TheThree Choirs Festival is a music festival held annually at the end of July, rotating among the cathedrals of theThree Counties (Hereford,Gloucester, andWorcester) 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.[1] 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 the2012 Summer Olympics.[2] 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 bothWorld War I andWorld War II andCOVID-19. The 2023 Festival took place in Gloucester from 22 to 29 July.
The festival is closely identified with the musical careers of British composersEdward Elgar andRalph 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) areGeraint Bowen (Hereford),Adrian Partington (Gloucester), andSamuel Hudson (Worcester).
The Three Choirs Festival is the oldest extant music festival in Europe.[3] Originally called theAnnual Music Meeting of the Three Choirs, the first is believed to have been held in Gloucester in 1715.[4] 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 theTe Deum andJubilate was a regular part of the repertoire until 1784, and Handel dominated 18th-century programmes with oratorios such asAlexander's Feast,Samson,Judas Maccabaeus, andMessiah.Sir Samuel Hellier, guardian of theHellier Stradivarius, was a "prominent figure".[5] Haydn'sThe Creation was heard first in the festival of 1800. From 1840,Mendelssohn'sElijah was performed every year until 1930.
The 19th century saw the introduction ofRossini,Mozart, andBeethoven, 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 byJ. S. Bach were not heard until the 1870s, soon to be followed by local (Worcestershire-born) composerEdward 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 ofHowells,Finzi, and others.Parry's compositions were also performed regularly. HisDe 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 hisDance Rhapsody No. 1. Another wasRalph Vaughan Williams, whoseFantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was premiered there in 1910, followed by theFive Mystical Songs in 1911 and theFantasia 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 composerZoltán Kodály and programmed Kodály's works at six Gloucester festivals. Other names includeGustav Holst,Arthur Sullivan,Herbert Howells,Gerald Finzi,William Walton,Arthur Bliss, andBenjamin Britten and recently,Lennox Berkeley,John McCabe,William Mathias,Paul Patterson, andJames MacMillan.
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 1996, a Festival Society was established to provide a means for enthusiasts to actively participate in support for the Three Choirs Festival.[6] 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 premieredCenturies of Meditation, a setting byDobrinka Tabakova of words byThomas Traherne.[7]
ThePhilharmonia Orchestra began a rolling three-year formal residency at the festival in 2012.[8]
In July 2019, it was reported that the programming of Beethoven'sOde to Joy for the finale of the festival had prompted anger amongstBrexiteers, due to its use as theAnthem of Europe. The concert, unlike the other major musical events at the festival, did not sell out.[9]
In 2021, the Festival included the première ofSteve Elcock's Eighth Symphony.[10]
