Three Choirs Festival

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The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival, held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties, (Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester) and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme. The large-scale choral repertoire is now performed by the Festival Chorus but the festival also features other major ensembles and international soloists. The 2007 festival took place in Gloucester from 4-12 August.

The festival is closely identified with the musical careers of British composers Edward Elgar, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Elgar's Enigma Variations, which swept him to fame in 1899, and the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, written for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival of 1900, were both performed in 2007, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Elgar's birth. The 2007 festival also featured Benjamin Britten's War Requiem and Mahler's Eighth Symphony: two large-scale choral works dating from near the end of the lives of these two composers. The organists of the three cathedrals (who act as artistic director and festival conductor when it is their cathedral's turn to host the festival) are Geraint Bowen (Hereford), Adrian Partington (Gloucester) and Adrian Lucas (Worcester). The 2008 festival will take place in Worcester from 2 - 9 August.

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[edit] History

The festival, originally over two days in September, is probably one of the oldest in Europe. Publicity for it in 1719, addressed "Members of the yearly Musical Assembly in these parts". Its music obviously tended towards the ecclesiastical. In early gatherings, Purcell's setting of the Te Deum and Jubilate was a regular part of the repertoire until 1784, and Handel dominated 18th century programmes with oratorios such as Alexander's Feast, Samson, Judas Maccabaeus and Messiah. Haydn's The Creation was heard first in the festival of 1800. From 1840, Mendelssohn's Elijah was performed every year until 1930.

The 19th century saw the introduction of Rossini, Mozart and Beethoven and the festival's fortunes were enhanced by the arrival of the railways. However, these also brought crowds, a phenomenon not always pleasing to the church authorities although full seats uplifted the finances. In the 1870s, the festival was reduced to the three cathedral choirs, ending for a while the era of the visiting celebrity singer as a faction in the church sought to stress the "appropriate" nature of activities allowed in cathedrals. However the civil authorities took issue with the ecclesiastical and the festival revived. Interestingly, works by J.S. Bach were not heard until the 1870s, soon to be followed by "local" composer Elgar, who began to be featured around the turn of the century and whose works dominated the festival for much of the 20th century as it shifted emphasis toward British musicians. Herbert Sumsion, organist at Gloucester between 1928 and 1967, particularly helped to promote the works of native composers, including premiering works of Howells, Finzi, and others. Parry's compositions were also performed regularly. His De Profundis was one of the earliest works to be commissioned especially for the festival and performed in 1891.

Delius in 1901 is another composer who introduced or conducted new works, with his Dance Rhapsody No. 1. Another was Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose Tallis Fantasia was premiered there in 1910, followed by Fantasia on Christmas Carols in 1912, after which he co-featured with Elgar as a central prop to the musical repertoire. Sumsion fostered a relationship with Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly and programmed Kodaly's works at six Gloucester festivals. Other names include Holst, Arthur Sullivan, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, Walton, Bliss and Britten and recently, Lennox Berkeley, John McCabe, William Mathias, Paul Patterson and James MacMillan.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Anthony Boden, Three Choirs: A History of the Festival (Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1992).
  • Donald Hunt, Elgar and the Three Choirs Festival (Worcester: Osborne Books, 1999).
  • H. Watkins Shaw, The Three Choirs Festival (Worcester: Ebenezer Baylis and Son Ltd., 1954).

[edit] See also