgian contribution to surrealism, Sir Walter Scott Bicentenary and Contemporary Romanian art exhibitions were offered in 1971. In 1972 the Scottish painter Alan Davie was featured at the Royal Scottish Academy, followed in 1973 by Permanences e l'Art Francais in the same gallery, as well as Objects USA at the City of Edinburgh Art Gallery, and a Tyrone Guthrie exhibition.
The Usher Hall, the leading venue of the Edinburgh International Festival
The principal venues of the Festival are:
Usher Hall (capacity approximately 2,200), concert hall, built in 1914, used by the festival since 1947.
Kings Theatre (1,300), opened in 1906, used by the festival since 1947, notably for theatre and opera. As of June 2024[update], the Kings Theatre is closed for renovation.
Royal Lyceum Theatre (658), opened in 1883, used by the festival since 1947, mainly for drama.
The Edinburgh Playhouse (3,059), opened in 1929, Britain's largest theatre, formerly a cinema.
Festival Theatre (1,915), dating back to 1892, originally a variety, musical and opera house called the Empire Theatre. Used by the festival since 1947, at first for ballet. Remodelled in 1994 and now used for festival opera and ballet.
The Hub (420), originally built as the Tollbooth Church (1842–44) to house the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. This is on Castlehill, directly below Edinburgh Castle, with its tall Gothic spire, the highest point in central Edinburgh (outside of the Castle). Used since 1999 as the central box office, information centre, and offices for the Edinburgh International Festival team, as well as a separate venue.
The Dunard Centre (1000), a new concert hall, due to be opened in 2024/25.
Other venues that have sometimes been used in the past include:
Church Hill Theatre (353), built in 1892 as North Morningside Free Church and bought by the City of Edinburgh Council in 1960.
Freemasons' Hall (approximately 500) at 96 George Street, opened in 1912, used by the festival from 1947 for recitals and chamber concerts.
Gateway Theatre, built in 1882 as a veterinary college, used for drama performances during the festival, but eventually converted to student housing.[9]
Leith Theatre (also known as Leith Town Hall and, briefly, Citadel Theatre), used as a medium-sized concert and recital hall by the festival from 1961 to the end of the 1970s. It closed completely in 1988, and is now being once again restored.
St Cecilia's Hall (180) a historic concert hall in the Cowgate, which dates back to 1763.
Freemasons' Hall was frequently used for musical concerts and recitals from 1947 until the early 1970s.
Other festivals in Edinburgh
About ten other festivals are held in Edinburgh at about the same time as the International Festival. Collectively, the entire group is referred to as the Edinburgh Festival or Edinburgh Festivals.
Most notable is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which started as an offshoot of the International Festival in the first year of its operation (although not known as such at the beginning), and has since grown to be the world's largest arts and media festival.
The British Army's desire to showcase itself during the festival period led to the independent staging of the first Edinburgh Military Tattoo, featuring displays of piping and dancing, in 1950. This annual event has come to be regarded as a part of the official festival, though it continues to be organised separately.[10]
The result is a collection of festivals with more than 2,500 performances and events every day in Edinburgh in August, which is said to be many times larger than any similar conglomeration of arts and media festivals anywhere in the world.
See also
The 240-foot-high spire of The Hub, ticket office, information centre and performance venue of the Edinburgh International Festival, seen from Johnston Terrace
Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras (; was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associated with the English National Opera and Welsh National Opera and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He also specialized in Czech music as a whole, producing many recordings for the Czech label Supraphon.
Sir Rudolf Bing, KBE was an Austrian-born British opera impresario who worked in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, including as General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1950 to 1972. He was naturalized as a British subject in 1946 and was knighted in 1971, although he spent decades living in the United States, where he died.
Sir Alexander Drummond Gibson was a Scottish conductor and opera intendant. He was also well known for his service to the BBC and his achievements during his reign as the longest serving principal conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra in which the orchestra was awarded its Royal Patronage.
Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen, was an English composer, conductor and pianist.
The Edinburgh Festival Theatre is a performing arts venue located on Nicolson Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is used primarily for performances of opera and ballet, large-scale musical events, and touring groups. After its most recent renovation in 1994, it seats 1,915. It is one of the major venues of the annual summer Edinburgh International Festival and is the Edinburgh venue for the Scottish Opera and the Scottish Ballet.
Carl Anton Charles Ebert, was a German actor, stage director and arts administrator.
Grace Audrey Laura St John-Mildmay was an English and Canadian soprano and co-founder, with her husband, John Christie, of Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes her voice "as a light lyric soprano employed with much charm."
Peter Ebert was a German opera director. Son of noted German director Carl Ebert who left Nazi Germany in 1934 with his son and moved to England, he was best known for his work with Glyndebourne Opera and the Scottish Opera where he staged over 50 productions from 1963 to 1980 and which brought him great success.
Classical music in Scotland is all art music in the Western European classical tradition, between its introduction in the eighteenth century until the present day. The development of a distinct tradition of art music in Scotland was limited by the impact of the Scottish Reformation on ecclesiastical music from the sixteenth century. Concerts, largely composed of "Scottish airs", developed in the seventeenth century and classical instruments were introduced to the country. Music in Edinburgh prospered through the patronage of figures including Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. The Italian style of classical music was probably first brought to Scotland by the cellist and composer Lorenzo Bocchi, who travelled to Scotland in the 1720s. The Musical Society of Edinburgh was incorporated in 1728. Several Italian musicians were active in the capital in this period and there are several known Scottish composers in the classical style, including Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie, the first Scot known to have produced a symphony.
This is a summary of 1947 in music in the United Kingdom.
The 1947 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was the first edition of what would become the world's largest arts festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Clive Blackmore Barda OBE, FRSA is a London-based, British freelance photographer best known for capturing the performances of classical musicians and artists of the stage. During his career spanning over five decades, Barda has created a collection of over a million photographs of performers, composers, and conductors.
Hans Oppenheim was a German-born conductor. He was son of the Jewish German neurologist Hermann Oppenheim.
Moran Victor Hingston Caplat, CBE was an English opera manager, associated throughout his career with Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
Louise Alder is a British lyric soprano. She won the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the 2017 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition and the Young Singer award at the 2017 International Opera Awards. Her debut album of Strauss Lieder titled 'Through Life and Love' with pianist Joseph Middleton, was released in July 2017 with Orchid Classics.
Opera was an important feature of the Edinburgh International Festival from its inception.
Drama was an important part of the Edinburgh International Festival from its earliest days, with performances taking place at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, the Assembly Hall, the Gateway Theatre and occasionally in other venues.
Opera continued to be one of the main features of the Edinburgh International Festival in the second decade.
Musicians at the Edinburgh International Festival, 1957–1966 lists the major artists who appeared during the second decade of the Edinburgh International Festival.
The Visual Arts at the Edinburgh International Festival, 1947 to 1976 lists exhibitions during the first three decades of the festival.
References
↑ The International Festival of Music & Drama Edinburgh 1947 Souvenir Programme. 1947.
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