NEWSLETTER No.32: 09/13

HERBERT HOWELLS SOCIETYPRESIDENT: SIR DAVID WILLCOCKS, CBE, MC

VICE-PRESIDENTSRevd Dr Paul Andrews Dr Harry Bramma James O’Donnell KCSG Dr Stephen Cleobury CBE

Dr Simon Heffer Dr David Hill Hilary Macnamara Dr Christopher Robinson CVO CBE Patrick Russill Dr John Scott LVO Howard Shelley Paul Spicer

HONORARY PATRONSDr Denys Darlow Dr Donald Hunt OBE Richard Lloyd

Dr Roy Massey MBE Richard Popplewell LVOEdwin Roxburgh Dr Richard Seal Dr Alan Thurlow

OVERSEASProfessor Peter Godfrey, New Zealand Dr H June Nixon, Australia

Dr Barry Smith, South Africa Professor Hugh McLean

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE

Chairman Dr Martin Neary LVO.

Secretary Andrew Millinger, 32 Barleycroft Road, Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL8 6JUTel: 01707 335315, E mail: andrew.millinger@virgin.net

Treasurer Robert Ascott, 17 Staveley Court, 9 Staveley Road, Eastbourne, BN20 7JS Tel: 01323 728892, E mail: dragonwell2@gmail.com

Membership Secretary Julian Parkin E mail : julian.parkin@hotmail.co.ukTel : 0777 2152747

North American Membership SecretaryDr Jane Gamble, E mail: DrJaneGamble@aol.com

Committee Members Andrew Lumsden, Andrew Nethsingha, Dr John Rutter CBE

Legal Adviser Graham Field Honorary Auditor Paul Houston

[1] VICE PRESIDENTS AND HONORARY PATRONS

Dr Michael Gough Matthews. We record the sad death of Michael Gough Matthews who was a Vice-President of the Society for many years. He spent much of his career in the Royal College of Music, and succeeded Sir David Willcocks as Director. He was, of course, for many years a colleague of Howells.

[2] THE SOCIETY’S AGM: SATURDAY 20TH OCTOBER 2012 IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

The Society’s Annual General Meeting was held last year in Westminster Abbey. Following the AGM at 12.00, there was a break for lunch and then the Revd Dr. Paul Andrews gave a talk on the complicated

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history of the String Quartet “In Gloucestershire”. The text of the talk is attached to this Newsletter, either as a Word doc (for those on e mail) or as a hard copy. The talk was illustrated by several musical excerpts, which unfortunately we cannot attach to the Newsletter !

The music at Evensong included the St Paul’s Service Mag & Nunc, and appropriately for the Jubilee year, the Coronation setting “Behold, O God, our Defender”. The Abbey Choir was conducted by the Master of the Choristers, James O’Donnell, and the organ was played by Robert Quinney.

There was a reception in Cheynegates after the service for members and some of the musicians and clergy.

[3] THE SOCIETY’S ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING AND HOWELLS EVENSONG : SATURDAY 19TH OCTOBER IN MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD

We have never visited Magdalen College before, and so we thought that we ought to make another visit to the University City following our successful visit to New College a few years ago. Howells was a friend of the long time Organist of the College, Dr. Bernard Rose, composer of amongst other things the famous Responses. The college is at the south east end of the High Street, and Magdalen Bridge crosses the river Cherwell just north west of where the Cowley Road (B 480) meets the A 420. Members driving in should note that parking is practically impossible in Oxford (it is even worse than Cambridge!), and are advised to make use of the various Park & Ride facilities. Full details can be obtained on line using : http://www.oxford.gov.uk/transport/park See below for more details.

The timetable is as follows : Members arrive at the college (please report to the Porters’ Lodge for further directions) between 15.00 and 15.25. There will then be a talk by Dr David Maw of Oriel College about the new book on Howells music (details below). The AGM will be held at around 16.30, to be followed by tea & biscuits. Evensong, conducted by Daniel Hyde, with Thomas Allery playing the organ, will commence at 18.00 and will include the St Paul’s Service Mag & Nunc, the anthem ”Behold, O God, our defender”, and Master Tallis’s Testament as one of the voluntaries. Responses will be by H C Stewart, a previous Organist of the college, and the hymn will be “All my hope on God is founded”.Please fill in and return the reply form about attendance at the talk, AGM, tea and Evensong to help us with catering for the numbers concerned.

