Last night was our last evening concert for the Three Choirs Festival—an all-Mozart concert including the Requiem and the Sinfonia Concertante in E flat for violin
and viola, K 364—a most unusual concerto. However, don’t get me wrong—there’s still one more nighttime concert left in the Festival but by that time we will be on our way to Helsinki, Finland.

Also there are probably seven or eight events that happen every day — lectures, walks, recitals, concerts, etc. but we have chosen to only attend two or three each day.

From the program we read:

It’s one of those mishaps of musical history that we don’t know why, or even exactly when, Mozart wrote his last and greatest string concerto. We’ve even lost the autograph manuscript. The best guess is that he wrote the Sinfonia Concertante in the summer of 1779 in Salzburg, where he’d returned, unwillingly, after 16 months in the great musical centres of Paris and Mannheim had failed to land him a full-time job. His father Leopold was unimpressed, and warned him against ‘the mannerism-ridden Mannheim fashion’. Wolfgang, in response, made plain his own views on the Salzburg way of doing things, writing in January 1779 that ‘I swear on my honour that I can’t stand Salzburg or its inhabitants – I find their manners and their language utterly insufferable.’

The two superb soloists were Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, director/violin and Scott Dickinson, viola, and they looked like they were really enjoying themselves and having a good time! The strings really sounded fantastic in the resonant cathedral and I swear that music sounds so much better in this building than in a standard concert hall—the cathedral acoustics play a big part in why music sounds so good here.

The Mozart Requiem performance was absolutely magnificent — the soloists, the orchestra and especially the chorus, mostly because although it consisted of mixed men and women, the sound of the sopranos was absolutely soaring and pure like those of boys. The chorus was huge, and the sound massive, but all in a good way.

Earlier we went to our final Evensong, which featured a Magnificat and Nunc dimittis by celebrated young composer and former Gloucester Cathedral Youth Choir member Kerensa Briggs.

And because we know people in high places (wink-wink!), a couple of us organists were invited to see the console of the new Gloucester organ. Thanks to David Francis, CEO of the Three Choirs Festival, Paul Ellison and Rich Arenschieldt for making it happen! We were able to meet Nicholas Freestone, who played the organ for Evensong. He was formerly the assistant and organist at Worcester Cathedral and will be going to his new job at Westminster Cathedral.

In the morning we visited Tewkesbury Abbey, which dates from 1121. Bill Potter had heard the Bishop of Tewkesbury mentioned earlier at the Sunday Eucharist and wanted to find out more about it.

After a guided tour of the Abbey, we stayed to have a delicious lunch at the Bell Hotel, directly across the street. We all had an apple/blackberry crumble with vanilla ice cream for dessert! Yum!