Herbert Howells composed three substantial works for chorus and orchestra. The first of these
, Hymnus Paradisi (1938), is in my opinion one of the three most original masterpieces in the genre by an Englishman, ranking alongside
The Dream of Gerontius and
Belshazzar’s Feast.
Hymnus Paradisi was not heard in public until 1950 but once it had been unveiled two further large-scale works followed:
Missa Sabrinensis (1954) and then the
Stabat Mater. Both are important scores but neither has achieved the status of
Hymnus Paradisi and whereas
Hymnus Paradisi has been recorded several times the two later works have each achieved just one recording: Gennadi Rozhedestvensky was the somewhat unlikely choice to conduct recordings for Chandos in 1994.
David Hill has already made a fine recording of
Hymnus Paradisi (
review) and now he has turned his attentions to the
Stabat Mater. It differs from the Rozhdestvensky recording in an important respect. Just a month before the sessions were to take place David Hill went to the USA to give an organ recital in Rhode Island. During his visit he was shown a vocal score of
Stabat Mater by a long-time close friend of Sir David Willcocks. Willcocks, who had conducted the first performance in 1965, had given this score to his friend. On opening it, Hill was astonished to discover it contained an abundance of changes to metronome markings and other details, all in the composer’s hand. There was just time for Hill to incorporate these changes into the performing materials for his recording. So what is recorded here, it would seem, is the score as Howells intended it, rather than as published by Novello in 1964. Goodness only knows why all these discrepancies arose: maybe Howells had second thoughts after the vocal score was printed.
In truth, even following the performance in my vocal score I couldn’t easily spot the changes. I looked out the Rozhdestvensky recording, which was made along with
Missa Sabrinensis over a four-day period in April 1994. His performance of
Stabat Mater takes 51:38, almost three minutes longer than Hill’s so at first glance you might suspect that the Russian conductor had adopted slower tempi than Hill, as prescribed in the printed score. However, their respective timings for most of the movements are not far apart. There's quite a difference between them in the second movement, ‘Cujus animam gementem’, for which Rozhdestvensky takes 10:02 against Hill’s 7:58. However, when I checked both against the score Hill is slightly above the printed metronome but Rozhdestvensky is significantly below the mark. Having compared the two performances of the work the real difference is that Hill’s overall approach is somewhat tauter – and perhaps that’s not just because he’s taken the revised speeds on board – whereas at a number of points Rozhdestvensky takes a much more expansive approach. I may as well say now that my preference, on balance, is for Hill but Rozhdestvensky’s performance is a very good one and by no means displaced. Indeed, I continue to be full of admiration for the Russian conductor’s open-mindedness in tackling two substantial and neglected English choral scores; but, then, we now know that just a few years before he had been most effectively championing the complete symphonies of Vaughan Williams in Russia (
review).
The music of
Stabat Mater is far from straightforward. The harmonic language is highly chromatic, the complex rhythms often impart an unstable feel and both the choral and orchestral scoring is often quite dense. David Hill charts a very sensible course through the score and his purposeful approach yields dividends though he doesn’t underplay at all the poetry and aching melancholy in the music. Though the Chandos recording is a fine one Hill manages to achieve a bit more clarity in some of the densest passages. In this he’s helped by the excellent and accurate singing of the Bach Choir and the fine playing of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
The tenor solo role is critically important. Howells makes huge demands on his soloist. Quite a lot of his music is impassioned and set in a punishingly high tessitura, requiring great reserves of breath and stamina. Yet just as important are the many passages of pure poetry where the tenor has to spin long, plaintive lines, projecting the music strongly but in a light, plangent voice. Benjamin Hulett is marvellous. The timbre of his voice seems ideally suited to the music, both in the loud, ardent passages and when quieter singing is required. Indeed, we’ve been fortunate in that both the tenors who have essayed this role on disc have done a first class job; Neill Archer is equally impressive for Rozhdestvensky.
On balance, if you are interested chiefly in the
Stabat Mater Hill has it by a short head though anyone who has the earlier Chandos version can probably rest content. Couplings may play an influential part in your choice. The Rozhdestvensky version is now only available as part of a ‘twofer’, coupled, very logically, with his recording of
Missa Sabrinensis (
review). This new Naxos recording enjoys a price advantage and the coupling may be more enticing.
