Birmingham Triennial Music Festival

The first music festival, over three days in September 1768, was to help raise funds to complete the new General Hospital on Summer Lane.

From September 1784 the performances became a permanent feature and ran every three years, becoming the Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival, still with the aim of raising funds for the hospital.

Originally hosted in St Philip's Church (later to become the city's cathedral) or the Theatre Royal on New Street the available venues became too small for the festival.

The 1879 Festival commissioned a work from Max Bruch, Das Lied von der Glocke.

The chorus master, Charles Swinnerton Heap had died suddenly four months before the concert was due, and with ten works in hand and only one copy of the score, rehearsal started only a few days before the performance date.

His commission for 1912 created The Music Makers, incorporating themes from the Enigma Variations, Gerontius, his violin concerto, and The Apostles.