Director's Introduction

The East Neuk Festival's distinctive style and format came out of early discussions between myself and Donald MacDonald. We agreed to invite artists to the Festival for residencies rather than one-night stands, and to aim to give them as much artistic freedom as possible within the limits of our venues and budgets. Our reward has been that wonderful musicians have come to appear, and there is always a bit of a frisson knowing that the churches of Crail or St Monans might be listed alongside New York's Carnegie Hall or Vienna's Musikverein in their biographies for the season.

We usually have three or four different residencies interlocking during the Festival, and one of the greatest pleasures of programming the event is the process of teasing out connections, links, and ideas in common between their proposals, allowing themes to emerge and possibilities to arise - things that could only happen at one special time in East Fife.

This year's Mendelssohn theme had three starting points. First, a conversation with cellist David Watkin about three quartets Mendelssohn wrote inspired by Beethoven. Mendelssohn is so often remembered as a quintessentially Victorian composer - young, brilliant, picturesque and fantastical but, perhaps, sentimental and just a tad lightweight. The Eroica Quartet's concerts reveal his more rugged and weighty side, and they form a backbone to the whole of ENF08. They are complemented by two additional events. Saturday evening's Crail concert is a classic case of bringing together musicians who would otherwise not have the chance to play together. Two world-class string quartets (Eroica and Skampa) join forces for Mendelssohn's Octet while violinist Alexander Janiczek - who has appeared in every East Neuk Festival to date - is joined by Llyr Williams and David Watkin for the D minor Trio. Why that piece? Well, 4 or 5 years ago Donald MacDonald and I played it together so spectacularly badly we must have offended the spirit of Mendelssohn! Hopefully this will make amends.

Closing the festival with the music from A Midsummer Night's Dream was suggested by reading Christopher Rush's book, Will. Rush grew up in nearby St Monans and wrote a best selling memoir of his boyhood called Hellfire and Herring which we featured at a previous Festival. In Will he gives full vent to his passion for Shakespeare and imagines the Bard in his final hours reflecting on his life. Rush creates a fictionalised biography, speculating where evidence is scanty, and bringing Shakespeare's England to life in vivid and often terrifying detail. I approached him about writing a script to link Mendelssohn's music, and he happily agreed. Too often Mendelssohn's score is performed interpolated with a selection of famous speeches, or - worse - twee unfunny narrations. This will, I am sure, be quite different...

With so quintessentially Romantic a composer as Mendelssohn at the heart of the programme, I wanted to complement him with music that shared some of the same heritage, but viewed from an utterly different perspective. The flowering of Bohemian music in the late 19th century made perfect sense. The work of Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek and Suk lies at the heart of Europe, yet their Eastern accent transforms the tradition. There is no mistaking the distinctiveness of their national harmony, melody and expressive intent. But the clincher, the reason for programming that music this year, was the Skampa Quartet. Here is a great quartet playing the music of its forefathers, with all the authenticity of tradition. In this age of globalisation that is all too rare.

Llyr Williams links many different themes this year. He includes Janacek's On an Overgrown Path to complement the Skampa Quartet and performs Mendelssohn with Janiczek and Watkin. His own thoughtfully programmed concerts have their own identity too: juxtapositions of two pairs of composers, all of them pianists, representing a century of the greatest European pianism. Debussy and Chopin make a natural pairing - though the Ballades reveal Chopin at his least Debussian. Schubert and Janacek is perhaps less obvious, but think what they had in common: geography - Vienna and Brno are not so far apart; also, both lived under the sometime oppressive rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and both kicked against it on occasion. Perhaps their utterly individual and distinctive musical personalities owe their formation partly to this adversity.

Ancient and Modern is perhaps the theme most typical of the East Neuk Festival. The whole point of the event is to find wonderful spaces which suit music, so that the whole adds up to a memorable experience. Holy Trinity St Andrews and St Monans Kirk both offer a magnificent setting for strings and voices. Kinkell Byre and the HAS at RAF Leuchars - both distinctive and special - require utterly unconventional kinds of programme. Ancient and Modern grew out of all of this and many enjoyable conversations with Angus Smith of the Orlando Consort and Judith Colman of the SCO. I hope you enjoy it.

Finally, we have our ghost stories. At one time, being read to was one of the commonest forms of entertainment - and such a special one. How sad that it has all but died out. Here's a bid to revive the pleasure and to hear ghost stories in unusual places that reflect the narratives. Again it brings together several ENF qualities - a strong sense of place, and a rare, intimate and unique experience.

Svend Brown, Artistic Director