New book on Howells music. 'The Music of Herbert Howells'

Recently, at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester, Phillip Cooke and David Maw gave a talk about this book which was very well received. We asked them if they could repeat the talk. Unfortunately, Phillip Cooke (one of our members) has just taken up a new job in Aberdeen University, and is unable to get away. However, David Maw, who lives and works in Oxford is available. His talk will include some musical extracts, and he will start with a general introduction to the book, and then concentrate on the early chamber music.

Phillip Cooke and David Maw have been collaborating on this book analysing the music of Howells for several years. The books written about Howells so far (two books by Christopher Palmer and one by Paul Spicer) have covered the man, his life and some critical analysis of his music. This book concentrates primarily on analysing his output, and features 15 essays by some of the world’s leading Howells and British Music scholars including Paul Spicer, Lionel Pike, Jeremy Dibble, Paul Andrews and Lewis Foreman.

The book is arranged in five thematic areas:

1) Howells the Stylist2) Howells the Vocal Composer

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3) Howells the Instrumental Composer4) Howells the Modern5) Howells in Mourning

In these, many of the key works, themes, events and aesthetics of Howells’s work and life are discussed with some fascinating insights and new opinions found throughout. There is plenty on the choral and organ music as one might expect, but also much on the instrumental and chamber music which is most heartening, as this is an area which until relatively recently has been neglected.

The chapters are titled :

Contents

1  Foreword 2  Introduction: Paradox of an establishment composer 3  'In matters of art friendship should not count': Stanford and Howells 4  Howells and Counterpoint 5  Window on a Complex Style: Six Pieces for Organ 6  'Hidden Artifice': Howells as Song-Writer 7  A 'Wholly New Chapter' in Service Music: Collegium Regale and the Gloucester Service 8  Howells's Use of the Melisma: Word Setting in his Songs and Choral Music 9  'From Merry Eye to Paradise': the Early Orchestral Music of Herbert Howells 10  Lost, Remembered, Mislaid, Re-written: A documentary study of In Gloucestershire 11  Style and Structure in the Oboe Sonata and Clarinet Sonata 12  'Tunes all the way'? Romantic Modernism and the Piano Concertos of Herbert Howells 13  'a "modern"...but a Britisher too': Howells and the Phantasy 14  Austerity, Difficulty and Retrospection: The Late Style of Herbert Howells 15  'In Modo Elegiaco': Howells and the Sarabande 16  On Hermeneutics in Howells: Some Thoughts on Interpreting his Cello Concerto 17  Musical Cenotaph: Howells's Hymnus Paradisi and Sites of Mourning 18  Appendix: Catalogue of the works of Herbert Howells 19 Bibliography of works cited

The Recommended Retail Price is £50 (and it is available for pre-order now on the Boydell website and on Amazon); but those who come to the meeting in October will be able to order it with a 25% reduction.

Full details about the book (including a summary and chapter headings) can be found at the following link:http://www.boydellandbrewer.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=14357

The following information is taken from the Boydell website :

Herbert Howells (1892-1983) was a prodigiously gifted musician and the favourite student of the notoriously hard-to-please Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. Throughout his long life, he was one of the country's most prominent composers, writing extensively in all genres except the symphony and opera. Yet today he is known mostly for his church music, and there is as yet relatively little serious study of his work. This book is the first large-scale study of Howells's music, affording both detailed consideration of individual works and a broad survey of general characteristics and issues.Its coverage is wide-ranging, addressing all aspects of the composer's prolific output and probing many of the issues that it raises. The essays are gathered in five sections: Howells the Stylist examines one of the most striking aspect of the composer's music, its strongly characterised personal voice; Howells the Vocal Composer addresses both his well-known contribution to church music and his less familiar, but also important, contribution to the genre of solo song; Howells the Instrumental Composer shows that he was no

