Bayreuth festival

Swanky, stale and sullen, the summer music festival has had its day

‘Festival?’ said Nathan Milstein. ‘What is festival?’ I had naively asked the most immaculate of violinists where he used to play in the summer and he looked at me as if I had proposed an unnatural act. ‘Before the war,’ said Nathan, offering a glimpse of paradise lost, ‘Volodya and I would stay at Senar for six weeks with Rachmaninov.’ Volodya was Horowitz, his best friend. ‘In those days,’ he continued, ‘we liked to spend time with composers. A composer was someone you could talk to. He knew philosophy, literature, lepidoptery. Rachmaninov could name all the butterflies around Lake Lucerne. He liked me better than Volodya, maybe because I was

Michael Tanner remembers the greatest musical experience of his life

No surprise: the greatest musical experience of my life was Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1962. I thought at the time that I would never again be so moved by a performance of anything. I have kept an open mind ever since, and still it takes me no time or effort to answer the question. Obviously I can’t discuss here why I regard Parsifal as a supreme work, but even if I thought that Wagner had written greater ones, or that some other master composer had — in fact, I do think there are several works by four composers that are as great as Parsifal, though at that altitude rankings and