ELGAR once said that to hear his choral works at their best you should listen to them performed in a cathedral, where the building itself would give to the performance a very special quality.

There is great truth in this, as I found during my 27 years association with the Three Choirs Festival,for Elgar means to me late summer days in three beautiful cathedrals - the three sisters as Herbert Howells once described them - where an audience of choral music enthusiasts is enjoying the unique atmosphere of a Three Choirs Festival as they await the magic of Elgar's music in a wonderful setting.

Elgar is memorable anywhere, but especially so in the circumstances that the composer himself recognised as ideal for his choralmasterpieces.

As a youngster I'd encountered some of the more popular Elgar works such as Pomp and Circumstance marches, and as a choirboy had heard Nimrod played on the organ at funerals, but I really became aware of Elgar's real genius when I was the young accompanist to the City of Birmingham Choir. In 1957 during the celebrations of the centenary of the composer's birth I played for rehearsals of his three great choral works, The Apostles, Dream of Gerontius and The Kingdom.

This was an excellent way of getting to know the pieces in depth and, as they sank into my understanding,the greater my admiration grew.

At about the same time I was also acting as organist to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Birmingham Town Hall and I often found myself playing the organ part in the Enigma Variations or the Cockaigne Overture. On these occasions I always took a miniature score with me and thus discovered the absolute genius of Elgar's orchestration at first hand.

I also recall travelling along the M5 Motorway in its early two-track days on a wonderful summer's morning with the Malvern Hills on my right, listening to Alec Robertson giving a pre-Prom talk on the radio about the Elgar Cello Concerto.

It was a moment of revelation as I suddenly realised how the music had caught the essence of this particular piece of countryside through which I was passing, an impression later reinforced by that wonderful Ken Russell film on the composer, some of which was shot on the Malvern Hills.

So, Elgar means to me the memories of youthful musical discoveries and the later joy of Three Choirs concerts, either as conductor or listener.

When living in Hereford I often walked my dog on the Malvern Hills, sometimes with Elgar's tunes buzzing around in my head, and I never ceased to marvel at the wonderful sounds he conjured from an orchestra which were so redolent of the sights and atmosphere of the countryside around me.

I'm thrilled that at long last Hereford's important part in Elgar's creative life has been commemorated by the lovely statue in the Cathedral Close, and I'm thankful for the wonderful good fortune that gave me the opportunity to make music for so many years in Elgar country. Elgar's music has been a lifetime's voyage of discovery which still goes on.

For this great joy, I'm very grateful.