Music Festivals in Germany
All over Germany a range of events attract fans of classical music.
Classical music fans in Germany have a busy schedule: more than 300 festivals have been founded here in the past 35 years. That classical music should have found so sympathetic an ear is probably largely the doing of the conductor Justus Frantz. In 1968 he launched the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival; today it is one of the biggest festivals in Germany and is held in several places during the summer months. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, marvellous festival venues were increasingly discovered in eastern Germany. Thus the Brandenburg Summer Concerts take place in castles and churches in the Mark of Brandenburg, while remarkable venues such as old manor houses and industrial buildings open their doors for the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival.
In Bonn everything revolves round Beethoven
Some festivals are devoted to a particular composer. With around 60 concerts from the pen of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Rhineland attracts fans to the Bonn Beethoven Festival. The Richard Wagner Festival takes place on the “green hill” in Bayreuth in the festival hall that the composer had built especially for this purpose. Other festivals bear the name of the host city: for example, the Kassel Music Festival, the Schwetzingen Festival, the Heidelberg Spring Music Festival and the Dresden Music Festival. The Donaueschingen Music Festival is the oldest and most tradition-steeped festival for New Music in the world. Whole regions have also proven themselves as venues: for instance, the Rheingau Music Festival, whose programmes have filled music lovers with enthusiasm since 1988. With more than 140 concerts held in nearly 40 places, it is considered the largest privately financed music festival in Europe. Broadcasting corporations also function as festival organizers, as, for example, is the case with the popular MDR Music Summer sponsored by the Central German Radio. Sometimes the focus falls on individual instruments or genres, as at the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Berlin Music Festival, whose guests are exclusively orchestras. Events such as the Potsdam-Sanssouci Music Festival, the Oberstdorf Music Summer in Allgäu and the Bavarian Herrenchiemsee Festival score additional points because of the experience of nature that they offer.
Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, until 31 August 2014
