The Sound Of Music

Rolex flies zaneta cheng to the annual Salzburg Whitsun Festival to see how the arts can be a panacea for despair, casting a spell so deep audiences can’t help returning

- Salzburg Whitsun

TAKE A LOOK at classical music festivals across Europe and you’ll find that their origin stories sometimes read like the plot of a Marvel movie. The intent to build the festivals often coincides with ongoing violent conflict or its aftermath and the appearance of a figure of superior strength and resolute moral conviction to resolve the struggle – with the hero usually hailing from an unassuming small town.

Following World War I and the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria was left a landlocked speck surrounded by countries that were once subject to its rule. The loss of might and identity around the nation affected Austrian morale. In order to alleviate the loss and anger, the founders of the festival, Baden-born theatre and film director Max Reinhardt, composer Richard Strauss and prodigy Hugo von Hofmannsthal, banded together in the hopes of re-establishing a human order through art. The death toll was of such magnitude that it was hoped people would conduct a musical pilgrimage to the small city of Salzburg, where the echo of villainy between European citizens could melt away in the presence of music and theatre. Thus, in 1920, the Salzburg Festival was born with a performance of von Hofmannsthal’s play Jederman (“Everyman”), which has since been performed annually at the festival, with a few exceptions between 1920 and 1940.

Though I attend only the shorter Salzburg Whitsun Festival, founded in 1973 by the celebrated composer Herbert von Karajan – whose name in this community is akin to that of God – I am under no doubt after its four days that I have been given a privileged glimpse into the Olympus of classical music, a site that, rightly, musical connoisseurs flock to come May.