A calendar of some of the more significant events in the Festival’s history.

By Anthony Boden

The origins of the annual Music Meetings of the Three Choirs of Gloucester, Worcester and Hereford were outlined in 1729, in a sermon preached by Thomas Bisse, Chancellor of Hereford Cathedral. They resulted, he said, from ‘a fortuitous and friendly proposal between a few lovers of harmony and brethren of the correspondent choirs, to commence an anniversary visit, to be kept in turn; which voluntary instance of friendship and fraternity was quickly strengthened by social compact.’

1709    Early evidence of this ‘friendship and fraternity’ was shown in 1709 when Henry Hall, the Organist of Hereford Cathedral, and his counterpart at Gloucester, William Hine, collaborated in the composition of a morning service, ‘Hall and Hine in E flat’, possibly for a joint celebration at Worcester in 1710. The Te Deum is by Hall, the Jubilate by Hine.

1715(G)    The year from which the Music Meetings are counted. It is believed that the annual gatherings were fully established by 1715, albeit that the earliest actually recorded Meeting was held in 1719(W). Wars have interrupted the continuity of the festival twice, from 1914 to 1920, and from 1939 to 1945. Until the late 1750s only music for services was permitted in the cathedrals, where the Te Deum and Jubilate in D of Purcell , for example, was sung regularly for almost forty years from the inception of the Meetings. Other concerts, including oratorio performances, were held in various secular venues. Even Messiah was not at first admitted to performance within the cathedrals.

1724(G)    Thomas Bisse    successfully proposed that the Music Meetings should be held for a charitable purpose, i.e. for the benefit of the orphans (later ‘the widows and orphans’) of the poorer clergy of the three dioceses. This remained the principle raison d’être for the Festival Charity until 1986.

1731(W)    William Hayes, a pupil of William Hine at Gloucester and an ardent Handelian, was organist at Worcester until 1734 but did not conduct at the Meetings during those years. Handel became the dominant composer in the programmes, which from 1733 featured ‘the most eminent performers from the metropolis.’ Hayes went on to become Professor of Music at Oxford and to build a national reputation as composer, conductor and organist, appearing at Three Choirs many times in the 1750s and 1760s.

1737(W)    William Boyce took over as conductor of the Music Meetings, serving for many years. His anthems were performed regularly at Meetings during the eighteenth century and, in the secular concerts, both his Solomon and The Shepherd’s Lottery were featured.

1745(G)    Maurice Greene, accompanied by several Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s, performed Greene’s dramatic pastoral Love’s Revenge at the Music Meeting.

1757(G)    First Messiah performance at a Music Meeting. Hayes conducted at Gloucester in 1757, 1760 and 1763.

1759(H)    Messiah was admitted to performance in the cathedral for the first time. Richard Clack, organist of Hereford from 1754 to 1779, was in charge of the Meeting and was the first of the cathedral organists to be recorded as conductor. Thereafter, Messiah was performed in whole or in part every year until 1963 (and from time to time since then).

1772(G)    First appearance of ladies to assist the boys in the choruses. ‘Miss Radcliffe and others of the celebrated female chorus singers from the North of England’ were engaged.

1788(W)    King George III attended a performance of Messiah.

1800(W)    First Three Choirs performance of The Creation by Haydn. François Cramer succeeded his father as Leader, and continued to appear at the Meetings until his retirement at the age of 76.

1832    Samuel Sebastian Wesley appointed organist at Hereford, appearing at a Meeting for the first time, as a pianist, at Worcester in 1833. He remained at Hereford until 1835.

1838(G)    The first Music Meeting to be designated a ‘Three Choirs Festival’. Queen Victoria was crowned in the previous year, and in 1830, as Princess Victoria, had attended the Meeting at Worcester at which Maria Malibran, making her second Three Choirs appearance, was hailed as the great star of the occasion.

1847(G)    Mendelssohn’s Elijah performed in the year following its first performance in Birmingham. Thereafter, it featured at every Festival until 1929 and many times thereafter.

1864(H)    Chamber recitals introduced under the initiative of George Townshend Smith, the organist of Hereford.

