Three Choirs 2023: the general view

Before I move on to actual concerts and services I’ll start with a few general impressions from Gloucester 2023, as compared with Gloucester 2016.

The Festival Chorus was rather smaller this time, although I’d say it was at least as good as before. I sang in only three evening concerts (a fourth concert used a semi-chorus), as opposed to the six concerts in 2016. There had been concern about audiences not returning since the pandemic, although some of these concerts were sellouts, or almost so. The opening service was scaled back, but members of the chorus took part in a procession through the city centre beforehand to the Cathedral. The two evensongs I went to were also well attended, in one case unexpectedly well so.

I would have not expected this, but almost all the music, and all the pieces at the evening concerts, was new to me. The exceptions were the opening movement of The Apostles, three anthems by Vaughan Williams and – rather startlingly, I was the only person in the chorus who had sung this before – the hymn tune ‘Danby’.

I wasn’t quick enough to buy one of the sturdy Festival shopping bags which had sold out by the Tuesday, so I had to make do with a cushion. I was pleased to see the return of ‘Partington’s Potion’ and sampled some on the Thursday. As there’s been a change at Worcester, maybe we need ‘Hudson’s Hogshead’ as well as ‘Bowen’s Brew’ to go with it.