1923 Salzburg

Aug 2, 1923 – Aug 10, 1923
Salzburg, Austria

Festival info

Start: Aug 2, 1923

End: Aug 10, 1923

Locations: Salzburg, Austria

Hosting member(s)

Description
Description

Internationale Kammermusikfestspiele der IGNM

From contemporaneous reviews of the 1923 Festival:

“The musical bolsheviks of the world have a rendezvous at this year’s festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music here. It is so contemporary that the radicals of last year have been adjudged conservative back numbers and replaced on the program largely by even newer blood. The domination of new musical forms is all the more accentuated by the cancellation of the usual Mozart festival because of financial difficulties and the absence of paying American tourists.”

–Unattributed, “Musical Bolsheviks Meet in Congress at Salzburg,”
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle [USA] (7 August 1923), p. 6.

“[T]he jury had arranged programs that did not attempt to give equal representation to all countries, and disregarded the suggestions of the national juries. More than ten works were performed which had not even been proposed by these bodies.

“The situation underlying it, was best summed up by Ernest Ansermet, the Swiss delegate, whose clearly stated opinion I repeat here, trusting that I do not overstep the bounds of discretion tacitly assumed by the delegates.

“‘Our name,’ said Mr. Ansermet, ‘is the International Society for Contemporary Music. But which word is determinant? If it is the first, we can choose for our programs a fixed number of works from every section’s proposal. But the society is founded to cultivate and present contemporary music, and that, it seems to me, is the major consideration, and the direction our effort should take.'”

Svend B. Felumb, “To clear up the Salzburg problem,”
Modern Music, Vol. I #1 (1924), p. 25.

“[A]ll the music–which was chosen from 200 works submitted by the national sections–was modern, often ultra-modern in tendency. The scores as a whole showed their composers seeking new paths and formulas; they have definitely broken with the past, and the result, it must be confessed, is not always a happy one. … Strange and often distorted as this music is, the audience seemed to derive considerable enjoyment from it and managed to work up enthusiasm for many of the works heard.”

–Unattributed, Orlando Sentinel [USA] (9 September 1923), p. 4.

“[T]he ‘modernists,’ are being oppressed and crowded out of the field; the I.S.C.M. and its Salzburg Festival are their only chance for a hearing.”

–Paul Bechart, “The ‘Supplementary’ Festival at Salzburg,”
The Musical Times, Vol. 64, no. 968 (October 1923), p. 731.

Programme information
Locations