Youth and Music

Young musicians have always had a special place in the thoughts and the heart of the Anglo-Austrian Music Society. Ferdinand Rauter tells us how in an internment camp during the dark days of the war he heard the sounds of a violin coming from a tent and how a short way on he heard another violin. He brought the two boys together, and there were the beginnings of the Amadeus Quartet. Caring for young musicians, getting them further training and eventually opportunities for performing their music, was at least one of the reasons for forming the Austrian Musicians' Group, and later for founding the Anglo- Austrian Music Society.

Debut recitals for gifted young artists and the Tauber scholarship are mentioned elsewhere in these pages. When arranging concert tours by the Vienna Boys Choir or Austrian folkmusic ensembles young people were very much in our minds. We notified schools in the area inviting them to our concerts, gave substantial reductions on tickets and were gratified to see the concert halls enlivened by large school parties. Young people are a grateful audience and a discerning one. We found them especially responsive to modern music - which in turn encouraged us to include more contemporary works in our programmes.

Whenever possible we gave young musicians a chance of showing their skills as accompanists, singers, instrumentalists or student orchestras. One memorable instance was the Schubert Concert at St John's in February 1978, when students of the four London music academies under the direction of Bernard Keeffe presented a reconstruction of the only concert Schubert ever gave.

Our first Youth and Music venture in the sense in which this term is usually applied was a co-operation with the British Council on the visit of the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra to Austria in 1968. Their concerts in Vienna and five other cities, mainly of contemporary British music, proved a revelation and a culture shock in Austria - then as now a land without school orchestras. Firm friendships were formed between the young visitors from Leicestershire and the host families found by the Anglo-Austrian Society.

Encouraged by the success of this visit, the City of Vienna a few years later began its annual Jugend und Musik in Wien Festival and the Anglo-Austrian Society helped numerous British school orchestras, choirs and bands with cheap travel to Vienna and affordable accommodation, and a programme for their stay there. Many prizes were won by these British young people against formidable international competition, and in February 1983 we presented some of the prize winners of the Vienna International Youth and Music Festival at a concert at the Royal Festival Hall - a very splendid occasion honoured by Royal patronage.