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Young musicians were streaming into the concert hall at Snape Maltings when I arrived on a peerless sunny morning. A Ferris wheel lazily turned beyond the buildings, its occupants masters of a stupendous view all the way down the snaking River Alde to Aldeburgh and the open sea. Snape was en fête this weekend, a grand public party.
When Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears converted the austere old maltings at Snape into a great concert hall in 1966-67, they dreamt of this: all ages, all stages of musical appreciation flocking to enjoy wonderful music in the severely beautiful setting of the flat Suffolk coastlands.
The Aldeburgh Festival that they