Rosalind Ellicott bar ... It is a charming and spirited work [and received] repeated calls". It has been suggested that her father's position as a bishop enabled her to have some of her works performed at the Three Choirs Festival (held in rotation in Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester.) However the majority of new composers used patronage from established musicians or other influential people in order to obtain festival premieres. Her ambitious works for chorus and orchestra were cast in a traditional, broadly Romantic vein but she began to turn her attention to chamber music by the end of the nineteenth century, possibly
A Choral Fantasia (Holst) written for the Purcell bicentenary celebrations in 1895. Bridges' poem is a requiem of sorts for all past artists. The finished work is scored for the unusual forces of organ, brass, percussion and strings with chorus and solo soprano. The "Choral Fantasia" was first performed in 1931 at the Three Choirs festival in Gloucester Cathedral with Dorothy Silk (Holst's favorite soprano, who had premiered his "Choral Symphony" six years earlier) singing the solo part, and Holst conducting. The work was first performed in the United States on May 19, 1932, at Ann Arbor, Michigan's annual May Festival at Hill Auditorium;