1865(G)    S.S.Wesley appointed organist at Gloucester, where, inter alia, the first Three Choirs performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion was given under his direction at the 1871(G) Festival.

1878(W)    Elgar first played in the Festival orchestra.

1879(H)    Arthur Sullivan conducted his Light of the World.

1880(G)    Hubert Parry conducted the première of his Scenes from Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound’, a work hailed by Sir Henry Hadow as the birth of modern English music.

1883(G)    John Stainer conducted the first performance of his St Mary Magdalen, which was repeated at Hereford in 1891. Charles Villiers Stanford conducted his Symphony No.2 in D minor (Elegiac).

1884(W)    Antonin Dvorak conducted performances of his Stabat Mater and Symphony No. 6 in D, Op.60 (formerly No.1).

1889(G)    Sullivan conducted his In Memoriam and Prodigal Son; Parry conducted Judith.

1890(W)    Parry conducted his Ode on St Cecilia’s Day. Elgar conducted the first performance of his Overture Froissart.

1891(H)    George Robertson Sinclair’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Hereford. Première of Parry’s De Profundis under the composer’s direction.

1892(G)    Parry conducted Job, which was repeated under his baton in 1893(W), 1894(H), 1901(G) and 1909(H).

1893(W)    First Three Choirs Festival performance of the Bach Mass in B minor.

1895(G)    Frederic Cowen conducted the première of his The Transfiguration.

1896(W)    Elgar conducted the première of The Light of Life (Lux Christi).

1898(G)    Herbert Brewer’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Gloucester. The first appearance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at Three Choirs, where he conducted the première of his Ballade in A minor. Parry conducted the first performance of his A Song of Darkness and Light. The first performances in England of the Stabat Mater and Te Deum from Quatttro pezzi sacri by Giuseppe Verdi.

1899(W)    Ivor Atkins’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Worcester. Coleridge-Taylor conducted the first performance of his Solemn Prelude for orchestra. The American composer Horatio Parker conducted the first British performance of his Hora Novissima, and Elgar conducted the first Three Choirs performance of his Enigma Variations.

1900(H)    Horatio Parker returned to conduct the première of his A Wanderer’s Psalm. Elgar conducted Caractacus (Scene III).

1901(G)    First Performance of Herbert Brewer’s Emmaus, orchestrated by Elgar, who also conducted his Cockaigne overture in an orchestral concert, and the Prelude and Angel’s Farewell from The Dream of Gerontius as part of the Opening Service.

1902(W)    First Three Choirs complete performance of Gerontius, conducted by Elgar, who regularly directed his own works at the Festival for the next thirty years. Other composers conducting premières of their works also heard in 1902 included Walford Davies, The Temple, and Granville Bantock, The Witch of Atlas.

1903(H)    First performances of The Wilderness by Bantock and The Atonement by Coleridge-Taylor. Parry directed his own Voces Clamantium.

1904(G)    First Three Choirs performances of The Apostles and the Overture In the South, both conducted by Elgar. The première of Parry’s The love that casteth out fear, under the composer’s direction.

1907(G)    First Three Choirs performance of The Kingdom, conducted by Elgar.

1908(W)    First performance of Parry’s Beyond these voices there is peace, conducted by the composer.

1909(H)    Frederick Delius conducted the first performance of his Dance Rhapsody No.1.

1910(G)    Ralph Vaughan Williams directed the première of his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Thereafter he conducted his own works regularly at the Festival.

1911(W)    Fritz Kreisler was the soloist in the first Three Choirs performance of the Elgar Violin Concerto, under the composer’s direction. Vaughan Williams conducted the first performance of his Five Mystical Songs.

1912(H)    Premières of two works conducted by their composers: Ode on the Nativity of Christ by Parry, and the Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Vaughan Williams.

1913(G)    Camille Saint-Saëns conducted the première of his oratorio The Promised Land and was the soloist in a performance of the Piano Concerto No 27 in B flat, K.595, by Mozart. The soprano Aïno Ackté travelled from Finland to sing in the Verdi Requiem, the first performance of Luonnatar, Op.70, by Sibelius, and the hair-raising closing scene from Richard Strauss’s opera Salome.

