The Day Crumhorns Replaced...Saxophones...
30 years ago the York Early Music Festival radically changed the way period music was performed and it remains the leading festival of its kind. Ref The Guardian Music Blog..... The summer of 1977 saw a musical revolution. A bunch of young players, bored with the mainstream, ripped up the rulebook and stripped everything back to basics, playing home-made instruments which were often out of tune. The DIY ethos meant anyone capable of strumming a few chords could join in. It was also the summer of punk. The York Early Music Festival celebrates its 30th anniversary this year: and though it now shares the scene with similar festivals in London and Brighton, it was the first of its kind in Britain and remains at the vanguard of period music performance. We now take "authentic" performance so much for granted that it is hard to appreciate just how much of a radical, cult interest pre-18th century music was when the York Festival was founded in a one-bedroom flat within s...