The music of Herbert Howells is a bit of a tough sell even for admirers of Ralph Vaughan Williams and other British composers of the middle 20th century. Although he was not really a Christian, most of his music is religious. But the pomp and circumstance of British music of the period is undercut by a sort of severity derived from Howells' study of Renaissance choral music and earlier English cathedral traditions. This collection of pieces, many of them quite obscure, is really beautifully performed and probably offers as ...
Read More
The music of Herbert Howells is a bit of a tough sell even for admirers of Ralph Vaughan Williams and other British composers of the middle 20th century. Although he was not really a Christian, most of his music is religious. But the pomp and circumstance of British music of the period is undercut by a sort of severity derived from Howells' study of Renaissance choral music and earlier English cathedral traditions. This collection of pieces, many of them quite obscure, is really beautifully performed and probably offers as good a place as any to start with Howells. The Requiem billed in the graphics occupies well under half the album. Composed in 1932, it was not published until 1980. The work furnished raw material for Howells' single most famous piece, Hymnus Paradisi (not included here), written after the death of his nine-year-old son from polio, and it is interesting to trace the origin of that seemingly time-specific work to earlier music. It's an unusual requiem setting that alternates...
Read Less
