Page 329 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

“Where would you go back in time?” asks Mark in Peep Show. “The 1960s: see The
Rolling Stones and have a Coke,” replies Jeremy. “You can literally do that now,”

comes Mark’s withering put-down, referencing the band’s impressive endurance

and the ongoing appeal of retro pop acts. Dua Lipa might have been responsible
for the best Glastonbury meme this year after she reacted awkwardly to a

cringeworthy busker, but it was Sugababes who got the surprise rave reviews.
And one-time slightly embarrassing boy band Busted were at Download, as were

metal legends Pantera, regrouped after a short break of 20 years.

Classical music is, naturally, rooted in the past. Playing Mozart well requires an

understanding of what was going on in the 18th century, and how the sound
connects with the music it preceded and followed. Even contemporary works,

with seemingly new timbres – I’ve just returned from a performance of Georg

Friedrich Haas’s 11,000 Strings, featuring ‘bowed’ cymbals and 50 pianos all tuned
to slightly different pitches – are referencing what’s come before.

This juxtaposition is most clearly visible in opera, where stagings often pair

music from previous centuries with contemporary costumes and settings. It can

work brilliantly, such as Garsington Opera’s current production of comic
opera Un giorno di regno (‘King for a Day’), which combines Verdi’s bubbly score

with an incompetent arms dealer, karaoke-fuelled wedding and gun-slinging
security detail (the chorus).

Britten Pears Arts (BPA) recently took inspiration from pop’s appetite for
nostalgia when it recreated two important concerts from Aldeburgh Festival’s

history: the 1961 cello and piano recital – momentous for its two soloists,
Rostropovich and Britten – and the 1948 season opener. The recreations marked

the festival’s 75th edition, with original programme notes and reprised encores.

It was rather like a visit to a living museum, indeed, the newly knighted outgoing

BPA CEO Roger Wright described it as “living heritage”. Except that these were
not pure re-enactments; the contemporary work featured in 1948 (God’s

Grandeur by Martin Shaw) was replaced by Luck, a new trumpet concerto by

Robin Haigh, brilliantly played by Matilda Lloyd and the Britten Sinfonia.