Depth and Elegance

In Europe, the music festival season starts in the Spring with the Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo (the Monte Carlo Spring of Arts), now at its thirtieth edition (14 March until 13 April 2014). As discussed last year (Stylized and Abstract, 5 April 2013), because of the location, it attracts audience not only from nearby France, Italy and Switzerland but also from the United Kingdom and the United States. It is not a 'theme festival', strictly speaking, but it offers a cohesive program which places emphasis on a few composers. The intention — as emphasized by artistic director Marc Monnet in an interview with me -- is to provide music not often played by symphony and chamber music ensembles in Southern France, where the repertory normally spans from the eighteenth to the first half of the twentieth century...