1920(W)    Resumption of the festival following the First World War. Elgar conducted his setting of Binyon’s For the Fallen, and Vaughan Williams, the first performance of his Four Hymns for tenor and strings. The St. Matthew Passion (Bach) was performed using two organs for the first time in Worcester, and with chorales played from the tower by brass instruments

1921(H)    Percy Hull’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Hereford. Elgar conducted the first Three Choirs Festival performance of his Cello Concerto, in which Beatrice Harrison was the soloist. Gustav Holst conducted his Hymn of Jesus.

1922(G)    First performances of Elgar’s orchestral transcription of the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor by Bach; A Colour Symphony by Arthur Bliss; Eugene Goossens’s setting of a poem by Walter de la Mare, Silence; and Sine Nomine by Herbert Howells.

1923(W)    First performance of To the Name above every Name by Arnold Bax.

1925(G)    Dame Ethel Smyth conducted performances of the overture to The Wreckers and of the Kyrie and Gloria from her Mass in D. The Evening Watch by Gustav Holst received its first performance. This was the first year in which a Three Choirs Festival concert was broadcast by the BBC.

1928(G)    Herbert Sumsion’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Gloucester. Zoltan Kodaly conducted his Psalmus Hungaricus in the first of three visits (1928, 1937 and 1948) to Three Choirs. The festival programme also included King David by Honegger, and the first performance of The Burden of Babylon by Bantock, which was conducted by the composer. Dame Ethel Smyth returned to conduct a complete performance of her Mass in D.

1929(W)    First performance at Three Choirs of Bach’s St John Passion.

1931(G)    Holst conducted the première of his Choral Fantasia and a performance of the Hymn of Jesus. Vaughan Williams conducted the first Three Choirs Festival performance of Job. Robin Milford’s A Prophet in the Land received its first performance, and Herbert Howells conducted the première of his song group In Green Ways.

1932(W)    William Walton conducted his Portsmouth Point overture and Viola Concerto, and Vaughan Williams the first performance of his Magnificat.

1933(H)    The last Festival in which Elgar took part, conducting Gerontius; The Kingdom; and the Concerto in E minor, arr. for Viola. George Dyson conducted the première of his St Paul’s Voyage to Melita.

1935(W)    The first performances of The Morning Watch by Arnold Bax, and of Dyson’s Nebuchadnezzar, which was conducted by the composer.

1936(H)    Vaughan Williams conducted the first performance of his Two Hymn Preludes for orchestra.

1937(G)    Kodaly conducted both his Budavari Te Deum and Jesus and the Traders.

1938(W)    Dyson conducted his Symphony in G; Vaughan Williams, his Dona Nobis Pacem; and Lennox Berkeley, the première of his Domini est terra. The programme included the first Three Choirs performance of Debussy’s The Blessed Damozel.

1946(H)    Resumption of the Festival following the Second World War. First Festival performance of Dies Natalis by Gerald Finzi. E.J.Moeran conducted his Sinfonietta in C, and Dyson the first performance of his Quo Vadis? (Part I).

1947(G)    Vaughan Williams conducted his Symphony No.5. Finzi conducted his Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice, and Edmund Rubbra his Symphony No.3.

1948(W)    Kodaly conducted his     Missa Brevis (partly rewritten for this performance). Rubbra conducted his setting of The Morning Watch.

1949(H)    Last appearances of Hull and Atkins as conductors. Vaughan Williams conducted his Symphony No.3 (‘Pastoral’); Finzi, the première of his Clarinet Concerto; and Dyson, Quo Vadis? (Parts I & II).

1950(G)    Howells conducted the première of Hymnus Paradisi, and Vaughan Williams his Symphony No.6 and the première of his Fantasia on the ‘Old 104th’. Finzi’s Ode on the Intimations of Immortality received its first performance, conducted by Sumsion.

1951(W)    David Willcocks’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Worcester. Finzi conducted his Introduction and Aria Farewell to Arms, and Julius Harrison his Worcestershire Suite. Douglas Fox was the soloist in Ravel’s Piano Concerto for Left Hand. Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagette, Britten’s Les Illuminations, and the Prelude and Scherzo by Shostakovich were featured in a chamber concert.

