7.45pm
"Baroque Splendour"
Dr John Wall Tercentenary Concert
Festival Chorus
Philharmonia Orchestra
Conducted by Geraint Bowen
Worcester Cathedral
Buy tickets: £37/£32/£26/£18/£10

Sponsored by The Wigornia Circle

Handel - Zadok The Priest
Garth - Cello Concerto No.5 in D minor
Handel - Chandos Anthem: O Praise the Lord with One Consent
Purcell - Hail, Bright Cecilia

Soloists: Lorna Anderson (Soprano)
James Bowman (Counter Tenor)
Charles Humphries (Counter Tenor)
Simon Wall (Tenor)
Dan Jordan (Bass)

In 1751, the first Worcester Porcelain factory was founded by a group of 15 men, headed by Dr. John Wall, an eminent physician. Dr. Wall along with another of the group, an apothecary called William Davis, developed their method for producing porcelain. Dr. Wall secured the sum of £4500 from the partners to establish the factory in Worcester and those original partnership deeds are still housed in the Museum of Worcester Porcelain. As a benefactor of Worcester, he was also a steward and Treasurer of the Three Choirs Festival at this time and founder of the first charitable hospital in the City.

To celebrate the tercentenary of Dr John Wall, Worcester Three Choirs Festival presents a glorious concert of baroque pieces that would have been performed in John Wall's day:

Zadok the Priest (with words adapted from the first chapter of the First Book of Kings) shows Handel's supreme power to make a unique statement by the simplest means. One of the last acts of King George I before his death in 1727 was to sign "An Act for the naturalising of George Frederick Handel and others." This piece was part of Handel's first commission as a naturalised British citizen - the music for the coronation of King George II and Queen Caroline later that year.

Garth was a gifted organist and composer. The cello concertos were written in 1760 and were composed at a time of great change in British music - away from the baroque concerti grossi of Corelli and Geminiani towards the three movement 'da camera' approach developed by composers such as J C Bach.

1717 had not been a good year for Handel. The opera company that had employed him seven years earlier, on his arrival in England, was beginning to disintegrate under a series of financial wrangles, and it looked as though the 1717 season would be his last of assured income. He therefore opted to become composer-in-residence to the Duke of Chandos and wrote, amongst other works, eleven anthems The Chandos Anthems for performance in services at the ducal chapel.

Considered one of the finest composers in English history, Henry Purcell remains a shadowy figure despite innumerable attempts to know him better. The English custom of celebrating St Cecilia's Day with a concert featuring the performance of a specially composed ode is shrouded in mystery. Purcell could not have written Hail, bright Cecilia, his great 1692 ‘Cecilia ode', without studying similar works by other composers unfamiliar to 21st century audiences. Purcell responded to a number of features from the layout of earlier works, and composed his ode from a text by Nicholas Brady in 1692.