Charlotte Corderoy in conversation with John Quinn
One of the most eagerly anticipated events of the 2023 Three Choirs Festival is the semi-staged production of Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrim’s Progress. This is a key work in Vaughan Williams’ output; the composition occupied him for a very long time – for three decades, from the early 1920s until its first performance in 1951 – and it blends several different aspects of his style. I first came to know and love it fully fifty years ago through Sir Adrian Boult’s famous EMI recording, issued in 1972 to mark the composer’s centenary. Opportunities to experience it live have been few and far between, though. I managed to see a semi-staged performance that Richard Hickox conducted in Symphony Hall, Birmingham in 1997, in which, as I recall, several singers took part who later featured in his excellent 1998 Chandos recording. To my lasting regret, I never saw the widely praised production which the Royal Northern College of Music put on in 1992, though I subsequently obtained and admired the live audio recording that was issued. Finally, in 2012 I was able to see a full staged production at English National Opera and though I was irritated by some aspects of the production, the musical performance, under the expert baton of Martyn Brabbins, was excellent (review). When I learned that the work was to feature in the Three Choirs Festival it became an unmissable event as far as I was concerned.
My interest was further piqued when I discovered that the performance is to be conducted by Charlotte Corderoy, a young British conductor and someone, moreover, for whom this performance will be something of a musical homecoming because she has strong connections with Gloucester Cathedral and the Three Choirs Festival. Interestingly, in returning to conduct at Three Choirs she will follow in the footsteps of Gloucester-born Edward Gardner, a former chorister at Gloucester Cathedral, who appeared as a guest conductor at the 2013, 2016 and 2019 Festivals, all held in his home city.
