<<  -- 4 --  Philip Lancaster    A home-coming

Next year's Worcester Three Choirs will feature a great change of personnel directing the festival: Roy Massey is retiring after many years' service as organist at Hereford to be replaced by Geraint Bowen, moving from St David's Cathedral in Wales, and David Briggs is leaving to pursue a freelance career and finding more time to compose: a replacement has yet to be appointed. Adrian Lucas, at present, remains to host a festival focusing on William Walton whose centenary falls in 2002. To me disappointingly, there also appear performances of Rachmaninov's and Mahler's second symphonies: one can go to most concert halls in the country, or even the world, to hear these.

The current number of festivals in Britain runs into hundreds: some people are calling for cutbacks, believing this is too many, offering not only a 'swamping' of the market but also placing greater demand on arts funding which is difficult at the best of times. The heritage of 274 festivals provides no more security than a freshly founded event: it may be prudent for festivals such as the Three Choirs to find their corner in the market and cater for something which is found in few other venues. Given its heritage as a home for British music and the success of this year's festival, it would be worth considering building on this -- not necessarily to the exclusion of anything else.

There have been rumours, how founded I don't know, that Gloucester will build on its success and offer further explorations into our islands' musical legacy. It would be nice to hope so. If it is the case, perhaps they could include the likes of E J Moeran and George Dyson, both sadly missing this year, or the individual voice of Kenneth Leighton, represented in the first evensong sung by the combined cathedral choirs of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester, but a composer highly neglected in all other areas of his composition; perhaps they could include a performance of Stanford's Stabat Mater or, on the strength of the Sea Venturers, could give Frederic Austin's Symphony an outing. We can but wait, and hope.