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less accomplished for his work in genres without words, for which, in fact, he first made his name; Howells the Modern considers the composer's rather overlooked contribution to the development of a modern voice for British music; and Howells in Mourning explores the important impact of his son's death on his life and work.The composer that emerges from these studies is a complex figure: technically fluent but prone to revision and self-doubt; innovative but also conservative; a composer with an improvisational sense of flow who had a firm grasp of musical form; an exponent of British musical style who owed as much to continental influence as to his national heritage. This volume, comprising a collection of outstanding essays by established writers and emergent scholars, opens up the range of Howells's achievement to a wider audience, both professional and amateur.

PHILLIP COOKE is Lecturer in Composition at the University of Aberdeen.

DAVID MAW is Tutor and Research Fellow in Music at Oriel College, Oxford, holding Lectureships also at Christ Church, The Queen's and Trinity Colleges.

CONTRIBUTORS: Byron Adams, Paul Andrews, Graham Barber, Jonathan Clinch, Phillip A. Cooke, Jeremy Dibble, Lewis Foreman, Fabian Huss, David Maw, Diane Nolan Cooke, Lionel Pike, Paul Spicer, Jonathan White. Foreword by John Rutter.

PARK & RIDE FACILITIES

Because car parking in Oxford is quite difficult, it is suggested that most people might wish to use the “Park & Ride” scheme which operates in the City. There is a “Park & Ride” called Pear Tree which is close to the junction of the A 44 and A 34. There are also “Park & Ride” facilities at Seacourt (on the B 4044) coming in from the West, and at Redbridge (coming in from the South and close to the Ring Road). The one to the east (Thornhill) is probably the best one to use as the buses stop and pick up just up the High from Magdalen College.

Peartree : Located to the north of the city, this site can be accessed from the A40 (from Witney and Cheltenham), A4260 (from Kidlington), A34 (from Banbury, Bicester and Northampton) and the M40.

Water Eaton : This site is located to the north of the city and can be accessed from the A40 (from Witney and Cheltenham), A4260 (from Kidlington), A34 (from Banbury, Bicester and Northampton) and the M40.

Thornhill : Located off the A40 from Thame, Aylesbury, High Wycombe, London and the M40 to the east of the city, just before the ring road.

Redbridge : Located off the A34 from Abingdon, Didcot and Newbury. This site is located to the south of the city.

Seacourt : Located off the A420 from Swindon and Bath, to the west of the city on the Botley Road.

Buses are numbered as follows for the various sites : The Park and Ride bus services 300, 400 and 500 take you to Oxford city centre:

300 - from Redbridge and Pear Tree 400 - from Seacourt and Thornhill 500 - from Water Eaton

Buses from Thornhill stop outside The Queen’s College, just up the High from Magdalen, and so this is the most convenient one to use.

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Parking and the journey into the Centre of the City costs around £ 3.00 return. Although car parking is possible in locations such as Mansfield Road, the maximum permitted time is 3 hours, and restrictions do not end until 20.00. This makes it difficult to use on-street parking There are train services from London Paddington, around 4 per hour, some of which are direct, some involve a change at Reading. Return trains go up to around 23.00. The journeys take just over an hour.

[4] WORLD PREMIERE OF THE EARLY VIOLIN SONATA IN B MINOR : PITTVILLE PUMP ROOM, CHELTENHAM : FRIDAY 20TH SEPTEMBER

Following quite a lot of work by the Society in bringing together publisher, editor and the Trust, as well as the performers, Rupert Marshall – Luck and Matthew Rickard, we are proud to announce the world premiere of Howells’ very early (1911) Sonata in B minor. This will be given as part of the English Music Festival on Friday 20th September at 19.30 in the Pittville Pump Room in Cheltenham. The details of the whole weekend are given either in an attachment (for those receiving this by e mail) or as a hard copy appendix.

Booking details are available on : http://www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/autumn-festival-2013/box-office.html

I look forward to seeing members at the concert.

