Today's Date:

One morning in January 1982, the Director of Music at the Ministry of Culture, Maurice Fleuret, sent me a memo saying that the French owned more than four million musical instruments. Three quarters of these instruments lay deteriorating in cupboards, attics and cellars before departing this life in dustbins and on rubbish tips. I couldn't help but lament their fate.

Afterwards, the memo turned out to be not so sad - indeed, it spawned a great idea. Why couldn't, one day a year, those cellos, guitars, trombones, kettledrums, triangles and big bass drums wake up, be restored, produce sounds, find someone to play them and enchant anyone who cared to listen? Why, on that day, couldn't performers, professionals and amateurs alike, play completely freely indoors and out, everywhere, in public squares, under porches and on covered walkways, areas of school playgrounds and hospital gardens, at entrances to music academies or under café awnings just for the sheer pleasure of playing? All that was missing from this mammoth concert was a name, a date and a Prince Charming to awaken Sleeping Beauty.

The first such festival took place on 21 June 1982. It was given the homonym "Faites de la musique", "Make music," [in French this has the same pronunciation as fête de la musique, festival of music]. The day of the summer solstice, the longest day in the year, was chosen, almost coinciding and thus competing with Saint Jean Day, three days later [Saint Jean Day, originally a Catholic commemoration of the birth of John the Baptist - the precursor of Christ, the light of the world - hence the link with the summer solstice and bonfires - is still celebrated on the night of 23-24 June]. The Director of Music at the Ministry of Culture played the role of the young prince. To avoid annoying those people who, for one reason or another, loathe music and during nocturnal hours equate it to "disturbing the peace at night", the festival was held from 8.30 p.m. to 9 p.m. The diversity of the performances and large number of "venues" were to make it a totally new experience. Music-lovers swarmed around monuments and thronged streets and squares. There was euphoria from Calais to Menton. In Paris, the brass band of the Garde Républicaine paraded on horseback on the Avenue de l'Opéra, children's choirs performed songs by Poulenc and Britten a capella in bandstands, string quartets played Brahms and Schumann in the courtyards of the Hôtel de Rohan and Hôtel d'Albret [two prestigious historic buildings], the Opéra de Paris orchestra played Berlioz' "Symphony Fantastique" on the steps of the Palais Garnier, Celtic musicians (from Brittany) entertained in front of Montparnasse station, and the media set up their platforms on Place de la République, Place de la Bastille and Place du Trocadéro.

How right we were to pursue the idea. The following year, the time restrictions were dropped. Today, after eighteen successful years, the festival is firmly established. Orchestras, brass bands, jazz, rock, pop, techno, ethnic, rap and funk music groups, gospel singers, school and church choirs, music-hall performers, musicians from different French regions and indeed from all over the world celebrate music every 21 June. Like France's national holiday (14 July), Labour Day (1 May) and VE Day (8 May), 21 June is celebrated no longer for St Rodolphe [21 June is St Rodolphe Day in the French calendar] a forgotten young martyr, but for music in all its forms, although the Fête de la Musique has yet to appear in pocket diaries and isn't yet a public holiday...

What is the fête de la musique?

It's the day - it's now a firm fixture - when musicians, whether they're amateurs or professionals, can play wherever they want at any time, day or night. They might choose a station concourse, a school playground, the inside of a cathedral or church, a café, the steps of a town hall, historic building or prefecture, a passage-way, a prison and so on. Amateurs, often nervous when they have to sing or play an instrument in public, have the chance to play freely without feeling self-conscious. What's more, the festival isn't a financial burden on the Ministry of Culture or regional and municipal authorities. All it requires is a poster, a list of venues across France, information available by phone or on the Internet, the suspension of royalties for the day, and an increase in the number of commuter train, and bus and underground services running until dawn.

Audiences have heard some unique concerts: carte vermeille [similar to the British senior citizens rail card] holders singing Palestrina and Gounod at the bottom of a cul de sac; a 12-year-old playing a concerto for violin and orchestra, with him on the violin and the orchestra broadcasting on 91.70 FM (France Musique music channel); music-hall performers singing in hospitals; a harmonica player in a porte-cochère; two pianists performing a Schubert fantasy on two floors of the same building with the windows wide open; women handing out scores of Kosma's "Si tu t'imagines" or Brassens' "La chanson pour l'auvergnat" to passers-by so that they could sing along with the accordion; percussion bands parading down streets; a concert of Polish music in a church heard by all passers-by; Yiddish songs in a museum under construction; Scandinavian melodies accompanied by a nyckelharpa [traditional Swedish folk instrument] in the garden of a cultural centre; Higelin singing "Beauté crachée" on a tank travelling from Place de la République to Place de la Bastille; folk music in the underground; and a faltering imitation of Freddie Mercury in a school playground.

While some professionals criticize it for being a gimmick and others complain that it has been taken over by sponsors and media organizations, the fête de la musique gives anyone who wants to the chance to play or listen to absolutely every type of music. A virtually trouble-free festival of over 15 hundred concerts in a single night!

A world-wide festival

The fête de la musique is becoming increasingly international. Because it's fun, because music alone knows no language or cultural barriers and is free from politics, because of the huge variety of "events" and participants, and because everyone has music of some kind within them even if they don't admit it, this festival could become the world's Number 1 music festival. In 2000 the fête de la musique took place in over a hundred countries, including the 15 countries of the European Union, Poland, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Cambodia, Vietnam, Congo, Cameroon, Togo, Chile, Nicaragua, and Japan. The "Hymn to Joy" at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, every form of electronic music on Brussels' Place de la Monnaie, over 200 concerts in the Barcelona streets, musical parades along Athens avenues, "musical lorries" in the streets of Istanbul, concerts in New York City, the Spirit of Music in San Francisco, and much more besides.

That first festival was to set a trend. Such festivals are a brilliant way of focusing attention on an art or indeed a human tragedy. France now has the Journées du patrimoine [Heritage Days] on the last weekend in September, the Printemps des poètes, the Fête du cinéma, Lire en fête [book festival] in October, the week-long Fête de la science in October, launched in 1991, the Techno Parade on the second Saturday in September, and World AIDS Day, first held in 1988. The day will come when all these events will be marked in almanacs just like our saints' days still are./.