Festivals provide the ideal opportunity to stage events and during my decades of attendance, certain large-scale events stand out – Ashkenazy’s Beethoven cycle with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Peter Schreier’s traversal of Schubert’s named song cycles as well as pianists Andras Schiff’s traversal of The Well Tempered Clavier and ex-local boy Geoffrey Madge’s series of recitals looking at architecture and counterpoint in music from Bach through Busoni to Sorabji and Ives. In the Festival’s 60th year, there is another momentous event to add to this list – the traversal of all 150 psalms in musical settings which date from the late middle ages to the present. These rich spoils have been judiciously divided between a quartet of the world’s finest chamber choirs, from Europe and Australia. The finale of this 12 concert deal was given over to the urbane Netherlands Chamber Choir and its director Peter Dijkstra, with psalms gathered under the uplifting subject area and title “Celebration of Life”.

 Clockwise from top left: The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Netherlands Chamber Choir, The Song Company and The Tallis Scholars. Photos © The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Kasimir Szekeres, Nick Rutter and Oscar Smith

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