Continuing with the theme of finding inspiration and renewal from events of the past Music Will Rise From The Wreckage looks at the 1969 and 1970 Aldeburgh Festivals, and the devastating fire which destroyed the newly built Snape Maltings concert hall on the first day of the 1969 Festival. (Picture to right shows Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears surveying the wreckage of the concert hall. The eyewitness account above is by pianist and accompanist Roger Vignoles from Autograph Books' Time & Concord - Aldeburgh Festival Recollections).

Through superhuman efforts by Britten and the Festival Committee not only did the 1969 Festival go ahead with the loss of only one concert, but the concert hall was completely rebuilt for the 1970 season. The vintage programme for that Festival included two performaces of a new production of the Rape of Lucretia, and three of Curlew River.

The rebuilt Maltings that year was also the venue for the first performance of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony outside Russia. It was conducted by its dedicatee Britten, and performed with the two soloists for whom it was written, Galina Vishnevskaya and Mark Rezhetin. Other Festival concerts included the world premiere of Hans Werner Henze's vivid theatre piece about a runaway Cuban slave, El Cimarron, conducted by the composer. Guitarist and composer Leo Brouwer continued the Cuban theme with a concert of music from his native Cuba featuring a political sub-text.

On An Overgrown Path has the full story of those two extraordinary Aldeburgh Festivals, and tells how Music Will Rise From The Wreckage.