200px, Worcester cathedral 200px, Gloucester cathedral The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held annually at the end of July, rotating among the cathedrals of the

Three Counties The Three Counties of England are traditionally the three agrarian counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Including towns and cities such as Worcester, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Hereford, Leominster, Stourbridge, Evesham, ...

(

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population ...

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of the ...

and

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engl ...

) 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 2011 festival took place in Worcester from 6 to 13 August. The 2012 festival in Hereford took place earlier than usual, from 21 to 28 July, to avoid clashing with the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

. The event is now established in the last week of July. The 300th anniversary of the original Three Choirs Festival was celebrated during the 2015 festival, which took place from 25 July to 1 August in Hereford (the landmark 300th meeting of the Three Choirs does not fall until after 2027 due to there being no Three Choirs Festivals for the duration of both World War I and World War II and COVID-19. The festival is closely identified with the musical careers of British composers

Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...

and

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

. 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 Adrian Frederick Partington (born 1 October 1958) is an English conductor, chorus master, organist and pianist. He is director of music at Gloucester Cathedral, joint conductor of the Three Choirs Festival and artistic director for the Gloucester ...

(Gloucester) and Samuel Hudson (Worcester).

History

The festival, originally held over two days in September (but also held in September in 1933 and 1947, since C. S. Lewis's brother

Warren A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval Angl ...

is known to have attended), is one of the world's oldest classical choral music festivals.Three Choirs web site
Retrieved 15 August 2009 Originally called the Annual Music Meeting of the Three Choirs, the first is believed to have been held in Gloucester in 1715. 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 Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution ...

'', ''

Judas Maccabaeus Judah Maccabee (or Judas Maccabeus, also spelled Machabeus, or Maccabæus, Hebrew: יהודה המכבי, ''Yehudah HaMakabi'') was a Jewish priest (''kohen'') and a son of the priest Mattathias. He led the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleuc ...

'' and ''

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashia ...

''. Sir Samuel Hellier, guardian of the

Hellier Stradivarius The ''Hellier Stradivarius'' of ''c.'' 1679 is a violin made by Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, Italy. It derives its name from the Hellier family, who might well have bought it directly from the luthier himself. Ownership The ''Hellier Stradivar ...

, was a "prominent figure". Haydn's '' The Creation'' was heard first in the festival of 1800. From 1840,

Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sym ...

's ''

Elijah Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My El (deity), God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic language, Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) w ...

'' was performed every year until 1930. The 19th century saw the introduction of

Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards ...

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

and

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

, 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. Works by J. S. Bach were not heard until the 1870s, soon to be followed by local (

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

-born) 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 its emphasis shifted toward British musicians.

Herbert Sumsion Herbert Whitton Sumsion (14 January 1899 – 11 August 1995) was an English musician who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967. Through his leadership role with the Three Choirs Festival, Sumsion maintained close association ...

, organist at Gloucester between 1928 and 1967, particularly helped to promote the works of native composers, including premiering works of

Howells Howells may refer to: People *Howells (surname) Places in the United States * Howells, Colorado, a place in Colorado *Howells, Nebraska *Howells, New York *Howells Junction, New York, a place in New York Business establishments * Howells (depa ...

, Finzi, and others.

Parry PARRY was an early example of a chatbot, implemented in 1972 by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby. History PARRY was written in 1972 by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby, then at Stanford University. While ELIZA was a tongue-in-cheek simulation of a Rog ...

'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 was another composer who introduced or conducted new works, with his ''Dance Rhapsody No. 1''. Another was

, whose ''

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis ''Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis'', also known as the ''Tallis Fantasia'', is a one-movement work for string orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The theme is by the 16th-century English composer Thomas Tallis. The Fantasia was first perf ...

'' was premiered there in 1910, followed by the ''

Five Mystical Songs The ''Five Mystical Songs'' are a musical composition by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), written between 1906 and 1911. The work sets four poems ("Easter" divided into two parts) by seventeenth-century Welsh poet and Anglic ...

'' in 1911 and the '' 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

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music edu ...

and programmed Kodály's works at six Gloucester festivals. Other names include

Gustav Holst Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...

Arthur Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinaf ...

, Herbert Howells,

Gerald Finzi Gerald Raphael Finzi (14 July 1901 – 27 September 1956) was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a choral composer, but also wrote in other genres. Large-scale compositions by Finzi include the cantata '' Dies natalis'' for solo voice and ...

William Walton Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantat ...

Arthur Bliss Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor. Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he qu ...

and

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

and recently,

Lennox Berkeley Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer. Biography Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James Cha ...

, John McCabe, William Mathias, Paul Patterson and

James MacMillan Sir James Loy MacMillan, (born 16 July 1959) is a Scottish classical composer and conductor. Early life MacMillan was born at Kilwinning, in North Ayrshire, but lived in the East Ayrshire town of Cumnock until 1977. His father is James MacMi ...

. A timeline of some of the more significant events in the festival's history from 1709 until the present day has been compiled by Anthony Boden
Three Choirs Festival timeline
In 1995, a Festival Society was established to provide a means for enthusiasts to actively participate in support for the Three Choirs Festival. The festival is funded by ticket sales, donations and sponsorships. In 2010, the Three Choirs Festival Youth Choir was formed. Made up of singers aged 16–25, it has performed at every festival since then, under a variety of conductors. In 2012 in Hereford the Three Choirs Festival Youth Choir premiered ''Centuries of Meditation'', a setting by

Dobrinka Tabakova Dobrinka Tabakova ( Bulgarian: Добринка Табакова; born 1980, Plovdiv, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian-British composer. Early life and education Dobrinka Tabakova was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, to medical physicists Vassilka and Slavik ...

of words by

Thomas Traherne Thomas Traherne (; 1636 or 1637) was an English poet, Anglican cleric, theologian, and religious writer. The intense, scholarly spirituality in his writings has led to his being commemorated by some parts of the Anglican Communion on 10 October ...

. The

Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, ...

began a rolling three-year formal residency at the festival in 2012. In July 2019 it was reported that the programming of Beethoven's ''

Ode to Joy "Ode to Joy" (German language, German: , literally "To heJoy") is an ode written in the summer of 1785 by German poet, playwright, and historian Friedrich Schiller and published the following year in ''Thalia (magazine), Thalia''. A slightl ...

'' for the finale of the festival had prompted anger amongst

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time, GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 Central Eur ...

eers, due to its use as the

Anthem of Europe "Anthem of Europe" is the anthem of both the European Union (EU) and Council of Europe. It is used to represent both the European Union and the whole of Europe; its purpose is to honour shared European values. The EU describes it as expressi ...

. The concert, unlike the other major musical events at the festival, did not sell out.

References

External links

Three Choirs Festival websiteHereford CathedralGloucester CathedralWorcester Cathedral
{{authority control Classical music festivals in England Gloucester Hereford Culture in Worcester, England Choral festivals 1719 establishments in England Music festivals established in 1719

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links