This year's I.S.C.M. Festival was held in June in Baden-Baden at the music studio of the Südwestfunk, an ultra-modern concert hall situated a little outside the town, surrounded by majestic woods and with a lovely view of soft hills. In such surroundings one's aesthetic sense tends to expect a fair measure of beauty from the music one has come to hear. There was, however, more beauty for the eye than for the ear, and with a few notable exceptions, the standard of works presented was of a deplorably low level.