When he recorded
Hymnus Paradisi David Hill coupled it with the first recording of a Howells rarity,
Sir Patrick Spens. Here again Howells enthusiasts are indebted to him for imaginative couplings. The
Te Deum is an old friend in unfamiliar guise: it’s the
Te Deum from Howells’
Collegium Regale canticles but heard in a 1977 orchestration by the composer. At the risk of making an obvious point this orchestral version changes the character of the piece, giving it a more ‘public’ feel. Brass are often to the forefront in what is a very colourful scoring. However, quieter passages, such as ‘We therefore pray thee help thy servants’ with a fluid woodwind and strings accompaniment, also come off well. It’s a very effective arrangement and I’m surprised we don’t hear it more often as you’d think choral societies would be keen to wrest this piece from the monopoly exercised by church choirs, if only occasionally.
Sine nomine is a real rarity; it has been recorded once before, though I believe that recording is no longer generally available (
review). It was commissioned for the 1922 Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester – the same festival at which
A Colour Symphony by Bliss was first heard. However, after the first performance, conducted by the composer, the piece “sank without trace”, as Andrew Burn puts it. So it remained until revived at the 1992 Gloucester Three Choirs in a performing edition by Paul Spicer, a performance at which I was present.
It’s scored for soprano and tenor soloist, chorus and orchestra. The vocal parts are wordless and in fact the choir only joins in towards the end and then very softly - at 9:30 in this performance. The opening and closing sections are pastel and pastoral in feel and the writing for the soloists in particular shows that even at this relatively young age – he was thirty years old – Howells was able to express ecstasy in his writing. Benjamin Hulett is here joined by Alison Hill and both do a very good job. Listening to the melismatic writing for the voices I wonder if there’s any chance that Howells could have known Nielsen’s Third Symphony (1911). The central section of the work (from about 3:45) is dominated by the orchestra. Here the music is more urgent and agitated. Though the slower outer sections would have been well–suited to the generous acoustic of Gloucester Cathedral with which Howells was so familiar perhaps this livelier music, with its precise rhythms, would have come over so well – I really can’t recall how it sounded at the 1992 performance. This central section builds to a tremendous, extended climax (6:47) and on this occasion the significant organ part registers splendidly in this section. The hushed, absolutely tranquil closing section (from 9:30) is magical.
When you hear
Sine nomine done this well it’s mystifying why it’s not heard more often. The earlier recording, to which I referred earlier, was made in 2002 by
Douglas Bostock. While paying due regard to its pioneering spirit it’s completely superseded by this newcomer. Bostock takes 14:44 over the score and that’s almost entirely because he invests the quicker central section with far less energy and urgency than David Hill. On one point the Bostock recording has an edge, though. His soloists are a bit more distantly placed and that plus the reverberant acoustic of the presumably empty Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, places the music in an acoustic which approximates to that of Gloucester Cathedral rather better than what we hear on this Naxos recording.
This is a very fine Howells anthology. The sound is good and Andrew Burn’s notes offer an excellent introduction to this unfamiliar music. This is a mandatory purchase for all who love the music of Herbert Howells and even if you have the Rozhdestvensky recording of
Stabat Mater you won’t regret the duplication.
John Quinn
And a second review ...In the minds of many Herbert Howells' work will seem irrevocably linked to the Anglican church. Indeed, at first glance it might seem that this programme reinforces that stereotype. However, for Howells, by all accounts not a particularly religious man, it is the spiritual journey that is important. This disc charts that journey with particular success.
The loss of his son Michael, aged nine, in 1935 seems to have defined much of Howells' life and compositional career. The most famous work to have sprung directly from that dreadful event is
Hymnus Paradisi, but the largest, still resonating with inconsolable grief and pain a full thirty years later, is this
Stabat Mater. Given both Howells' status and the importance of this work it is remarkable that this is only its second recording. The first - dating from 1994 - was on
Chandos and was conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky with the LSO and chorus and tenor soloist Neill Archer. It seems all but impossible that the Chandos recording is already twenty years old. Collectors of Howells have the easy decision - they will have bought the former and will now buy the new. For those who already have the earlier disc and feel there is room in their collection for a single version only, they can rest easy because fine though this new version is, it does not completely displace the earlier one.
If it does not sound too oxymoronic, the
Stabat Mater is a lushly austere work. Howells uses a large orchestra including organ, piano, harp and bells with supreme skill and care but never in a crudely opulent way. In typical Chandos style their recording is detailed and rich and very good at revealing these layers of orchestration for maximum impact. Likewise, the choral lines are very clear with plenty of weight as required. Mike Clements' engineering for Naxos sits the listener further back in hall, and the sound is also very good although by being more 'natural' some inner detail is inevitably lost - the opening of track 5
Sancta Mater is one example of where the 'Chandos Sound' benefits the dramatic impact of the music. Andrew Burn's reliably informative liner relates the story of how conductor David Hill, just a month before the recording was shown a vocal score of the work which had belonged to the conductor of the premiere David Willcocks. This score had been annotated by Howells with numerous tempi adjustments. These Hill has incorporated into his performance which accounts for the three minute time difference between the two versions. I would not want to get too bogged down in that - there are benefits from both approaches and both convince and in fact the differing recording styles happen to suit the conductors' approaches as well.
