A fantastic celebration of music in the city of Stuttgart seems to have slipped under the radar in Britain, but not for Christopher Morley.

The annual three-week long summer music festival held in the picturesque, pleasant city of Stuttgart in southern Germany seems to be a decidedly well-kept secret on our side of the Channel.

It appears the Birmingham Post was the only English newspaper represented there, and I spent a fascinating time exploring a range of music.

There is a strong contemporary presence, as well as world music and other genres, but the western classical tradition remains the bedrock of the festival.

One of the chief reasons for this is the inspiration of the veteran conductor Helmut Rilling, artistic director of the Stuttgart-based International Bach Academy, and a linchpin in the performance of Bach’s religious music in the styles of the Lutheran tradition.

“Our festival is the only one presenting regular Sunday services in the main Protestant church which include a strong religious input, including JS Bach’s cantatas performed to the highest standard,” festival public relations officer Claudia Brinker tells me, before she continues with a titbit of gossip which could almost come out of Anthony Trollope.

“But there’s been a bit of controversy this year as one of our colleagues is Roman Catholic, and wants events in the local Catholic church as well!”

The service in the Protestant Stiftskirche on the Sunday morning I was there included the setting of Psalm 23 by Howard Goodall.

Rilling’s interests have also entailed the inclusion in Stuttgart programmes of the great oratorios, including Mendelssohn’s Elijah and St Paul.

He also conceived a fascinating project in Millennium Year 2000 (the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death) when he commissioned composers from all corners of the world – Sofia Gubaidulina, Wolfgang Rihm, Osvaldo Golijov and Tan Dun – each to write a new setting of the Passion based on one of the four evangelists.

Dun, actually a Chinese buddhist, now based in the United States, composed Water Passion, teasing out the references to water in St Matthew’s Gospel, and in fact this hugely successful work was repeated last Sunday to conclude this year’s festival.

It proved rather a neat choice, as Dun was this year’s composer-in-residence, and water was the theme of the whole enterprise this summer.

In recent year’s festival themes have included light, followed by night, but the water theme for 2011 is particularly appropriate to this city, with its long history of thermal baths, great for healthy bathing, but not much use for drinking.

The problem is that Stuttgart is a beautiful city in a valley between two mountainous ranges.

The Romans recognised the value of the situation, and planted vineyards.

Stuttgart is famous to this day for its wine-production (not much of which reaches the outside world, as the locals guzzle it enthusiastically – ever drunk a quarter-litre of gorgeous Riesling out of a mini-tankard? I have).

But water is a different problem, and as the enthusiastic guide explained on a tour of the laboriously-created and beautiful reservoirs told me, it was a very long time before a steady supply of drinking water could be guaranteed to the residents.

Actually, this water tour revealed the similarities between Stuttgart and Birmingham.