Herbert Howells - Orchestral Works (Richard Hickox)

Information

Composer: Herbert Howells

CD1:

• (01) King's Herald
• (02) Paradise Rondel, Op. 40
• (03) Fantasia, for cello and orchestra
• (04) Threnody, for cello and orchestra (orch. Christopher Palmer)
• (05) Pastoral Rhapsody
• (06) Procession, Op. 36

CD2:

• (01) The B's, suite for orchestra, Op. 13
• (06) Three Dances, for violin and orchestra, Op. 7
• (09) In Green Ways, Op. 43

Yvonne Kenny, soprano
Lydia Mordkovitch, violin
Moray Welsh, cello

London Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox, conductor

Date: 1995 (CD1), 1997 (CD2)
Compilation: 2005
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%20241-20

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Review

PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****

Richard Hickox continues to promote areas of the repertoire which have been neglected for too long. Now he adds Howells and Rubbra to the impressive list of British composers he has championed, supported by excellent recorded sound and first-rate playing from two fine orchestras. Herbert Howells’s reputation rests chiefly on his religious music, but he was also a master of other genres, including the orchestra. However, owing to ‘a mixture of sensitivity and arrogance’ (Lewis Foreman), he never promoted his orchestral works, with the result that all but one of these six pieces are receiving their first recordings. Eloquent and sometimes stirring, the music’s expressive range is wide, offering discoveries which extend our knowledge of a composer much loved but only partly understood. Edmund Rubbra is rightly described in Robert Saxton’s booklet note as a figure ‘of vision, integrity and sustained achievement’. More than thirty years separate his Fourth Symphony (1940-2) from the Tenth and Eleventh, but the same priorities, the same personality remain. The noble Fourth is arguably Rubbra’s masterpiece, while the final symphony, No. 11, here receives its first recording. Well did he describe it as ‘the culmination of all my symphonies, compressed into one movement’.

-- Terry Barfoot, BBC Music Magazine

reviewing CHAN 9410 - HOWELLS Orchestral Works Vol. 1 (CD1 of this collection)

More reviews:
Volume 1:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/howells-orchestral-works-0

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Jan01/howells1.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Sept04/Howells1.htm

Volume 2:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/howells-orchestral-works

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Jan01/Howells2.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Sept04/howells2.htm

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Herbert Howells (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher. Howells studied at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry and Charles Wood. In 1920 he joined the staff of the RCM, and remained there until 1979. From the late 1930s, after the death of his son because of polio, Howells turned increasingly to choral and organ music. Though not an orthodox Christian, Howells was chiefly identified with the composition of religious music. His most famous works includes Hymnus Paradisi, Stabat Mater and Requiem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Howells

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Richard Hickox (5 March 1948 – 23 November 2008) was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. He served as Artistic Director of the Northern Sinfonia (1982-1990), Associate Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1985-2008), Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (2000-2006), and was contracted as Opera Australia's music director at the time of his death. His recording repertoire concentrated on British music, in which he made a number of recording premieres for Chandos Records (he made over 280 recordings for this company) and won five Gramophone Awards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hickox

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