Richard Strauss first thought of composing a musical setting for the Danae myth in the Spring of 1920. The work was finished on 28th June, 1940, at Alt Garmisch and will be produced this August as the Salzburg Festival. The composer, in a letter to Hugo von Hofmannsthal dated 27th June, 1919, expressed his desire to have a subject for a light opera after the style of the Lucian dialogues between gods and hetaerae. Some seven months later the poet produced a sketch for a light, three-act operetta type of work in the Lucian spirit. On 23rd April the libretto went to Strauss. Hofmannsthal took the opportunity of explaining that what he was after was a development from the style of Der Rosenkavalier and of Ariadne and his arrangement of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. For this there would be needed the kind of light, witty music that Strauss alone, at that particular period of his life, was capable of supplying. This early classical myth which, in the Lucian sense, was to be thought of as a “milesian fairy tale,” flippantly treated, should be as French as possible in manner but without sacrificing the essentially German core and the concealed symbolism and metaphysics that went with it. The poet was already concerning himself, too, with questions of costumes and scenery. He envisaged something in the classical style of the Viennese designers, or even better, in Poiret's.

The Paris Festival of Masterpieces of the 20th Century lasted throughout May, and few had time to see it all. Unlike many foreign festivals that spread themselves out over a similar period, it was crammed tight with good things throughout, with something of interest every night except Sundays from April 30th to June 1st. The third week was the climax of the festival, and in general the last two weeks were more exciting than the first two, which were apparently meant to draw the Parisian bourgeoisie, being devoted mainly to ballet by the New York City Ballet, and containing nothing in music worth a journey abroad except perhaps two performances by the Vienna Opera of Wozzeck, which is rapidly becoming as familiar as The Rite of Spring. In the last two weeks, the festival's so-called “literary conferences” on cultural freedom were held, and to give these the best possible chance of wide publicity, the organizers had cleverly saved up their musical trump cards until then, with what was virtually a Strawinsky-Bartók-Schoenberg week, Strawinsky himself conducting his two late symphonies and Oedipus Rex, with Cocteau as producer, designer, narrator (and of course librettist), followed in-the last week by Billy Budd conducted by Britten, excerpts from Milhaud's setting of the Oresteia, and Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts (which aroused higher expectations than it fulfilled, and was so severely trounced by Dumesnil in Le Monde that one wondered what would be the fate of the four further, independently financed and sponsored performances that were to be given after the end of the festival).

The solo concerto, and in particular the piano concerto, is still the most popular musical form amongst the general public to-day. Therefore the appearance of a new work of this variety by a well-known composer is inevitably a matter of widespread interest.

The summer of 1952 will mark the tenth anniversary session of the Berkshire Music Center. No one will find it strange, I suppose, if those of us who were with the school from the start feel that this is a moment for rejoicing. This by now well-known school of music was established in 1940 because the late Serge Koussevitzky persuaded the Trustees of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to take an unprecedented step: the formation of a summer school under the aegis of a symphony orchestra. No one had ever before heard of such a thing. But it was the dream of our former director to find some tangible way for the older and more experienced musician to pass on a lifetime of experience to the young aspirant. Here talented young musicians might gather to engage in all kinds of ensemble playing and singing. Their very presence was to act as a stimulus among themselves and also to their teachers. Before long the plan was enlarged to include the departments of opera production, composition, and the study of the art of conducting. Beyond this—and here was a special love of Dr. Koussevitzky—a division of the school was to be set up for the musical enthusiast who wanted to spend a summer of “living and working in music.”

When the musical historian of the future writes his Chronicle of Twentieth Century Musical trends, he will surely head one chapter in that sombre document “The Undeniable Popularity of the Piano Concerto.” He will also have something to say about the String Orchestra, that melodious, economic, and scholarly medium through which so many players and conductors have lately reached their public. Then the thought must occur to him that it was indeed strange that the union of these picturesque and profitable activities should have been so relatively barren in result. “Where,” he will ask, “was a suitable piece of work for ‘after the interval’; for the second appearance of the visiting solo pianist who has already given his Bach or his Mozart (not without a recurrent pang of regret that Mozart's seldom-granted permission to dispense with oboes and horns has been gratefully acknowledged by the string-orchestral conductor), and who would rejoice to give his audience further evidence of his ability?” Works for piano and string orchestra which can fill this bill are surprisingly few; suitable contemporary British ones are almost unheard-of. Those which are at present available tend to fall into two categories: the spare, neo-classic concerto grosso, with keyboard part “apt for pianoforte or harpsichord,” and the mock-Rachmaninoff, with the piano “fat and well-liking,” bulging grossly over a collar of string-tone which in itself cannot nearly rise to adequate heights of sumptuousness.

Every producer approaches the staging of Die Frau ohne Schatten with awe. The demands which Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal make on the singing and acting ability of the performers, on the imagination of the stage designer and on the ingenuity of the stage staff are exceptional. It is by the way that the musical director, as well, takes the same view of his task! Our own production (Berne, Spring 1952), and reaction of the public to it, however, proved that with a certain combination of effort and a little luck thrown in, it is not impossible to offer a worthy presentation of this extraordinary work and to bring something of its beauty and significance home to an audience.

“Thirty years ago, from Salzburg, the good ship ISCM set out on her maiden voyage” said Edward Clark, the President, in his introduction to the Festival. “We return in 1952 to our port of departure, with colours flying and a cargo of treasure as rich as ever was mined in any similar period.” This year's cargo, however, though possibly a record as far as quantity was concerned, turned out to be of pitiable quality. The vast majority of works performed (and often very badly performed) did not deserve a single hearing; again and again one had to listen to ‘com-positions‘ in the literal and rather unmusical sense of the word, sub-professional attempts to put together, more or (far) less successfully, completely undistinguished material. It is difficult to give the innocently curious reader an adequate picture of this orgy of incompetence; suffice it to say that any of the experimental evenings of our Society for the Promotion of New Music is likely to prove more fruitful than were most of these festive events.