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The Edinburgh Festival – officially the Edinburgh International Festival of Music, Drama and the Visual Arts – was inaugurated in 1947. It usually begins in August and continues for three weeks. Its musical character has always been international in outlook. The idea of the festival grew from a suggestion by Rudolf Bing that an additional outlet be found for the Glyndebourne Festival (of which he had been the pre-war manager) when its opera productions were resumed after the war, and also from the desire to renew cultural contact with other countries. The first festival saw the deeply felt reunion of Bruno Walter with the Vienna PO, their first public concert together since the war. Bing was appointed artistic director and organized the first three festivals. He was succeeded by Ian Hunter (1950), Robert Ponsonby (1956), the Earl of Harewood (1961), Peter Diamand (1966), John Drummond (...

Musical life in modern Jerusalem can be divided into two separate spheres: the liturgical music of the various Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious communities who maintain their living musical traditions; and Western secular art music.

Most of the many Jewish religious musical traditions are represented in the synagogues of the various communities, the most ancient being of Middle Eastern origin, mainly from the Yemen, Baghdad, Kurdistan, Iran, Bokhara and Syria. On further investigation, these may prove to preserve elements of musical traditions from biblical times. There are also representatives of the musical traditions of Spanish-based Sephardi communities, especially those from North Africa, Greece and Turkey, as well as of the mainstreams of eastern European Ashkenazi tradition, namely Hasidism (which created in Jerusalem a special vocal style imitating instruments, stimulated by the ban on instrumental music imposed to signify mourning for the destruction of the Temple) and its opponents, Mithnagdim, who developed a Jerusalem version of the Lithuanian-style Bible cantillation. Western European communities, mainly from Germany, also have synagogues with their own musical traditions....

The new impetus in concert life in the last decades of the 19th century is particularly associated with institutions such as the Orquestra 24 de Junho (1870), conducted by, among others, Francisco Barbieri, Edouard Colonne and Ruddorf; the Sociedade de Concertos de Lisboa (1875); and the Real Academia dos Amadores de Música (1884), whose orchestra was directed by the German conductor Victor Hussla, and whose music school offered an alternative to the Conservatório Nacional. While the Recreios Wyttoyne (1875), the Real Coliseu de Lisboa (1887) and the Avenida (1888) theatres specialized in comic operas and zarzuelas, the Coliseu dos Recreios, built in 1890, presented both symphonic concerts and opera performances at reduced prices. Well-known orchestras visited Lisbon, including the Berlin PO under Nikisch in 1901 and again under Richard Strauss in 1908, the Colonne Orchestra in 1903 and the Lamoureux Orchestra in ...

In 1147 Afonso Henriques regained Lisbon from the Moors and made it his capital. Gilbert of Hastings (Bishop of Lisbon 1147–66) introduced features of Sarum Use, which prevailed locally until 1536, and started the building of Lisbon Cathedral in 1149. Diniz, who ruled from 1261 to 1325, founded the royal chapel in the Alcáçova Palace in 1299. Afonso IV (1325–57) increased to ten the number of chaplains obliged to sing Mass daily in the royal chapel. In his Leal Conselheiro, a collection of moral essays finished about 1438, King Duarte records that three-part singing was then normal in the royal chapel (alto, tenor and contratenor), and classifies the music sung as either composed (canto feito) or improvised (descanto); six was the minimum number of singing boys, and it was the duty of the mestre de capela to rehearse the vocal music, choosing music appropriate to the church year. Duarte’s ...

With the consolidation of Moscow’s importance as the musical centre of Russia in the 17th century, the work of correcting the chant books, improving the ancient kryukovaya (hook) system of notation and unifying the forms of the ecclesiastical chant was carried out. Special commissions of experts on ecclesiastical chant (the so-called didaskalï) were set up; two of these (1665 and 1668) were engaged in establishing model versions of the chants, and were headed by Aleksandr Mezenets, music scholar and monk of the Savvino-Storozhevskiy Monastery and later a proof corrector at the Moscow printing press. Ivan Shaydur, a Moscow clerk and music theorist, improved the hook notation. At about this time the new polyphonic style known as partesnoye peniye (part-singing), originally taken over from Ukraine, became widespread in Moscow. Nikolay Diletsky, the most important theorist of part-singing, worked in Moscow from 1670 to 1680. The Moscow school of polyphonic singing (Vasily Titov and others) took shape during the 17th and 18th centuries....

With the reforms of Peter the Great secular music came to have a much more prominent place in Russian life. The founding of St Petersburg, to which the court moved, also had an effect on the musical culture of Moscow, which changed radically during the 18th century. At the beginning of the century Russian music was represented by its rich heritage of folksong, by ecclesiastical chants and by the simplest domestic genres; by the end of the century Russian opera was taking shape, symphonic and chamber music were being written by Russian composers, and early examples of the Russian song were beginning to appear. The musical needs of Russian society were growing, its tastes were changing and the circle of educated music lovers was expanding. In spite of the fact that St Petersburg drew great artistic forces to the court, Moscow formed its own professional musical circles. Of particular importance were the serf musicians, who performed as soloists and in the many large serf orchestras....

The earliest written evidence of musical life in Moscow dates from the end of the 15th century, and relates to the activities of the two Moscow choirs of that period, the gosudarevï pevchiye d′yaki (ruler’s singing clerks) and the patriarshiye pevchiye d′yaki i podd′yaki (patriarchal singing clerks and sub-clerks). The former was established by Ivan III after 1472 and took part in all solemn acts of worship and in various court ceremonies. The singers were considered to be in the service of the state, and enjoyed the privileges of courtiers; the choir was firmly established in a superior position to the patriarchal choir, both in performance and in the solution of all problems connected with singing. The patriarchal choir grew out of an earlier metropolitan choir and was of secondary importance. These Moscow choirs became the centre of professional musical culture: music education was concentrated there, chant books were copied out, and their performing style served as a model for other ensembles. Professional training and a thorough knowledge of chant (not only the melodies but also the nature of their performance) was required of the singers belonging to the two choirs. The repository of chant book manuscripts of the singing clerks was the first Russian music library. A census of the city carried out shortly after Ivan IV’s Reign of Terror (...

With Moscow once more established as the capital and seat of government following the October Revolution, the city was also bound to become the most important centre of Soviet music, and its theatres, concert halls and educational institutions now gradually began to take precedence over those in Petrograd. Overseen by Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Narodnïy Komissariat Prosveshcheniya (Commissariat of Public Education), better known by its acronym Narkompros, was given the task of nationalizing all aspects of musical life. The Bol′shoy Theatre had already been taken over by the state in November 1917, and tenor Leonid Sobinov helped to smooth the transition as temporary director. Lenin initially took exception to the large subsidy of a theatre so closely associated with the old regime, but its popularity with the new worker audience and Lunacharsky’s commitment to the preservation of the legacy of the past ensured its survival. Yelena Malinovskaya, appointed as commissar of Moscow theatres, attempted to infuse a new energy into productions and raise acting standards at the Bol′shoy by involving leading singers and stage directors such as Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. On the initiative of Stanislavsky, the Opernaya Studiya Bol′shogo Teatra (Bol′shoy Theatre Opera Studio) was opened in ...