Italian Music Festivals

Just as the natural seasons have changed their character over a period of time, so, it may be said, have the musical seasons. Of recent years the emphasis has swung over from Autumn and Winter towards Spring and Summer, abandoning the great cities and theatres of ancient tradition for more picturesque abodes, which possess greater interest from the point of view of climate and local colour. Thus the opera and concert seasons which take place in Rome or Milan, Naples or Bologna, Palermo or Genoa begin to lose their appeal; and there is a growth of interest, on the other hand, in Spring or Summer festivals held in cities which are rich in every kind of artistic interest. Musical snobisme has suffered a change: whereas it was once considered fashionable to be present at the first night of the La Scala opera season, now it is even more so to attend the first performance of the “Maggio Musicale Fiorentino” and find oneself on the Lungarno Vespucci between the Hotel Excelsior and the Teatro Communale, or in Venice, in September, for the Festival of Contemporary Music, between the Caffè Florian and La Fenice. At bottom, however, if we consider well, the success of these festivals is due to less superficial and external causes, in as much as they satisfy the entirely modern need for summarising, condensing and intensifying the manifestations of the spirit in a brief space and limited time: for the man of to-day is always in a hurry and his curiosity cannot be kept awake for a long period. In consequence, these festivals are intended to give, in two or three weeks and in a single city, a kind of symposium of the most important musical happenings of the past year–in the fields of opera, ballet and concert–and, moreover, they are combined with the varied and famous attractions of places of touristic interest, thus realising the ideal of the utile dulci; care is taken of the health of the body, and substantial nourishment is provided for the soul.