It might seem an unlikely battleground for the political row over Europe, but the programming of Beethoven’s powerful Ode to Joy for the finale of the renowned Three Choirs festival in early August has prompted anger, due to its use as the EU anthem. The concert, unlike the other major musical events at the festival, has yet to sell out, and one irate Brexiter has called for a boycott.

This weekend the well-known conductor Adrian Partington, artistic director for the week-long festival, defended his decision to select Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony despite the famous final choral bars.

“I am appalled because I really don’t want politics to come into it,” he told the Observer. “I hope that is not why some people have not bought tickets, and if so I despair.” Partington, who is also director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales, said that he regarded the decision of British European members of parliament to turn their back on musicians while they played Ode to Joy last week “pathetic”, but he added that “as a musician I am completely outside the politics of this”.

“The choral work was chosen,” Partington said, “because it is so magisterial – the same reason the EU chose it, I imagine.”

A spokeswoman for the Three Choirs festival, which is held in Gloucester every three years, alternating with Hereford and Worcester, said that an email and a phone call had made the feelings of a small minority of local people very clear.

“I was told that some people felt it was not an appropriate programming for a concert in an area that voted overwhelmingly for Brexit,” she said. The complainant then promised to call for other people to stay away.

“We can’t be sure this is why there are still tickets,” said the spokeswoman. “Most are selling very well indeed, and it is not the worst seller. It is true that normally the last night might sell particularly well, but at the same time I think some people were not even aware that Beethoven was on the programme that night.”

The festival, she added, is apolitical: “But people can infer for themselves how we feel as a musical organisation about the prospect of Brexit. There are a lot of concerns.”

Programming for the event was already “in the pipeline” shortly after the last festival in Gloucester in 2016, organisers have also explained. Beethoven’s Ninth was chosen among other major works of the repertoire to be played this year, including Verdi’s Requiem and Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust, and also because of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary next year.