1952(H)    Meredith Davies’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Hereford. First performance of Cantiones Sacrae by John Gardner. Aubade Héroique by Constant Lambert was performed.

1953(G)    Richard Arnell conducted his Sinfonia, Op.13. These Things Shall Be by John Ireland received its first Three Choirs performance.

1954(W)    First performances of Missa Sabrinensis by Howells and Hodie by Vaughan Williams, both conducted by their composers.

1955(H)    First performances in Britain of the Stabat Mater by Francis Poulenc and of The Prodigal Son by Paul Huber. Humphrey Searle’s Night Music, and the Prelude, Elegy and Finale by Peter Racine Fricker were also featured. Sir Arthur Bliss conducted his Colour Symphony, and a Choral Suite, In Praise of Mary, by Geoffrey Bush, received its first performance.

1956(G)    Vaughan Williams’s last appearance at Three Choirs, conducting The Lark Ascending. First full orchestral version of Finzi’s In Terra Pax. First performance of Amore Langueo by Howard Ferguson.

1957(W)    First (long overdue!) Three Choirs performance of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. First performances of the Requiem by Julius Harrison and The City of Desolation by Anthony Milner.

1958(H)    Melville Cook’s first Festival as artistic Director at Hereford. Benjamin Britten conducted his St Nicholas, with Peter Pears as soloist, and the Sinfonia da Requiem; he also gave, with Norma Procter and Peter Pears, a recital which included his Isaac and Abraham canticle. Fricker conducted his Litany for double string orchestra. Kenneth Leighton’s The Light Invisible by Kenneth Leighton, and Franz Reizenstein’s Genesis received their first performances.

1959(G)    Première of The Dream of the Rood by Howard Ferguson.

1960(W)    Douglas Guest’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Worcester. Bliss conducted his Music for Strings. First performance in Britain of In Terra Pax by Frank Martin. Kodaly was in the audience to hear a performance of his Budavari Te Deum. Goffredo Petrassi’s Magnificat and The Eternal Gospel by Leos Janacek were featured.

1961(H)    Britten and Pears returned to Hereford to appear in a chamber recital. Britten also conducted his Nocturne, Op.60. Fricker’s The Vision of Judgement was given, as was the first British performance of the Requiem ‘For Those We Love’ by Paul Hindemith.

1962(G)    First performances of The Beatitudes by Bliss, under the direction of the composer; the Te Deum by John Sanders; the Te Deum by Tony Hewitt-Jones; and, surprisingly, the first complete Three Choirs performance of the Sea Symphony by Vaughan Williams.

1963(W)    Britten’s War Requiem given its third performance anywhere, conducted by Douglas Guest.

1964(H)    First performances of The Water and the Fire by Anthony Milner and the Stabat Mater by Bernard Naylor. Also included were the War Requiem, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Poulenc’s Gloria.

1965(G)    Anthony Milner’s Salutatio Angelica was featured, with Janet Baker as soloist.

1966(W)    Christopher Robinson’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Worcester. First Three Choirs performance of Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. Sir Adrian Boult conducted Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra. First performance of Changes by Gordon Crosse.

1967(H)    Richard Lloyd’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Hereford. Performances of Alun Hoddinott’s Dives and Lazarus and Bernard Naylor’s The Annunciation were featured.

1968(G)    John Sanders’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Gloucester. Boult conducted the Symphonic Variations for Orchestra by Parry.

1969(W)    The première of Jonathan Harvey’s Ludus Amoris and the first Three Choirs performance of Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass were given. Elizabeth Maconchy was present for the first performance of her And Death Shall Have No Dominion. Luigi Dallapiccola was also in the audience for performances of his Due Liriche di Anacreonte; Quadro Liriche di Antonio Machade; and Canti di Prigionia. Peter Maxwell Davies’s Five Carols for Boys’ Voices was also featured. A setting of Psalm 150 by William Mathias was heard for the first time at the Opening Service.

1970(H)    First performance of John McCabe’s Notturni ed Alba, conducted by Louis Frémaux.

