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The festival’s closing concert brings drama from the RSNO and conductor Thomas Søndergård, but Christopher Maltman's Elijah brings the presence of greatness. 

The closing concert of this year’s Three Choirs Festival in Hereford delivers a dramatic account of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, showcasing the power of bass-baritone Matthew Brook.

Sir Antonio Pappano leads the massed forces of the London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra in a rousing rendition of Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio. 

The Belfast Philharmonic Choir with the Ulster Orchestra and four local soloists give a very mixed performance of Mendelssohn’s most famous oratorio.

Under conductor Thomas Hengelbrock, the Tonhalle Orchester ensemble and 60-voice configuration of the Balthasar Neumann Choir perform the legendary Elijah oratorio at Zurich’s Tonhalle Maag.

A triumphant Elijah as Edward Gardner conducts the Blackheath Halls Chorus and Orchestra, joined by Matthew Rose, Ailish Tynan, Robert Murray and Louise Winter and young singers from Trinity Laban.

RSNO concerts begin, for me and around 100 others, with the pre-concert talk. I'm especially glad of these when new to a work, such as Mendelssohn’s 1846 Elijah. A talk by those who have prepared the music for us adds something to even the most extensive “presearch”. Sir Andrew Davis, in conversation with RSNO principal trombonist Dávur Juul Magnussen, came across as extremely witty and erudite.

Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, first performed at the Birmingham Town Hall in 1847, was enormously popular in Victorian England. In this sense, the Royal Albert Hall, the grandest of Victorian buildings, is spiritually an ideal venue for this great choral masterpiece.