Three Choirs Festival
Encyclopedia
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 2011 festival took place in Worcester from 6 to 13 August.
The festival is closely identified with the musical careers of British composers Edward Elgar
and Ralph Vaughan Williams
. 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).
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
. Sir Samuel Hellier
, guardian of the Hellier Stradivarius
, was a "prominent figure". 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 its emphasis shifted 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 was 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 the Five Mystical Songs
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 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.
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.
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 and Kidderminster, they extend from the southern boundaries of...
(Hereford
Hereford Cathedral
The current Hereford Cathedral, located at Hereford in England, dates from 1079. Its most famous treasure is Mappa Mundi, a mediæval map of the world dating from the 13th century. The cathedral is a Grade I listed building.-Origins:...
, Gloucester
Gloucester Cathedral
Gloucester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the river. It originated in 678 or 679 with the foundation of an abbey dedicated to Saint Peter .-Foundations:The foundations of the present...
and Worcester
Worcester Cathedral
Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England; situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of 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 2011 festival took place in Worcester from 6 to 13 August.
The festival is closely identified with the musical careers of British composers Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
and Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
. 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
Geraint Bowen
Geraint Bowen may refer to:*Geraint Bowen , musical director of the Hereford Three Choirs Festival*Geraint Bowen , Welsh language poet and former Archdruid of the Eisteddfod...
(Hereford), Adrian Partington (Gloucester) and Adrian Lucas
Adrian Lucas
Adrian Lucas is an English conductor and organist. He is artistic director of the Worcester Three Choirs Festival.He became organist and director of music at Worcester Cathedral in 1996. He is also conductor of the Worcester Festival Choral Society and musical director of the City of Birmingham Choir...
(Worcester).
History
The festival, originally held over two days in September, is one of the world’s oldest classical choral music festivals. 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'sHenry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
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
Alexander's Feast (Handel)
Alexander's Feast is an ode with music by George Frideric Handel set to a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton. Hamilton adapted his libretto from John Dryden's ode Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music which had been written to celebrate Saint Cecilia's Day...
, Samson, Judas Maccabaeus and Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
. Sir Samuel Hellier
The Wodehouse
The Wodehouse is a country house near Wombourne, Staffordshire, notable as the seat of the Georgian landscape designer and musicologist Sir Samuel Hellier and, a century later, Colonel Thomas Bradney Shaw-Hellier, director of the Royal Military School of Music. For almost 200 years the family...
, guardian of the Hellier Stradivarius
Hellier Stradivarius
The Hellier Stradivarius of circa 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....
, was a "prominent figure". Haydn's The Creation was heard first in the festival of 1800. From 1840, Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
's Elijah
Elijah (oratorio)
Elijah, in German: Elias, is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1846 for the Birmingham Festival. It depicts various events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament....
was performed every year until 1930.
The 19th century saw the introduction of Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
and Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, 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
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
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 its emphasis shifted toward British musicians. Herbert Sumsion
Herbert Sumsion
Herbert Whitton Sumsion was an English musician who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967...
, organist at Gloucester between 1928 and 1967, particularly helped to promote the works of native composers, including premiering works of Howells
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...
, Finzi
Gerald Finzi
Gerald Raphael Finzi was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a song-writer, but also wrote in other genres...
, and others. Parry
Hubert Parry
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...
'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
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
in 1901 was another composer who introduced or conducted new works, with his Dance Rhapsody No. 1. Another was Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
, whose Tallis Fantasia
Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, also known as the Tallis Fantasia, is a work for string orchestra by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was composed in 1910, and performed for the first time in September of that year at Gloucester Cathedral for the Three Choirs Festival...
was premiered there in 1910, followed by the Five Mystical Songs
Five Mystical Songs
The Five Mystical Songs are a composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams, written between 1906 and 1911. The work sets four poems by George Herbert, from his 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems. While Herbert was a priest, Vaughan Williams himself was an agnostic, though this did not prevent his...
in 1911 and the Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Fantasia on Christmas Carols is a 1912 work for baritone, chorus, and orchestra by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. First performed at the 1912 Three Choirs Festival at Hereford Cathedral, the work is a single movement of roughly twelve minutes which consists of the English folk 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
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....
and programmed Kodaly's works at six Gloucester festivals. Other names include Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
, Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
, Herbert Howells
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...
, Gerald Finzi
Gerald Finzi
Gerald Raphael Finzi was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a song-writer, but also wrote in other genres...
, Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
, Bliss
Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO 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...
and Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
and recently, Lennox Berkeley
Lennox Berkeley
Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley was an English composer.- Biography :He was born in Oxford, England, and educated at the Dragon School, Gresham's School and Merton College, Oxford...
, John McCabe
John McCabe (composer)
John McCabe CBE is an English composer and pianist.- Biography :John McCabe was born in Huyton, Liverpool, Merseyside. A prolific composer from an early age, he had written thirteen symphonies by the time he was eleven...
, William Mathias
William Mathias
William Mathias CBE was a Welsh composer.-Brief biography:Mathias was born in Whitland, Carmarthenshire. A child prodigy, he started playing the piano at the age of three and composing at the age of five. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Lennox Berkeley, where he was elected a fellow...
, Paul Patterson
Paul Patterson
Paul Patterson is a British composer and Manson Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music.Patterson studied trombone and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. He returned there to become Head of Composition and Contemporary Music until 1997, when he became Manson Professor of...
and James MacMillan.
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.
See also
- List of music festivals in the United Kingdom
- Percy HullPercy HullSir Percy Clarke Hull was an English organist and composer who revived the Three Choirs Festival during his time as organist of Hereford Cathedral from 1918 to 1949...
, who revived the festival after World War II
Further reading
- Boden, Anthony (1992) Three Choirs: A History of the Festival (Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd).
- Hunt, Donald (1999) Elgar and the Three Choirs Festival (Worcester: Osborne Books).
- Watkins Shaw, H. (1954) The Three Choirs Festival (Worcester: Ebenezer Baylis and Son Ltd).