Music holds pride of place in ambitious arts programme that includes Chopin, Moiseiwitsch and BetjemanThe first Lake District Festival which has just ended in Kendal differed from its fellows in that it was intended for the moment chiefly to fill a local vacuum rather than to attract national attention. This is not to say that it has been parochial in scale or that it is limited in ambition. Any provincial festival which, in its first season, can recruit Moiseiwitsch, Denis Matthews, Leon Goossens, and Geraint Jones (not to mention Mr Betjeman) is clearly going places; and it may well be that by 1964, and the third festival, it will have established itself alongside Aldeburgh, Bath, and York on the tourist circuit. It is to be held on alternate years so as to avoid clashing with the 75-year-old Westmorland Musical Festival.For the first season, at any rate, the festival has been heavily loaded in favour of music, beginning with a Chopin recital by Moiseiwitsch in Kendal Parish Church on Monday and ending there on Friday on a splendid note of devotion with a performance by the Geraint Jones Singers and Orchestra (with Ann Dowdall, Helen Watts, Wilfrid Brown, and Kenneth Tudor as soloists) of the two great Bach Magnificats, Sebastian's in D major and Emanuel's in D. Most of the music heard during the week has been well tried elsewhere: a maiden voyage is not, after all, the time to experiment with new equipment, and, indeed, the only contemporary work was Lennox Berkeley's setting of The Four Poems of Saint Teresa of Avila, on Thursday. This is one of Berkeley's more devotional works, and the contralto solo was sung most movingly by Helen Watts.In support of the music there has been a modest exhibition of "Drawings by British Artists in Mediterranean Lands," wholly nineteenth century Grand Tour stuff and largely atmospheric in which Edward Lear has been most prolifically represented; Mr Gerald Moore's musical reminiscences; a late night revue by an enthusiastic Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club; a couple of matin�e films, of the Com�die Fran�aise's production of "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" and of the Bolshoi Ballet; and there has been Mr Betjeman reading his own verse. Or, to be more illuminating, Mr Betjeman giving his impression of the popular poet baffled by his own success but determined to enjoy himself none the less. His audience found it vastly entertaining.Kendal and Cartmel (which was host to a Betjeman recital and one of the concerts) have borne this inaugural season lightly. There has been a shred of bunting in Kendal Highgate and a banner outside the town hall (whose carillon six times a day hammers out a variety of martial and nostalgic airs - which at least two American visitors have mistaken for a festival performance), and the performances have been well attended without being fully booked. But there has been none of the fringe activity which is to be found at other festivals, and no great use has been made of the event as a sales gimmick by the music shops, where one might have expected displays of records by the visiting artists. Doubtless Lake District commerce will try to cash in on art when the festival is well established; next time, perhaps.Lake DistrictFestivalsMusic festivalsClassical musicguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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