Under the first festival director, the distinguished Austrian-born impresario Rudolf Bing, it had a broadly-based programme, covering orchestral, choral and chamber music, Lieder and song, opera, ballet, drama, film, and Scottish 'piping and dancing' on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle, a structure that was followed in subsequent years.

The idea of a Festival with a remit to "provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit" and enrich the cultural life of Scotland, Britain and Europe took form in the wake of the Second World War.

Harvey Wood described the meeting at which the idea was hatched: The Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama was first discussed over a lunch table in a restaurant in Hanover Square, London, towards the end of 1944.

[6] From the beginning, the festival had a broad coverage, but with an emphasis on classical music, a highlight of the first season being concerts given by the Vienna Philharmonic, reunited with their erstwhile conductor Bruno Walter, who had left Europe after Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938.

Besides Bruno Walter, they included the conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler, John Barbirolli, Thomas Beecham, Adrian Boult, Fritz Busch, Josef Krips, Pierre Monteux and Vittorio Gui, the pianist Artur Schnabel, the violinist Joseph Szigeti, and the singer Lotte Lehmann, all of whom appeared in Edinburgh late their careers.

Rising stars of post-war Europe, such as the conductors Herbert von Karajan, Rafael Kubelík, Charles Munch, Wolfgang Sawallisch, and Leonard Bernstein, the pianists Claudio Arrau, Solomon, and Rudolf Serkin, the string players Yehudi Menuhin, Pierre Fournier, Isaac Stern, and Amadeus String Quartet, and the singers Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Victoria de los Ángeles, Boris Christoff, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Peter Pears were all present in Edinburgh concert and recital halls from the beginning of their careers, while the long-lived pianist Artur Rubinstein had a career that seemingly spanned both eras.

Some of the most impressive performers of the early years had their careers cut short in the 1950s, notably Kathleen Ferrier, Guido Cantelli, Ginette Neveu and Dennis Brain.

In addition an outstanding group of Soviet artists included the pianist Sviatoslav Richter, cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, violinists David Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan, and the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya.

Major artists came to Edinburgh during the first thirty years, such as the conductors Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Thomas Beecham, Fritz Busch, Christoph von Dohnányi, Ferenc Fricsay, Alexander Gibson, Carlo Maria Giulini, Vittorio Gui, Rafael Kubelik, Georg Solti, Alberto Erede, János Ferencsik, John Pritchard, and Carlos Kleiber, and the directors Carl Ebert, Peter Ebert, Götz Friedrich, Colin Graham, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Günther Rennert, Giorgio Strehler, Luchino Visconti, Wieland Wagner and Franco Zeffirelli.

Star singers appearing in staged operas included Victoria de los Angeles, Teresa Berganza, Maria Callas, Lisa della Casa, Ileana Cotrubaș, Sena Jurinac, Birgit Nilsson, Magda Olivero, Renata Scotto, Anja Silja, Elisabeth Söderström, Joan Sutherland, Galina Vishnevskaya, and Ljuba Welitsch, Luigi Alva, Sesto Bruscantini, Boris Christoff, Fernando Corena, Geraint Evans, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Nicolai Gedda, Tito Gobbi, Alfredo Kraus, George London, Luciano Pavarotti, Peter Pears, Hermann Prey, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Wolfgang Windgassen, and Fritz Wunderlich.

One of the festival's first dramatic success came in 1948 when an adaptation of Sir David Lyndsay's The Thrie Estaites was performed to great acclaim for the first time since 1552 in the Assembly Hall on the Mound.

Noted directors in the early years included E. Martin Browne, Peter Ustinov, Gustav Gründgens, Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Benthall, while in the 1960s and 1970s Frank Dunlop, Richard Eyre, Toby Robertson, Luca Ronconi, and Andrei Serban brought productions to the city.

Well-known actors included Ralph Richardson, Alec Guinness, John Gielgud, Sybil Thorndike, Lewis Casson, Emlyn Williams, Claire Bloom, Alan Badel, Peter Finch, Richard Burton, Fay Compton, Ann Todd, Eric Porter and Edwige Feuillère in the early period, while Anna Calder-Marshall, Derek Jacobi, Felicity Kendal, Ian McKellen, John Neville, Edward Petherbridge, and Timothy West first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s.

The third decade began with Derain in 1967, followed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Wotruba, a Boudin to Picasso exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy, and Canada 101, a focus on contemporary Canadian art, all in 1968.

Sixteenth century Italian drawings from British private collections (at Merchants' Hall), Contemporary Polish art, and Jack Coia gold medallist were shown in 1969.

Many works have received their world premieres at the Edinburgh International Festival, from T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party and The Confidential Clerk in 1949 and 1953, to James MacMillan's 2018 version of Quickening and Symphony No.

The British Army's desire to showcase itself during the festival period led to the independent staging of the first Edinburgh Military Tattoo, featuring displays of piping and dancing, in 1950.