1971(G)    First performances of The Tree of Life by Alun Hoddinott and the Organ Concerto by Peter Dickinson.

1972(W)    First performances of John Joubert’s Three Office Hymns of St Oswald, and Voyage by John McCabe. First Three Choirs performance of the Stabat Mater by Krysztof Penderecki.

1973(H)    A short orchestral work, Voices of the Night by Lennox Berkeley, was performed under the composer’s direction. Other new works included The Fire of Heaven by Geoffrey Burgon and Let there be Light by Bryan Kelly.

1974(G)    First performances of two commissions: Wilfred Josephs’ overture The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Philip Cannon’s unaccompanied triptych The Temple, and the first public performance of Christopher Steel’s Paradise Lost.

1975(W)    Donald Hunt’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Worcester. First performances of Spells by Richard Rodney Bennett and Sequentia V by David Ellis. First performance in Britain of the Requiem by Frank Martin, at which the composer’s widow was present. Hunt conducted, inter alia, a memorable performance of Messiaen’s Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine.

1976(H)    Roy Massey’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Hereford. First performance of the Requiem by Geoffrey Burgon..

1977(G)    250th Three Choirs Festival. New works by Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, Rory Boyle, Ronald Tremain and Tony Hewitt-Jones; and the centrepiece — the Mass of Christ the King by Malcolm Williamson.

1978(W)    The first complete British performance of the Requiem Mass, Op 54 by Saint-Saëns. Sir Lennox Berkeley conducted his Antiphon for String Orchestra, and his motet Judica me, as well as Anthony Payne’s cantatas Ascensiontide and Whitsuntide received their first performances. The British premières of Jean Martinon’s Chant des Captifs and the African Sanctus by David Fanshawe were heard, and the Festival ended with the first Three Choirs performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.8 in E flat, ‘The Symphony of a Thousand’.

1979(H)    The première of John Joubert’s Herefordshire Canticles. Peter Maxwell Davies’s The Martyrdom of St Magnus was the first complete opera to be staged at Three Choirs. The first Three Choirs performance of Hymnus Amoris by Carl Nielsen.

1980(G)    World premières of Lord of Light by Philip Cannon, Gerard Schurmann’s Piers Plowman, Elis Pehkonen’s Buccinate Tuba, and the first English performances of Nicholas Maw’s Serenade, Anthony Payne’s Footfalls echo in the memory, and Peter Maxwell Davies’s Solstice of Light.

1981(W)    First British performances of Aulis Sallinen’s Dies Irae, Knud Jeppesen’s Te Deum Danicum, the Trois Preludes by Pierre Villette and, surprisingly, the Missa Solemnis by Liszt. First performances of Herbert Sumsion’s In Exile: By the waters of Babylon, Jonathan Harvey’s Resurrection, Paul Trepte’s God’s Grandeur and Pierre Villette’s Messe en Français.

1982(H)    First performances of the Hymn to St Thomas by Geoffrey Burgon and Lux aeterna by William Mathias.

1983(G)    First performance of Mass of the Sea by Paul Patterson. Simon Rattle conducted a luminous performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.10, given in the late Deryck Cooke’s completed edition.

1984(W)    First performances of William Mathias’s Let us now praise famous men, Richard Rodney Bennett’s Sea Change and Peter Racine Fricker’s Whispers at these curtains. BBC television cameras were present for a performance of The Dream of Gerontius, conducted by Andrew Davis, in which the soloists were Janet Baker, Stuart Burrows and Benjamin Luxon, and for a concert of music by Copland and Bernstein.

1985(H)    Michael Berkeley’s Or Shall We Die? And the first performance of Veni Sancte Spiritus by William Mathias.

1986(G)    The first Three Choirs performances of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem and Paul Patterson’s Stabat Mater. Revival, after thirteen years, of Elijah.

1987(W)    The first performance of Richard Rodney Bennett’s Symphony No.3, conducted by its dedicatee, Edward Downes. The Te Deum of Krystof Penderecki was conducted by the composer, whose Capriccio for Oboe and Strings, and String Quartet No.1 were also included in the Festival programme. Howard Blake’s oratorio Benedictus was also performed.

