Music: Austerity Aside

What Salzburg was no longer able to do, Edinburgh had set out to do better. Edinburgh's ambition: to become, for three weeks each year, the musical capital of Europe.

Scotland's ancient granite capital had never played hostess to so many people. The first Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama caught the city up in a giddy Highland fling. Overnight, dignified George Street became a gay cosmopolitan avenue where silky Parisian accents rubbed cozily against the rough Northern burr. In the stately Princes Street gardens, the floral clock blossomed with the names of...