Editing Herbert Howells (section)

==Life==

===Background and early education===
[[File:Birthplace of Composer, Herbert Howells - geograph.org.uk - 582188.jpg|thumb|Birthplace of Herbert Howells on High Street, [[Lydney]], Gloucestershire]]
Howells was born in [[Lydney]], Gloucestershire, the youngest of six children of Oliver Howells, a plumber, painter, decorator and builder, and his wife Elizabeth.<ref>{{cite book|last=Spicer|first=Paul|title=Herbert Howells|year=1998|publisher=Seren|location=Bridgend|isbn=1-85411-233-3|page=14}}</ref> His father played the organ at the local [[Baptists|Baptist]] church, and Herbert showed early musical promise, first deputising for his father, and then moving at the age of eleven to the local [[Church of England]] parish church as choirboy and unofficial deputy organist.<ref>{{cite book|last=Spicer|title=Herbert Howells|year=1998|publisher=Seren|location=Bridgend|isbn=1-85411-233-3|page=15}}</ref>

The Howells family's precarious financial situation came to a head when Oliver filed for bankruptcy in September 1904, when Herbert was nearly 12.<ref name="'Take Him, Earth' Revisited">{{cite journal|last1=Wilson|first1=Elizabeth Leighton|title='Take Him, Earth' Revisited|journal=The American Organist|date=September 2014|page=73}}</ref> This was a deep humiliation in a small community at the time and one from which Howells never fully recovered.<ref>{{cite ODNB|title=Herbert Norman Howells| url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31257|year=2004| doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31257|access-date=27 November 2011| last1=Spicer| first1=Paul}}</ref> Financially assisted by a member of the family of [[Charles Bathurst, 1st Viscount Bledisloe]], who had taken an interest in the budding musician, Howells began music lessons in 1905 with [[Herbert Brewer]], the organist of [[Gloucester Cathedral]], and at sixteen became his articled pupil at the Cathedral alongside [[Ivor Novello]] and [[Ivor Gurney]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|isbn=1-85411-233-3|page=18|publisher=Seren }}</ref> Howells and Gurney became close friends, going on long walks through the Gloucestershire countryside discussing their shared love of music and English literature.<ref>{{cite book|last=Spicer|title=Herbert Howells|year=1998|isbn=1-85411-233-3|page=20|publisher=Seren }}</ref>

Another formative experience for the young Howells was the premiere in September 1910 at the Gloucester [[Three Choirs Festival]] of [[Ralph Vaughan Williams]]' ''[[Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis]]''. Howells related in later years how Vaughan Williams sat next to him for the remainder of the concert and shared his score of [[Edward Elgar]]'s ''[[The Dream of Gerontius]]'' with the awestruck aspiring composer.<ref>{{cite book|last=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=22}}</ref> Both Vaughan Williams and the Tudor composers (including [[Thomas Tallis|Tallis]]) profoundly influenced Howells' work.<ref name="Spicer 1998 24">{{cite book|last=Spicer|title=Herbert Howells|year=1998|page=24}}</ref>

===Study at the Royal College of Music===
In 1912, following the example of Ivor Gurney,<ref name="Spicer 1998 24"/> Howells moved to London to study at the [[Royal College of Music]], where his teachers included [[Charles Villiers Stanford]], [[Hubert Parry]] and [[Charles Wood (composer)|Charles Wood]].<ref name="Spicer 1998 32">{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=32}}</ref> Among Howells' contemporaries in the student body were Gurney, [[Arthur Bliss]] and [[Arthur Benjamin]].

