Preface

Summary

THIS book is a revised, updated and expanded edition of Three Choirs: A History of the Festival, researched and written between 1989 and 1991, and published by Alan Sutton in 1992. Now, a quarter of a century later, further research has enabled me to revise and amplify the early chapters; to throw additional light upon the origins of the Festival; to rewrite Chapter 22; and to add Chapter 23, covering the period from 1992 to 1999, years during which I was personally involved as Festival Secretary/Administrator at Gloucester. However, rather than attempting to write about the twenty-first-century Festivals myself, I turned to Dr Paul Hedley for assistance in the preparation of this new edition. Paul, who took on the job of central management in 2008, has written an account of the Festival during the years from 2000, thereby completing this history of Three Choirs up to its tercentenary year, which was celebrated in 2015.

The complete list of works performed in the cathedrals and other principal venues at the Festival, formerly collated by the late Christian Wilson, were published in the 1992 edition of this book. Henceforth, in order to give readers access to the latest version of the Annals, it is intended that detailed listings will be updated periodically and hosted on the Three Choirs Festival website.

Between 1989 and 1990, I had set out to contact as many people with Three Choirs connections as possible, and they and numerous others assisted me in a variety of ways. My very first telephone call was to Harold Watkins Shaw (who preferred to be known as Watkins Shaw). His excellent book The Three Choirs Festival, published in 1954, set the bar high for any writer contemplating following in his footsteps, and I confess to having been rather nervous about approaching him, and concerned that he might have viewed me as an interloper in his sphere of expertise. However, my fears proved to be groundless: he invited me to visit his Worcestershire home, where he and Mrs Shaw welcomed me most warmly and where he was only too pleased to talk openly during a long, informative and helpful discussion.