The patrons of the festivals have included the Queen, the late Prince Consort, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duchess of Kent, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Duke of Cambridge, the Princess Mary of Cambridge, the Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Lothian, the Earl of Roseberry, the Earl of Gosford, the Earl of Orford, Lord W. Powlett, Lord Stanley, Lord Walsingham, Lord Wodehouse, and many others of the nobility. The committee of management have included the Lord Lieutenant of the county, the Earl of Albemarle, Lord Ranelagh, Lord Sondes, Lord Hastings, Lord Stafford, Lord Suffield, Lord Bayning, Hon. W. C. W. Coke, Hon. H. Walpole, Hon. W. Jerningham, Sir J. P. Boileau, Bart., Sir W. Foster, Bart., Sir S. Bignold, and others. The first musical performance for charitable purposes is said to have been on the anniversary of the Sons of the Clergy, in 1709; some fifteen years after which period, the meeting of the three choirs of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester, was instituted, those cathedral cities sending their choristers to each place in alternate years. These early music meetings, however, were held in the evening, and seem to have been limited to the performance of Anthems and the Te Deum. The first occasion of an Oratorio having been performed in the morning appears to have been at Hereford in 1759, when the Messiah was given. The Birmingham Triennial Festival was instituted about the year 1778, and that of Norwich, as now held in St. Andrew’s Hall, in 1824, previously to which the Norwich festival consisted of the yearly performance of an Oratorio in the cathedral for the benefit of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. The performances of later years have been on a much grander scale. The festivals at Birmingham and Norwich now stand pre-eminent among provincial musical meetings, both for the excellence of the performances, and for the special interest given to the programmes by the first production of new or little-known works. Among other claims to honourable distinction in this respect, it is the chief and will be the lasting honour to Norwich that Dr. Spohr’s sacred Oratorios were first performed here, his earliest production being conducted by himself in person before a large audience.