Herbert Howells developed an instantly a reflection upon Howells’s own setting of THE HOUSE OF THE MIND recognisable and distinctive voice in his that text and his compositional methods more choral music. That voice became and widely. The programme of the recording spans remains inextricably linked with Anglican liturgy, a century, from two Howells works composed churches, and choirs, but rather than evoking during the Great War (Regina cæli and 1 Behold, O God our defender Herbert Howells [4.08] formality or traditionalism it is marked by Salve regina) to pieces by David Bednall 2 A Hymn for St Cecilia Herbert Howells [3.17] striking sensuality and apparent freedom. commissioned for this project and completed – 3 O Lord I am not haughty David Bednall [5.25] There is, as David Maw has put it, an essential as a complement to the two Howells items just 4 God be in my head Herbert Howells [1.34] paradox about Howells’s compositional output mentioned – in 2016. 5 The souls of the righteous Ralph Vaughan Williams [3.13] and reputation: ‘on one level, Howells successfully 6 The House of the Mind Herbert Howells [9.22] and self-consciously allied himself with the Born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, in 1892, British musical establishment; on another Howells studied with Herbert Brewer, Organist of 7 Lighten our darkness Charles Villiers Stanford [3.55] level, everything about him – his background, Gloucester Cathedral, before gaining a place 8 Like as the hart Herbert Howells [5.58] psychology and musicality – resisted this.’ The at the Royal College of Music in 1912. His 9 Nico Muhly [5.37] Like as the hart current recording presents seven of Howells’s composition teacher there, Charles Villiers 0 Behold, O God our defender John Scott [2.28] choral works within the context of music by Stanford, described Howells as his ‘son in music’ q My beloved spake Patrick Hadley [3.28] composers who taught and/or influenced him and strongly supported his early career, but the w Regina cæli Herbert Howells [3.14] (Stanford, Vaughan Williams) and worked influences upon Howells during this early period e Alma redemptoris mater David Bednall [5.20] alongside him (Patrick Hadley), and composers in London and before it were diverse, including r Salve regina Herbert Howells [4.31] who have responded to his music in particular Vaughan Williams, Elgar, and Ravel, and t Ave regina cælorum David Bednall [4.20] pieces (John Scott, Nico Muhly, David Bednall). reflected also the revival of interest in Tudor These juxtapositions reveal some striking (and other Renaissance) sacred music manifest Total timings: [66.01] similarities and echoes, but they also serve to famously in the work of Richard Terry with highlight contrasts of compositional language the Choir of Westminster Cathedral. It was and ideals as much as proximity. For example, Stanford who encouraged Howells to work with the piece on this recording which is at the Terry, and in 1916 Howells wrote within the greatest distance from Howells’s sound-world space of one week a set of Four Anthems to CHOIR OF THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD OWEN REES DIRECTOR – Muhly’s Like as the hart – is the one which the Blessed Virgin Mary for Westminster is most directly an hommage to Howells and Cathedral. Only two of these four anthems www.signumrecords.com - 3 - survive: Salve regina and the Eastertide anthem In October 2016 I invited David Bednall, who Ave regina, reuses its opening idea as a Howells spent the bulk of his career teaching Regina cæli. In their rich and imposing textures describes Howells’s music as a particularly ‘ritornello’, one which (as the composer notes) in London, at his alma mater the Royal College – achieved with six voice-parts in Salve regina strong and enduring influence on his own, recalls ‘something of the atmosphere of of Music and as Professor of Music at London and two antiphonal choirs in Regina cæli – to compose settings of the other two Marian Bax’s Mater ora filium’ and which ‘is intended University. Early in 1941 he wrote a set of they provide early examples of Howells’s antiphon texts – Alma redemptoris mater and to summon something of the chill of a Four Anthems (originally titled ‘in the time of skill in exploiting the grandeur and Ave regina cælorum – which had been included cold chapel, and also the sense of mystery war’) on psalm texts, of which two have atmospherically reverberant acoustics of such in Howells’s set of Four Anthems for Westminster of Advent’, the season in which this Marian attained enduring popularity, O pray for the great ecclesiastical spaces as Westminster Cathedral. Bednall conceived his responses not antiphon is sung. peace of Jerusalem and (third in the set) Like Cathedral. Despite the context