Howells blossomed in what he considered the "cosy family" atmosphere of the College,<ref name="Spicer 1998 32"/> and his ''Mass in the Dorian Mode'' was performed at [[Westminster Cathedral]] under [[Richard Runciman Terry|R. R. Terry]] within weeks of his arrival.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=36}}</ref> For the most part, however, his music at this time was orchestral; works included a piano concerto, withdrawn after its first performance,<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=37}}</ref> a light orchestral suite, ''The B's'', portraying three of his friends at the college (Arthur Bliss, Arthur Benjamin, and [[Francis Purcell Warren|Francis Purcell "Bunny" Warren)]], and the ''Three Dances'' for violin and orchestra.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=38}}</ref> More typical of the works with which Howells was later associated were his earliest important compositions for organ, the first set of ''Psalm Preludes'' (1915–16) and the first of the op. 17 ''Rhapsodies''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=40}}</ref>

Howells' promise was imperilled in 1915 when he was diagnosed with [[Graves' disease]] and given six months to live. His poor health prevented him from being conscripted in [[World War I]], arguably preserving him from the worse fate awaiting Gurney and others of his friends and contemporaries. At [[St Thomas' Hospital]] he was given the previously untried [[radium]] injections in the neck, administered twice a week over a period of two years.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=44}}</ref> For much of this time Howells travelled between London for treatment and Lydney where he was nursed by his mother. He was nonetheless still able to compose and in 1916 produced the first work of his maturity.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=46}}</ref> The Piano Quartet in A minor, dedicated to "the hill at [[Chosen Hill, Gloucestershire|Chosen]] and Ivor Gurney who knows it" was in the following year one of the first works published under the auspices of the [[Carnegie United Kingdom Trust]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=48}}</ref> The quartet was first played at the home of Marion M. Scott on July 13 1916, the players being Nancy Phillips, Sybil Maturin, Dorothy Thuell and George Ball, who afterwards played it at the RCM. Its first public performance took place at Oxford in November 1917.<ref> Evans, E. (1920). Modern British Composers. VIII. Herbert Howells. The Musical Times, 61(924), 87–91. https://doi.org/10.2307/910391</ref> In the following year Howells became assistant organist at [[Salisbury Cathedral]], but held the post for only a few months,<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=54}}</ref> finding the repeated journeys to London for treatment too difficult. Friends then arranged for a grant from the Carnegie Trust, which paid for Howells to assist [[Richard Terry (musicologist)|R. R. Terry]] in editing the Latin Tudor repertoire that Terry and his choir were reviving at [[Westminster Cathedral]]. The work was to lead to a multi-volume edition of ''Tudor Church Music'' by Oxford University Press in the 1920s.<ref name="gramophone">{{Cite web |url=https://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/stile-antico-record-highlights-from-the-tudor-church-music-edition-%E2%80%93-hear-an |title=Stile Antico record highlights from the Tudor Church Music edition |date=July 2013 |work=[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]] |access-date=1 January 2018}}</ref> It provided Howells with a comfortable income<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=56}}</ref> and enabled him to absorb the English Renaissance style which he loved and would evoke in his own music. His first significant works for choir, the ''Three Carol-Anthems'' (''Here is the Little Door'', ''A Spotless Rose'' and ''Sing Lullaby'') were written around this time.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=66}}</ref>

===Marriage and teaching===
[[File:St Paul&#039;s Girls&#039; School, London 14.JPG|thumb|St Paul's Girls' School, [[Brook Green]], London]]
[[File:Royal College of Music - April 2007.jpg|thumb|Royal College of Music, [[Kensington]], London]]
In 1920 Howells married Dorothy Eveline Goozee (1891–1975), informally adopted daughter of John and Alma Dawe.<ref>Dorothy Eveline Goozee “Marriage register, 1913-1920” (August 3, 1920), p. 24, entry no. 48, Twigworth parish records: Gloucestershire Archives: Gloucester, UK: P342/IN/1/5.</ref> Dorothy was a singer whom he had met in 1911 when deputising as her accompanist.<ref>{{cite book|last=Palmer|first=Christopher|title=Herbert Howells: a centenary celebration|year=1992|publisher=Thames|location=London|isbn=0-905210-86-7|page=13}}</ref> The marriage endured despite Howells' frequent infidelities,<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=83}}</ref> and produced two children, [[Ursula Howells|Ursula]] (1922–2005), later an actress, and Michael (1926–1935).<ref>{{cite web |title=Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Herbert Howells |url=http://www.vaughanwilliams.uk/letter/vwl776 |website=The Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams |publisher=The Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust |access-date=5 October 2020}}</ref>

