Talking to Young Musicians

Extract

I had an invitation this year to go to Salzburg for a month. This came from a group of Americans who run what is known as the Salzburg Seminar. The seminars were started by the Harvard Students Council because a group of young students there felt that there ought to be some means, after the recent war, of getting together young Europeans. The idea was to let them study the American way of life, culture and so on: and also to exchange views with each other, to compare notes and discuss what was going on in the various European countries. They thought it especially valuable that young students from the vanquished countries should have a chance of meeting their fellow Europeans, many of them, for the first time. Such a meeting place helps enormously understanding between nations: at least, between the lucky fifty or so a month who manage to get to Schloss Leopoldskron, formerly Max Reinhardt's castle, where the seminars are held.