[5] RECORDING OF ALL THE VIOLIN & PIANO WORKS OF HOWELLS

The Society has been planning for several years to record all of the three Violin Sonatas, and asked Rupert Marshall-Luck and Matthew Rickard to perform all of them over the past couple of years. We were able to hear two of them at the Howells / Stanford weekend in Cambridge a couple of years ago (No.s 2 and 3) as part of a talk by Paul Spicer. The performers also included No.2 in the new edition made by Paul Spicer at last year’s EMF in Dorchester Abbey. This year, No. 1 was included in the May Festival, again in Dorchester Abbey. The 20th September performance of the B minor will be a “dry run” for the recording, which is planned to take place in late November.

At the same time, the Howells Trust has very generously offered a grant to EMF Records for this recording.

In order to make this all happen, we offered Novello the opportunity to publish No.2. As Novello have been very busy with Howells publications last year and this (see below), we offered the B minor sonata to Boosey and Hawkes in order to ensure it would be available for the forthcoming concert. Paul Spicer was commissioned to edit the work and it has recently been delivered to the performers.

The early sonata is a very substantial work, and it took considerable editing. It has literally never been performed before (except possibly privately at the RCM in 1911). The piece was one of a series of pieces which the young Howells sent to the RCM when he applied for an entrance scholarship. Needless to say, he was accepted by the college.

As the four violin sonatas will exceed the capacity of one CD, the recording will be issued as a 2 CD set. This gives us the opportunity to record all the other violin and piano works, so that the CDs can be issued as “The Complete Violin & Piano Works of Herbert Howells”.

The other pieces are :

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The Three Pieces, Opus 28 ; Cradle Song, Opus 9 ; A Country Tune ; A Croon ; Slow Air; Lento assai espressivo

We expect the new recording to be available early next year on the EMF label. Paul Spicer and I will attend the recording sessions.

[4] THE HERBERT HOWELLS TRUST

The Society continues to work closely with the Howells Trust on all matters to do with permission to publish, perform and record unpublished works, and support for publication, recordings and performances.

A good deal of effort has been involved with the new performing edition of Stabat Mater, and the Violin Sonata No.2 and the early B minor violin sonata. Generous support from the Trust has enabled Novello to produce a completely new edition of Stabat Mater, and they also supported the costs of putting on the concert in King’s Chapel. They are also supporting the forthcoming recording of the work by the Bach Choir.

The costs of editing the early B minor sonata have been met by Boosey & Hawkes, but the costs of the recording of all of Howells’ violin and piano output is being generously supported by the Trust. The Herbert Howells Society is sponsoring the concert on Friday 20th September

The offer of financial help from the Trust for the projected World Premiere recording of the ‘Cello Concerto remains subject to satisfactory overall project costings and other external support.

All of the pieces which are scheduled for publication involve both the Society and the Trust in organising “permissions” for organisations or individuals to be allowed access to manuscripts. Assignment of Copyright is required for all new publications, and any performances (or recordings) of currently unpublished works require the formal agreement of the Trust, advised by the Society.

[5] RECENT RECORDINGS

The Howells Trust recently agreed to support a recording by David Newsholme of an all-Howells CD on the famous Salisbury Cathedral organ. Subsequently, the project has been extended so that the intention is now to record all of Howells’ organ music output.

The new CD is to be released soon by Regent Records (on REGCD 407) and includes : Three pieces (Flourish for a bidding; St Louis comes to Clifton; Intrada No. 2) together with Rhapsodies Nos. 1 – 4 and Organ Sonata No.2.

The two further CDs will be recorded in the next 12 months or so. It will be good to have another set of all Howells’ organ music in a recent recording on such a fine instrument as the one in Salisbury. [6] MUSIC IN PRINT

The past year has seen quite a lot of activity, particularly from Novellos, on new publications.

[a] Stabat Mater. This 50 minute choral and orchestral work was given a performance in King’s College Chapel on Good Friday this year, with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorus conducted by Vice-President Dr Stephen Cleobury. BBC Radio 3 subsequently broadcast it 10 days later.

