Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Cultural Resort of Europe: The Creation of the Festival, c. 1944–1947
- 3 Cultural challenge: The Creation of a ‘Fringe’, 1947–1955
- 4 Convergence of Cultures: New developments in the Arts, 1956–1962
- 5 Culture and (Im)morality: The Year of the Happening, 1963
- 6 Cultural Explosion: The Arts and Moral Conflict in Edinburgh in the High Sixties, 1964–1967
- 7 Cultural Crisis? Protest and Reaction, 1968–1970
- 8 Conclusion
- Appendix 1 List of Lord Provosts/Edinburgh Festival Society Chairs and Festival Artistic Directors, 1947–1970
- Appendix 2 Short Biographies of Oral History Interviewees
- Sources and Select Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Cultural Resort of Europe: The Creation of the Festival, c. 1944–1947
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2014
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Cultural Resort of Europe: The Creation of the Festival, c. 1944–1947
- 3 Cultural challenge: The Creation of a ‘Fringe’, 1947–1955
- 4 Convergence of Cultures: New developments in the Arts, 1956–1962
- 5 Culture and (Im)morality: The Year of the Happening, 1963
- 6 Cultural Explosion: The Arts and Moral Conflict in Edinburgh in the High Sixties, 1964–1967
- 7 Cultural Crisis? Protest and Reaction, 1968–1970
- 8 Conclusion
- Appendix 1 List of Lord Provosts/Edinburgh Festival Society Chairs and Festival Artistic Directors, 1947–1970
- Appendix 2 Short Biographies of Oral History Interviewees
- Sources and Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
At a reception prior to the opening of the inaugural Festival, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and chairman of the Edinburgh Festival Society, Sir John Falconer, remarked:
The human mind needs an occasional stretch into an overflowing fountain of grace and beneficence to confirm its weak faith, and to anchor it to something higher than itself. This city may become the cultural resort of Europe, where men and women will find a haven, not merely to hear and see, but to be quiet and respond to a life of spiritual and intellectual refreshment and inspiration.
Coming after the long years of the Second World War, in a year beset by the harshest winter in living memory, austerity measures, continued rationing and an ongoing sterling crisis, the ‘cultural feast’ of the Edinburgh International Festival of Music and the Arts seemed at odds with the society in which it took place. Yet it also symbolised the optimism and possibilities of the postwar world, part of the new, stable and inclusive society that many sought to build in the aftermath of war, and one in which the spread of culture was anticipated as part of the broader welfare state.
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- The Edinburgh FestivalsCulture and Society in Post-war Britain, pp. 23 - 41Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2013
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