In the same year he joined the staff of the Royal College of Music, where he was to remain until 1979.<ref>{{cite book|last=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=181}}</ref> Among his pupils were [[Robert Simpson (composer)|Robert Simpson]], [[Gordon Jacob]], [[James Bernard (composer)|James Bernard]], [[Paul Spicer (musician)|Paul Spicer]], [[Madeleine Dring]], and [[Imogen Holst]]. The post at the RCM, which from 1925 he combined with the position of Director of Music at [[St Paul's Girls' School]],<ref>{{cite book|author=Palmer|title=Howells:a centenary celebration|year=1992|page=83}}</ref> and frequent work as a competition adjudicator, was to reduce the amount of time he could devote to composition;<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=74}}</ref> but he continued to write orchestral and chamber music, including the string quartet ''In Gloucestershire'' (originally written 1916, but rewritten in whole or in part several times and not reaching its final form until the 1930s),<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=79}}</ref> the overture ''Merry Eye'' (1920) and the second Piano Concerto (1925). The first performance of the last named work occasioned a demonstration in the concert hall from a hostile critic.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=81}}</ref> Howells, always over-sensitive to criticism, withdrew the work and produced few significant compositions for several years.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=82}}</ref> Howells' friend and fellow composer, Martin Sumpter, encouraged this temporary hiatus from composing large-scale works.{{fact|date=August 2023}} One exception was ''Lambert's [[Clavichord]]'' (1928), a rare example of a composition by a 20th-century composer for that instrument.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Kennedy|first=Michael|title=Howells, Herbert|encyclopedia=The Oxford Dictionary of Music|page=[https://archive.org/details/oxforddictionary00kenn/page/343 343]|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1985|isbn=0-19-311333-3|url=https://archive.org/details/oxforddictionary00kenn/page/343}}</ref> It was inspired by a clavichord lent to Howells by his friend [[Herbert Lambert]], an instrument maker and photographer based in [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=88}}</ref> Several other major compositions written around this time, however, remained unperformed, notably an ''a capella [[Requiem (Howells)|Requiem]]'' to English words written in 1932,<ref>{{cite book|author=Palmer|title=Herbert Howells: a centenary celebration|year=1992|page=98}}Until the publication of Palmer's researches, the ''Requiem'' was believed to have been composed in 1936.</ref> and a choral work, ''A Kent Yeoman's Wooing Song'', written the following year.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Kent Yeoman's Wooing Song (1933) |url=https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/12871/A-Kent-Yeomans-Wooing-Song--Herbert-Howells/ |publisher=Wise Music |access-date=5 October 2020}}</ref>

===Family tragedy and the war===
In September 1935 Howells' nine-year-old son Michael contracted [[Poliomyelitis|polio]] during a family holiday, dying in London three days later.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Palmer|title=Herbert Howells: a centenary celebration|year=1992|page=93}}: "Only when they reached London was polio diagnosed for certain". That the cause of death was polio is confirmed by Spicer (1998) p. 97, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31257 ''Oxford DNB''], [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/13436 ''Grove''] and an interview with Howells contained in Regan (1971); however, the statement that the boy died of spinal [[meningitis]] is commonly found in programme notes. See also Holland (2011). [http://www.cvppsg.org/newsletter/2011-06-07.pdf "Michael's Tune"].</ref> Michael was buried in the churchyard of St Matthew's Church in [[Twigworth]], Gloucestershire.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Saylor |first1=Eric |title=English Pastoral Music: From Arcadia to Utopia, 1900–1955 |date=2017 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=9780252099656 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=unYlDwAAQBAJ&q=howells%20twigworth&pg=PT129 |access-date=24 September 2019 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Cooke|p=293}}

