New book reveals ten ‘firsts’ of the Three Choirs Festival
Publication: 26 July 2024 by Logaston Press
This much-anticipated new book examines ten concerts that shaped the world’s oldest classical music festival.
The Three Choirs Festival is the world’s oldest classical music festival, originating in the early eighteenth century and alternating each year between the cathedral cities of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester.
This book offers a concise, illustrated history of the Festival through ten landmark concerts – concerts that helped to shape its character and place in the classical music world. From the first performance of Handel’s Messiah in 1757, through premieres of works by Elgar, Parry, Howells, Vaughan Williams and Alice Mary Smith (in 1882), to the first concert to be applauded by the audience in 1969.
Sample pages:
The context and significance of each concert is explored in detail, along with lively responses to the programming drawn from contemporary press reviews and the Annals of the Three Choirs.
Three Choirs Festival in ten concerts provides the first concise, accessible history of this celebrated and much-loved institution. As Jonathan Clinch notes in his foreword, ‘Music comes to represent people, places, and relationships. Breaking it down – three choirs, three cathedrals, ten concerts – seems a very logical way to get your head around it. However, what emerges is a wonderfully human sense of the messiness of history, the interconnectedness of everything, and how some things never change.
Simon Carpenter is the volunteer archivist and historian of the Three Choirs Festival, and is a Gloucester Cathedral guide.
For a review copy, to contact the author or for further information, please contact Su Wheeler on 01544 327182, mobile 07957 898963 or email info@logastonpress.co.uk
Purchase at the Logaston bookshop: logastonpress.co.uk | £12.99
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