1988(H)    The Darling of the World by Paul Spicer and the first performance of the Te Deum by Paul Patterson.

1989(G)    Music by Parry was featured on seven days of the Festival, including the Ode on the Nativity, the Symphony No.5 in B minor, and the Symphonic Variations. The Russian Requiem by Elis Pehkonen received its first Three Choirs performance.

1990(W)    The first UK performances of Leonard Bernstein’s Missa Brevis, Ned Rorem’s Te Deum and George Lloyd’s Twelfth Symphony, the latter conducted by the composer. The première of Mussorgsky’s Saint Nicholas Mass, ‘an unashamed hybrid’ as Philip Lane, who realized and edited the work, described it in his programme note.

1991(H)    Brian Kay was the narrator in a performance of Morning Heroes; the largest of the works by Sir Arthur Bliss included in the Festival to mark his centenary year.

1992(G)    Sine Nomine and the Kent Yeoman’s Wooing Song were among the works included in the programme to mark the centenary year of Herbert Howells. The newly-discovered manuscript score of Brewer’s Emmaus, orchestrated by Elgar, enabled the work to be heard at the Festival for the first time since 1907. Parts for this performance were prepared by Nigel Taylor.

1993(W)    The European première of the Te Deum by Dominick Argento, and the first performance of Robin Holloway’s Serenade for Strings. The British première of Tu es Petrus by Pierre Villette.

1994(H)    The first performance of Alan Ridout’s Canticle of Joy.

1995(G)    David Briggs’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Gloucester. First UK performance of The Legend of King Arthur by Elinor Remick Warren, conducted by Richard Hickox. Premières of My Heart Dances by Francis Grier and Paul Patterson’s Overture: Songs of the West.

1996(W)    Donald Hunt’s Hymnus Paschalis and the première of Edwin Roxburgh’s Concerto for Clarinet. First Three Choirs performance of Veni, veni, Emmanuel by James MacMillan, and the British première of the Trumpet Concerto by Pierre Villette.

1997(H)    Donald Hunt’s A Song of Celebration and the first performance of Judith Bingham’s Below the Surface Stream.

1998(G)    The programme included several works by Sir Hubert Parry, including his Symphony No.4 and The Soul’s Ransom; the first performance of the Te Deum by David Briggs; The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz; and the first act of Parsifal by Wagner.

1999(W)    Adrian Lucas’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Worcester. The Stabat Mater by Karol Szymanowski and the première of Francis Pott’s A Song on the End of the World.

2000(H)    Francis Grier’s Around the Curve of the World, and the first performances of Judith Weir’s Otherworld and Kenneth Leighton’s Concerto for Oboe and Strings.

2001(G)    The Festival was billed as ‘A Celebration of British Music’ and included the first public performance of Whispers of Heavenly Death by Vaughan Williams and the first Three Choirs performance of A Mass of Life by Delius.

2002(W)    The first performance of  The Vision of Piers Plowman by Andrew Gant.

2003(H)    Geraint Bowen’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Hereford. The first performance of Air and Angels by Anthony Powers.

2004(G)    Andrew Nethsingha’s first Festival as Artistic Director at Gloucester. Five composers were each invited to contribute a variation on ‘Down Ampney’ as an orchestral tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Variations on Down Ampney. The five were John McCabe, James Francis Brown, Judith Bingham, David Matthews and Robert Saxton. The new work was conducted by Martyn Brabbins.

2005(W)    Adrian Lucas’s Creation Canticles. The first performance of Songs of Truth and Glory by Howard Blake.

2006(H)    The UK première of Sun-Dogs by James MacMillan, conducted by the composer. The first Three Choirs performance of Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri.

2007(G)    The UK première of Robin Holloway’s orchestration of Debussy’s En blanc et noir, originally for two pianos. Unfortunately, a scheduled performance of the First Symphony by Arnold Bax had to be abandoned following the collapse of the conductor, the late Vernon Handley, during a rehearsal.

2008(W)    The first performance of ‘A British Symphony’ by Andrew Gant and an innovation: an orchestral concert of Classic British Film Music.