Howells was deeply affected and continued to commemorate the event until the end of his life.<ref>{{cite book|author=Palmer|title=H. Howells: a centenary celebration|year=1992|page=125}}</ref> At the suggestion of his daughter Ursula<ref name="Spicer 1998 100">{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=100}}</ref> he sought to channel his grief into music, and over the next three years composed much of the large-scale choral work which was eventually to become ''Hymnus Paradisi'', drawing on material from the still unpublished ''Requiem'' of 1932. This remained, in Howells' words, "a personal, almost secret document"<ref>{{cite book|author=Palmer|title=H. Howells: a centenary celebration|year=1992|page=415}}</ref> until 1950. Other commemorative works written around this time include the ''Concerto for Strings'' (written in 1938), the slow movement of which is in joint memory of Michael and [[Edward Elgar]], and the unfinished ''Cello Concerto'', on which Howells had been working at the time of the boy's death and which he found himself unable to complete.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|pages=108–111}}</ref><ref name="Spicer">{{cite ODNB|author=Spicer|title=Howells, Herbert Norman (1892–1983)|year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31257 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31257}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The concerto was completed by Jonathan Clinch in 2015, and recorded by Alice Neary with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Ronald Corp. The first concert performance was given by Guy Johnston and the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra conducted by Martin André in Gloucester Cathedral on 9 July 2016, as part of the Cheltenham Music Festival.|url=http://www.gramophone.co.uk/blog/gramophone-guest-blog/on-completing-herbert-howells-cello-concerto|website=Gramophone.co.uk|date=4 March 2015 |access-date=17 October 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.classical-music.com/features/works/moment-howells-history|title=Howells Cello Concerto: All you need to know|website=Classical-music.com|date=July 2016 |access-date=17 October 2024}}</ref> ''A Sequence for St Michael'' and the motet ''Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing'' have also been associated with Howells's grief for Michael, as have two of Howells's [[hymn tune]]s, the best-known of which is his tune for the hymn "[[All My Hope on God is Founded]]" by [[Robert Bridges]] ("A Hymn Tune for Charterhouse"), which was renamed ''Michael'' for its publication in ''The Clarendon Hymn Book'' in 1936.<ref>Palmer (1992). p. 119; Holland (2011).</ref> Howells also wrote the tune ''Twigworth'' (1968) for the hymn "God is love, let heaven adore him".  To a greater or lesser extent, however, much of Howells' subsequent music shows the influence of this loss.<ref>{{cite web |last1=White |first1=Michael |title=MUSIC / The sorrow that sounds like heaven: When Herbert Howells lost |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music-the-sorrow-that-sounds-like-heaven-when-herbert-howells-lost-a-son-the-church-gained-some-1556718.html |website=The Independent |access-date=24 September 2019 |language=en |date=11 October 1992}}</ref>

From the late 1930s, Howells turned increasingly to choral and organ music, composing a second series of ''Psalm Preludes'' followed by a set of ''Six Pieces'' (begun 1939), of which the third, ''Master Tallis's Testament'', a particular favourite of the composer's, recalled his formative experience of Vaughan Williams' ''Tallis Fantasia''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=116}}</ref> A set of ''Four Anthems'', originally titled ''In Time of War'' and including the popular ''O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem'' and ''Like as the Hart'',<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=119}}</ref> followed in early 1941. In August of that year, Howells was invited to serve as acting organist of [[St John's College, Cambridge]], replacing [[Robin Orr]] who was away on active service in [[World War II]]. Howells' association with Cambridge, which lasted until the end of the war in 1945, was a productive and happy period for him,<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=122}}</ref> and led directly to the works for which he is most remembered. He later recalled<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=130}}</ref> being challenged by the Dean of [[King's College, Cambridge|King's College]], [[Eric Milner-White]], to write a set of [[canticle]]s for the choir. The result was the [[Te Deum]] and [[Psalm 100|Jubilate]] of the [[service (music)|service]] known as ''[[Collegium Regale (Howells)|Collegium Regale]]'', performed in 1944, followed the next year by the [[Magnificat]] and [[Nunc Dimittis]], and completed in 1956 by the ''Office of Holy Communion''. ''Collegium Regale'', the [[Magnificat and Nunc dimittis for Gloucester Cathedral|''Gloucester Service'']] (for [[Gloucester Cathedral]], 1946) and the [[Magnificat and Nunc dimittis for St Paul's Cathedral|''St Paul's Service'']] (for St Paul's Cathedral, 1951) remain the best known and most admired of the many settings of the Anglican liturgy written by Howells for particular choirs and buildings over the next thirty years.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=135}}</ref>

