One of the tourist attractions that Joan Ishibashi and I were most interested to see was the Mappa Mundi and Chained Library, both kept at Hereford Cathedral. The Mappa Mundi is the largest ancient world map which has been stored and displayed at Hereford Cathedral since 1300. I really didn’t know what it was all… Read More Mappa Mundi and the Chained Library
For a professional orchestra, programming the works of Gustav Mahler can be quite expensive because the music calls for such a large orchestra. So this afternoon we were treated to an impressive performance by the National Youth Orchestra of Wales, under the direction of Carlo Rizzi. These musicians are from 16-22 years old but you’d… Read More We couldn’t stop clapping!
Every year at the Three Choirs Festival, the BBC broadcasts one of the Evensong services. We are requested to only stand for the Creed otherwise we are to be mindful of switching our mobile phones off, and of course, to be quiet. Of all the daily Evensong services here st the Festival, I enjoyed this… Read More BBC Evensong
When I looked at the repertoire for tonight’s concert, called “Hymn of Praise,” I was pretty sure I had never heard the music before: Bruckner Te Deum and Mendelssohn Lobgesang. In fact when I am booking my Three Choirs Festival tickets, mostly the repertoire is unfamiliar to me—being large-scale works which I would not come… Read More “I waited for the Lord”
“To edit it is to receive the kiss of death as a scholar. To perform it is to court disaster. To write about it is to alienate some of one’s best friends” was the 20th-century musicologist Denis Arnold’s pithy summary of the myriad questions surrounding Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers …” Gwilym Bowen I took this photo… Read More Monteverdi Vespers at Three Choirs
In addition to the evening major concerts, there are lectures, recitals and other daytime activities at the Three Choirs Festival. Sunday I went to a voice recital by James Gilchrist, who has a gorgeous tenor voice, accompanied by an outstanding pianist, Anna Tilbrook. He started his working career as a medical doctor but changed to… Read More Three Choirs concerts and more
Every year the Three Choirs Festival features a celebrity organist and this year it was Olivier Latry from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He was named titular organist when he was only 23 years old and Organist emeritus at the Orchestre National de Montréal from 2012. I first heard him play a recital in California… Read More Celebrity organist Olivier Latry
Three Choirs Ambassador?! That’s what I feel like, when I discovered the marketing staff had quoted part of my blog from last year’s Festival in Worcester! I had just come from hearing a one-of-a-kind performance of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony and I was higher than a kite! Here’s the outside of a brochure I found.… Read More Three Choirs Ambassador?!
I have just come from the Three Choirs Festival concert called “The Planets,” in which Gustav Holst’s suite of seven tone-poems was on the second half of the program. It is one of my favorite works, and even though I have heard the work live on several occasions, this is one performance that I will… Read More Pure magic
Okay, raise your hands here. How many of you have heard the music of Dame Ethel Smyth? Last night the Three Choirs Festival programmed her Mass in D on the opening concert and I must confess that I had not heard of nor heard the music of this woman composer. As you can tell, they… Read More Dame Ethel Smyth 1858-1944