Fine though Neill Archer is on the Chandos disc, Benjamin Hulett for Naxos is quite superb. I had not encountered his singing before and it is magnificent. From the biography in the liner it transpires that he is UK-trained but has had a post as a principal tenor at the Hamburg State Opera. It strikes me that he has the ideal balance between a powerful ringing operatic tenor sound and the ability to pull right back into something one might term the English lyric style. Exactly this range is required by this
Stabat Mater from the flowing beauty of
Eia Mater [track 4] to the final climatic tidal waves of the
Fac ut portem and
Christe cum sit hinc exire [tracks 6-7]. In both versions - rightly - I like the way the orchestra and choir threatens to overwhelm the tenor's supplications.
The Bach choir - performers at the 1965 premiere - are very fine throughout, singing with obvious dedication and commitment. If pushed, I might just give the palm to the LSO Chorus. The Chandos disc was originally released with no other work although now it is now available in a 'twofer' coupled with Rozhdestvensky's other revelatory Howells disc - the
Missa Sabrinensis. Together with the
Hymnus Paradisi these works form a great triptych and as such are compelling listening. Hill offers two other very fine works indeed; the 1977 orchestral version of the 1944
Te Deum and the rare and little-known 1922
Sine Nomine in its original wordless version. Howells was in his mid-eighties by the time he orchestrated the
Te Deum and the fact that it sounds so energetically exultant is a tribute to his creative energies. The original work was written for Kings College Cambridge as part of a set of practical canticle settings. As such it can be heard on other discs in more traditional ecclesiastical performances. Just such a one is again on
Chandos with Andrew Nethsinga conducting the Choir of St. John's College Cambridge. From the extra brilliant brass fanfare Howells tags onto the front of the work it is clear that this a re-conceptualising of the work not just an orchestration of an organ part. It remains the most 'traditional' of the works on offer here but is wholly enjoyable. Hill's approach - although near identical in terms of tempo - is more consciously dramatic than Nethsinga, but again I would argue these are both valid alternatives.
The disc closes with another gem. Andrew Burn points out that Howells referred to it as a 'spiritual meditation' - more orchestral tone-poem with wordless voices than choral work. Burn also points out influences such as the Cobbett Phantasy competition that Howells had won in 1917, as well as the venue of Gloucester Cathedral and Vaughan Williams' use of wordless melismata in such works as the
Pastoral Symphony premiered just nine months before the
Sine Nomine. Perhaps Vaughan Williams returned the favour in his use of wordless chorus just three years later in
Flos Campi? Benjamin Hulett, again in ideally rhapsodic form is joined by the equally beautifully fresh-voiced soprano Alison Hill. I find this style of gently ecstatic writing incredibly beautiful and very moving although I could imagine that for some it embodies the English Pastoral tradition that is often derided. Here Clements' slightly distanced engineering fits the mood of the work to perfection. There is an extended orchestral central section with rapidly changing meter and displaced rhythm. This is before the two soloists rejoin riding the wave of orchestral writing crowned by the entrance of the organ - the flood of sound gradually recedes and the choir creeps in an aural halo around the solo soprano. This is beautifully managed here musically and technically; the layers of sound - solo voice, solo violin, organ pedals and whispering chorus blending ideally.
I know one other recording - from Douglas Bostock and the RLPO which formed part of a disc called "Elgar and the English Choral Tradition" which was in turn Volume 12 of ClassicO's British Symphonic Collection - this was the work's world premiere recording. Bostock takes a full two minutes longer than Hill - a much more significant difference in the context of a twelve minute work than it was for the
Stabat Mater. Again I like both versions - Hill more urgent, Bostock more rhapsodic. The organ on the Naxos disc makes a far greater impact as surely it must have done originally in Gloucester Cathedral. However, its looming presence obscures the clashing bell tones of the orchestral horns evident in Liverpool. Bostock's soloists are good and appealingly distanced but Hill's are even finer. Availability is a key consideration too - the Bostock seems to be purchasable only as a secondhand copy or as a download.
One final nice touch is the cover picture of Michelangelo's Pietà which is mentioned in the liner as a source of inspiration for the main work. All in all a very fine programme of still-rare but powerful music well performed.
Nick Barnard
Previous review:
Rob Barnett
