“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
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
I wanted change . . . I got it in spades at the opening day at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford. It was the 291st opening day of the Festival which alternates between Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester. We woke up to cold rain and gray skies, which means the heat wave is over, but… Read More Girl power
Last month when I published the newsletter for my condo association, I listed the following checklist before going on vacation: Filling out a Resident Vacation Form to let the office know how long you’ll be gone. Putting your mail on hold. Putting a vacation stop to the daily newspaper. Unplugging electronics. Getting someone to water… Read More Vacation checklist
What time is it in the U.K.? I typed this in my browser repeatedly last night to make sure I knew what time it was in England. You see, I was counting down the minutes it would be exactly April 4th at 10:00 am in England—that was when tickets would be available for this year’s… Read More 11 time zones away
“Undimmed grief” is what composer Herbert Howells suffered when he and his wife suffered the loss of their son, Michael, aged nine, from polio. He wrote: I am completely frozen and all the sympathy and kindness in the world couldn’t help. Friends tried, but I knew I had to get something out of me that… Read More An English Farewell
This afternoon’s concert at the Three Choirs Festival was by the world-famous Kings College Choir conducted by Stephen Cleobury. It was sponsored by the American Friends of the Three Choirs Festival to which I contributed. For decades my late husband Carl Crosier and I listened to the Kings College recordings and out of their concert… Read More The Gold Standard
It was only today, the next to last day of the Three Choirs Festival 2017, that the construction fencing came down around Cathedral Square and we were able to see the statue of Sir Edward Elgar! The plaque reads: Sir Edward Elgar, who rose from obscurity to become England’s greatest composer for 200 years, was… Read More On the next to last day…