===''Hymnus Paradisi'' and after===
[[File:Herbert Howells 1892-1983 Composer and Teacher lived here 1946-1983.jpg|thumb|[[Blue plaque]] commemorating the residence 1946–1983 of Howells at 3 Beverley Close, in [[Barnes, London]]]]
In 1949, the organist [[Herbert Sumsion]] asked Howells if he had anything that could be performed at the 1950 Three Choirs Festival to be held at Gloucester. Howells decided to bring out the incomplete choral work he had written in his son Michael's memory between 1936 and 1938. (In later years Howells claimed it was at the urging of Vaughan Williams that the piece was disinterred).<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=145}}</ref> The work, retitled ''[[Hymnus Paradisi]]'' at Sumsion's suggestion,<ref name="Spicer 1998 100"/> was completed and orchestrated in time for its first performance on 7 September 1950, the day after the 15th anniversary of Michael's death. It was Howells' greatest public and critical success, and for many years was his best known work.<ref>Palmer (1992). p. 109, Spicer (1998). p. 106</ref> Shorter choral works written around this time include the carol-anthem ''Long long ago'' (1951), the [[introit]] ''Behold O God our Defender'' for the [[coronation of Queen Elizabeth II]] in 1953, and ''The House of the Mind'' (1954) for chorus and strings.

Though not an orthodox Christian,<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=98}}</ref> Howells was chiefly identified with the composition of religious music. His follow-up work to the ''Hymnus Paradisi'' was an extended setting of the Latin Mass for soloists, chorus and orchestra, named ''Missa Sabrinensis'' after the [[River Severn]] and first performed in [[Worcester Cathedral]] as part of the Three Choirs Festival in 1954. It was considered a disappointment after the success of the earlier work,<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=159}}</ref> and its extreme complexity and difficulty has prevented it becoming widely known.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=162}}</ref> Howells followed it with ''An English Mass'' (1956), a smaller-scale setting to English words for chorus, strings and organ. His final large-scale choral work was the ''[[Stabat Mater]]'', setting a text whose subsidiary theme of a parent mourning a child had obvious personal significance.<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=169}}</ref> He began it in 1959 but found it difficult to complete; it was not performed until 1965. The motet ''Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing'', a posthumous tribute to President John F. Kennedy, was written in late spring of 1964.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Wilson|first1=Elizabeth Leighton|title='Take Him, Earth' Revisited|journal=The American Organist|date=September 2014|page=70}}</ref>  It premiered as part of a 22 November 1964 Canadian tribute to Kennedy at Washington's National Gallery of Art sung by the Choir of [[St. George's Cathedral (Kingston, Ontario)|St George's Cathedral]], Kingston, Ontario, Canada, under the direction of George N. Maybee.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Wilson|first1=Elizabeth Leighton|title='Take Him, Earth, Revisited|journal=The American Organist|date=September 2014|page=68}}</ref> Maybee brought the St George's choir to England in September 1965, and they performed the piece at King's College, Cambridge with Howells in attendance.<ref name="'Take Him, Earth' Revisited"/> ''Take Him, Earth'' is described by Howells' pupil [[Paul Spicer (musician)|Paul Spicer]] as "a classic of twentieth century choral music" and "an undoubted masterpiece".<ref>{{cite book|author=Spicer|title=Howells|year=1998|page=173}}</ref>

Howells continued to compose until his late 80s, but wrote nothing further on the scale of the ''Stabat Mater''. One of the last works to appear in his lifetime was the ''Requiem'', edited for performance from his manuscripts in 1980 and published the following year, almost fifty years after its composition.<ref>Prefatory note to {{Cite book |last=Howells |first=Herbert|year=1981|title=Requiem|place=London|publisher=Novello|isbn=0-85360-694-3}} The statement in this note that the ''Requiem'' was composed in 1936, with the implication that it was a memorial work for Michael Howells, is incorrect (see above)</ref>
He died on 23 February 1983 at the age of 90, in a nursing home in [[Putney]], one day after his good friend [[Adrian Boult|Sir Adrian Boult]], and his ashes were interred in [[Westminster Abbey]].<ref name="Spicer"/>