I took the train into Worcester yesterday, the site of the Three Choirs Festival this year. I booked my hotel, The Cardinal’s Hat Inn, a year ago at the end of last year’s Festival in Gloucester, because I so enjoyed the high caliber of the musical performances.

The hotel is above a pub of the same name, and has no room numbers, only room names. This morning breakfast was delivered to my door in a picnic basket, containing a croissant, granola cereal, fruit, yogurt, juice and milk!

I was first in line at the North Door at 10:00 am (The service starts at 11:30) when I was joined by Joe Hansen, Rick Cicinelli and their nurse-companion, Olinda! You may remember I had dinner with them last November when I went to play the all-Bach concert at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley. (See my previous post “The solution—trio sonatas.”)

Surprisingly there were a few empty seats—I was luckily on the aisle and no one sat in front of me. The organist, Christopher Allsop, played an excellent performance of the Bach Fantasy and Fugue in G minor, as part of the prelude. The choral music directed by Dr. Peter Nardone included Schütz Jauchzet dem Herrn, Francis Jackson Benedicite, and Bruckner Ecce sacerdos. The service opened with congregational hymns Lasst uns erfreuen and closed with Herbert Howells Michael, all grandly accompanied by brass and organ. There was plenty of pomp and pageantry with grand opening and retiring processions—I counted 21 people wearing copes! (A cope is a liturgical overgarment or “raincoat” used at services other than Masses. By the way, it did rain during the service!)

Nobody does it better than the Brits!

I can’t help but think of my late husband Carl and how he would have loved to be here at this Festival—he would have loved the music, the pageantry, the architecture—all of it. So sorry we never got to the Three Choirs Festival together.