Cheltenham Music Festival - day 3

Festival Director, Meurig Bowen, posing for this photograph at the end of the interval in tonight's rather splendid Town Hall concert, said, "I bet it'll be up on your blog within half an hour!" Well, it's been a little longer...

That's because we've only just returned from a second event this evening. A silent film may seem an odd choice for a music festival, but this showing of the 1923 Salomé (with its lavish Beardsley-based costumes) was something special. You could sense it upon entering the Parabola, the screen flanked by two scaffolding towers, giving platforms for four percussionists: they played throughout, the score (including a vocal tape) composed by Charlie Barber.

The story line takes little time to relate, but every twist of the plot was here played out in ultra slow motion, like a Noh play almost. Without music it could have been risible, and perhaps even with a conventional piano accompaniment. But the tension created by the quartet of musicians, and clever lighting changes, made it a gripping 70-odd minutes. There were some astonishing performances in the film itself, not just from Alla Nazimova in the title part. I had vowed never to see Salomé performed again after the last time I went to the Strauss version (at ENO), but am now glad that I'd forgotten this when booking the tickets for this evening!

Earlier, I'd been apprehensive about paying £35 for a bench seat to hear a bunch of young amateurs from Singapore tackling a programme that included Delius and Holst, hardly my favourite composers. But my ear warmed to the sound of the Orchestra of the Music Makers, and Holst's Oriental Suite was a genuine surprise - a pleasure to hear.

Rattled by 3D

A friend rang to tell me he had wasted most of Saturday morning trying to book for the Dudamel concert at the Proms this year: by the time he got through, it was sold out. Simon Rattle was once regarded by the critics as Dudamel is now, but barely a couple of handfuls were all that turned up to Cineworld, Cheltenham last evening for his appearance in the world's first 3D HD symphony concert film. My photograph shows what it's like being at a 3D performance without special glasses; though I'm bound to say wearing them gave me as much of a headache as taking them off. (The sound was brilliant.)

The snapshot shows a conductor, now 56, who used to be a familiar figure in Cheltenham Town Hall when half his present age and in charge of the CBSO. Then the hair was black, there was a lot more of it - and, dare I say, the shoulders were less hunched.

The concert - Mahler and Rachmaninov - is filmed in Singapore's amazing Esplanade concert hall: the way the first part is presented puts the audience in the passenger seat on a test drive with Sebastian Vettel - an audience, that is, which normally prefers the comfort of a sedately-driven saloon car. Things improve with the Rachmaninov, where we are treated to something of a Singaporean travelogue. Very beautiful too.

Would I go again? Yes, I think so, depending on the make-up of the programme: last night, the Cineworld website gave us not a clue as to what was in store! But I'm not sure the 3D adds much.