Herbert Howells - Piano Music, Vol. 2 (Matthew Schellhorn)

Information

Composer: Herbert Howells

1. Comme le cerf soupire…
2. The Arab's Song
3. To a Wild Flower
4. Romance
5. Melody
6. Legend
7. The Chosen Tune
8. A Mersey Tune
9. Country Pageant: I. Merry Andrew's Procession
10. Country Pageant: II. Kings and Queens
11. Country Pageant: III. There Was a Most Beautiful Lady
12. Country Pageant: IV. The Mummers' Dance
13. A Little Book of Dances: I. Minuet
14. A Little Book of Dances: II. Gavotte
15. A Little Book of Dances: III. Pavane
16. A Little Book of Dances: IV. Galliard
17. A Little Book of Dances: V. Rigadoon
18. A Little Book of Dances: VI. Jig
19. A Sailor Tune
20. 3 Tunes for Piano: No. 1, Walking Tune
21. 3 Tunes for Piano: No. 2, Country Tune
22. 3 Tunes for Piano: No. 3, Trumpet Tune
23. Minuet for Ursula
24. Promenade for Girls
25. Promenade for Boys
26. Et nunc et semper
27. Piano Sonatina (Ed. M. Schellhorn): I. Vivo. Inquieto
28. Piano Sonatina (Ed. M. Schellhorn): II. Quasi adagio. Serioso ma teneramente
29. Piano Sonatina (Ed. M. Schellhorn): III. Agile, destro, sempre veloce

Matthew Schellhorn, piano

Date: 2022

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.571383

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Review

Here’s another feast for admirers of Herbert Howells (1892-1983), a second volume of piano music marvellously played by Matthew Schellhorn, and with all but one item – the deeply touching 1920 miniature The Chosen Tune – receiving their first recordings. The programme spans some 63 years, from a clutch of five agreeably Griegian offerings written before the precocious teen had left his home county of Gloucestershire to study at the Royal College of Music, to the superb late Sonatina composed for Hilary Macnamara (and first heard at her Wigmore Hall debut on January 24, 1972). Always, it would seem, a work in progress, the latter is heard in Schellhorn’s own new edition, which incorporates additional material harvested from at least 10 different manuscript sources. Its searching centrepiece (originally labelled Sarabande) will haunt you for days, while the heart of the last movement now imparts an uneasy stillness that stops me in my tracks every time (thematic material for this Toccata, by the way, dates from as far back as 1921 and also crops up in the concluding Toccatina of the Petrus Suite that Schellhorn included on Vol 1 – 9/20).

Macnamara was also the dedicatee of the haunting Et nunc, et semper from 1967 (which bears the subtitle Quasi menuetto), while four years earlier pianist Margaret Bruce was the lucky recipient of Comme le cerf soupire … – a transcription of Howells’s own riveting improvisation on an old French song. Endearing, too, are those two sets of teaching pieces from 1928, Country Pageant (presented here for the first time in its entirety) and A Little Book of Dances (shades of Warlock’s Capriol Suite in its use of old dance forms), which are followed in turn by a sequence of pieces for children composed during the 1930s, the Minuet that ‘Father HH’ wrote in 1935 for his daughter Ursula being especially disarming.

Once again, I’m happy to be able to report that Schellhorn is affectionately appreciative of Howells’s idiomatic keyboard-writing. What’s more, both annotation (Jonathan Clinch and Schellhorn himself) and production (Simon Weir working with sound engineer Ben Connellan in The Menuhin Hall) give absolutely no cause for complaint. In all, an undoubted treat.

-- Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://musicwebinternational.com/2023/01/howells-piano-music-vol-2-naxos/

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/instrumental/howells-piano-music-vol-2

https://www.allmusic.com/album/howells-piano-music-vol-2-mw0003842036

https://www.naxos.com/Review/Detail/?catalogueid=8.571383&languageid=EN

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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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Matthew Schellhorn (born 4 February 1977 in Doncaster, Yorkshire) is an English classical pianist. Following study in Manchester and Cambridge, with teachers including David Hartigan, Maria Curcio, Peter Hill and Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, his debut album of Messiaen chamber music received positive reviews and was awarded an AllMusic Classical Editors’ Favourite. A prominent performer of new music, Schellhorn has given over 140 premieres and has commissioned many solo and chamber works. He is a also passionate educator and gives regular masterclasses and workshops in the UK and abroad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Schellhorn

https://www.matthewschellhorn.com/

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