1949 EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25741, 1 March 1949, Page 3

1949 EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

PROGRAMME DETAILS (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 8. A feast of good things for lovers of the arts is revealed in the programme for the 1949 Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama, announced this week. It will be held from August 21 to September 11 and supporting bodies will include the City Corporation, the Arts Council of Great Britain, and the British Council. In two years the Edinburgh Festival has risen in stature, until to-day it is acknowledged to be probably the finest in the world. Committees to foster interest have already been established in New Zealand, France, and Canada, and others are in the process of formation. Organisations engaged for the 1949 season include the famous Orchestre de la Societe de Concerts du Conservatoire, I’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. and the Orchestra of La Scala. Milan. British orchestras will be the Royal Philharmonic, the 8.8. C. Scottish Symphony, the Philharmonia. and the Jacques String Orchestra. Conductors will be Bruno Walter, Ernest Ansermet. Sir Thomas Beecham. Rr.fael Kubelik. Ernest Bloch (who will be conducting the first performance of his new piano concerto), Henri Cluytens. and lan Whyte. Soloists will include William Primrose and Corinne Lacomble. Chamber music lovers will have the chcice of concerts by the Busch Quartet. the Griller Quartet, the Prague and Pro Musica Antiqua, which specialises in music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Kathleen Ferrier and Bruno Walter will be heard in lieder recitals. Aksel Schiotz in Schubert lieder, and Aulikki Rautawaara in a Sibelius recital. Scottish concerts will be given by the Glasgow Orpheus Choir. Th? Old Vic Theatre Company will undertake a two weeks’ engagement, and the Dusseldorf Theatre will give eight performances of “Faust’’ in German to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Goethe. Last year’s great success. “Ane Sa tyre of the Thrie Estaits,” py Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, will be repeated, and there will also be a new Scottish play directed by Tyrone Guthrie. Details of the ballet season have not yet been announced. In addition there will be a festival of documentary films and a number of art exhibitions. Many thousands of visitors from overseas are expected, including several hundred from New Zealand. The festival organisers announce that inquiries so far indicate that the season will be even more successful than last year.