for which as pastiche but as inhabiting a ‘similar sound as the hart, the text of which is the opening they were written, neither setting draws upon world’ to Howells’s settings, while also engaging Howells’s music for the heart of Catholic verses of Psalm 42. The modal and jazz- and the plainchant associated with its text, but with features of other and earlier repertoire. devotion in England – the new Westminster blues-influenced language of the piece creates Howells periodically and freely evokes chant Ave regina cælorum – like Howells’s Regina Cathedral, and the four evening antiphons an atmosphere of longing and even melancholy through the shaping of lines and by having cæli – is bound together by the reappearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary – contrasts with that emphasises the yearning of the text groups of voices declaim the text in unison of material, the most important in this case Stanford’s near-contemporary Lighten our and the bitterness of its central section or octaves, as at the start of Regina cæli being the celebratory opening acclamation, darkness, one of the texts which most powerfully (‘My tears have been my meat day and night…’). and at the subdued plea for Mary to pray to which recurs periodically, both to the opening evokes Anglican Evensong, where it is the Howells was friends with Patrick Hadley, a Jesus for us (‘et Jesum benedictum…’) towards words and to set ‘Gaude Virgo gloriosa’. final collect. Stanford’s setting was composed colleague of Howells’s at the Royal College of the end of Salve regina. He dramatises the These chordal fanfares act as pillars of the three years after Howells’s motets for Music and also Fellow and Director of Music most crucial word in the text of Regina cæli – structure, alternating with sections of energetic Westminster Cathedral, in March 1918, a few at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge: the triumphant ‘Resurrexit’ (‘he has arisen’) melismatic and contrapuntal writing. Gabriel’s months before the end of the First World War. Howells was acting Organist at nearby St – by bringing the two choirs together in word of salutation to Mary, ‘Ave’, ecstatically The text of Thomas Cranmer’s famous collect John’s College from the autumn of 1941 monumental chordal declamation for the first repeated by a solo soprano in what the ‘against all perils’ carried particular weight in until 1945. Hadley’s anthem My beloved time, and by employing a particular type of composer describes as the central ‘oasis’ of this context: Stanford had moved temporarily spake, written for the wedding of one of striking harmonic shift (related to a device this motet, is likewise given special emphasis from London to Windsor to avoid the air raids his RCM students in 1936, is an equally found in certain Tudor works by Tallis and in Bednall’s Alma redemptoris mater, where it on the capital, and wrote this piece for the evocative and sensuous setting of words others) which reveals the influence of Vaughan summons an extended passage of polyrhythmic Choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor. The from the great love-poem of the Old Testament, Williams on the young composer. counterpoint between the voices, expanding on music simply but powerfully juxtaposes the the Song of Songs. In the passage of text the triplet figures heard sporadically in the ‘dangers of this night’ with the sure comforts chosen by Hadley, the opening exhortation – piece up to this point. Alma redemptoris, like of faith in Christ. ‘Rise up, my love, and come away’ – is - 4 - - 5 - repeated at the end of the passage – ‘Arise, of the Psalm, marking the division in the life as a musician, it would be the hearing set the same text for the service held at St my love, and come away’ – and Hadley’s first verse by the appearance of a solo soprano of that work.’ Howells was also to comment Paul’s in June 2002 to mark the Queen’s setting duly has an ABA structure reflecting at ‘so longeth my soul’. Although the choir that ‘Ralph and I felt and reacted to things Golden Jubilee. Scott wrote: ‘In a service that of the text, with a hushed middle section emerges dramatically at the central point musically in a very similar way, and if some characterized by pageantry, rejoicing and between opening and closing passages of (‘God’), for much of the piece the foreground of our works are alike in any respect, it’s not, high celebration, the opportunity was taken to great majesty and power. Howells likewise character is a solo violinist (on this recording, I think, merely a question of influence but contribute something of a more gentle and produced an ABA structure in Like as the hart Elizabeth Nurse, a student at Queen’s and also of intuitive affinity.’ As Howells notes, reflective nature.