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This was the culmination of major efforts by both Novello and Stephen Cleobury. The original full score (I had Howells’ own full score) was difficult to read, and had quite a large number of errors, and lots of examples of discrepancies between the published vocal score, and the handwritten full score and parts. We asked Novello to start again with a completely new computer-set score, and were delighted that the Howells Trust was able to support Novello financially in order to accomplish this. It was a major undertaking, and had to be achieved quickly in time for the King’s performance. Before it was performed, Stephen Cleobury undertook the “heroic” task of locating any errors in Howells’ score, so that by the time of the performance, all of the discrepancies had been removed. Our sincere thanks are due to Stephen for carrying out this valuable work.

The full score and parts are now available for hire, and will be used by the Bach Choir under David Hill, who will be recording the work in November with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for Naxos. (The recording will also include “Sine Nomine”- recorded only once before- and the World Premiere recording of the Collegium Regale Te Deum in the 1977 orchestral version.)

Novello have also made the full score of Stabat Mater available for purchase, and it can be ordered from the MusicRoom website as NOV293777, price £29.95

[b] Solo songsAlthough virtually all of Howells’ solo songs were recorded by Chandos in the early 1990s, some of them had never been published. We have sought to rectify that, and have been delighted that Scott Crowne in the USA has undertaken the necessary editing work and computer-set the songs. We are grateful for the help and advice of our Vice-President Dr Christopher Robinson who reviewed the songs before they were taken by Novello. The songs concerned are :

“Upon a Summer’s Day”; “An Old Man’s Lullaby”; “Blaweary”; “By the hearthstone”; “Here she lies, a pretty bud”; “Lethe”; “Garlands hanging by the door”; “Sweet content”; “The Primrose”.

It is hoped that the songs will be published early next year after all the necessary licences have been obtained.

[c] Second Violin SonataAs mentioned above, Novello have published the Second Violin Sonata and it is now available from the MusicRoom website at £ 19.95

[d] ‘Cello concerto.This has been completed by Jonathan Clinch (who incidentally writes about the concerto in the new book on Howells mentioned above). The project to record this – together with “Merry Eye” and “Puck’s Minuet” – is awaiting further financing, and the plan will be to delay publication of the whole concerto until the recording has been released.

[e] Violin Sonata in B minorAs mentioned above, we have been collaborating with Boosey & Hawkes on the publication of this very early violin sonata. B & H already have the first violin sonata in their catalogue, and are pleased to be able to publish this as well. The piece is planned for publication to coincide with the release of the new EMF CD.

B & H are also working on a completely new edition of the Howells Elegy, an important early work, to coincide with the centenary of the start of the First World War in 2014.

[7] THE HOWELLS FAMILY GRAVE IN TWIGWORTH NEAR GLOUCESTER

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Over the past couple of years, various Society members who have visited the Twigworth churchyard have told us that the graves of Michael Howells and Dorothy Howells (the composer’s wife) are in a state of some disrepair. We have decided therefore to take steps to “clean up” the graves and to put them in a state where members can feel proud to visit the site.

We asked the local Royal Forest of Dean Herbert Howells Society, and its chairman, Maurice Bent, to assist us in locating suitable contractors from the area for the works and in obtaining quotes. They subsequently recommended a local firm and we agreed to meet the costs of the renovation work. The work was carried out earlier this year, and the attached photo (see last page) shows the completed work, with which I hope members will be pleased. The photo shows Maurice Bent standing by the grave. We are also pleased that the Forest of Dean Society was able to make a contribution to the costs of the renovation work.

[8] FIRST PERFORMANCE OF “SIR PATRICK SPENS” IN THE USAI gave help and support for finding information about Sir Patrick Spens to Alicia Walker a couple of years ago. I gave her information about how Paul Spicer, David Hill, Martin Neary and I had been involved in getting the piece published (with new full score and parts) and getting it recorded. She has reported now that she conducted the first US performance of the piece in April this year with combined choirs and orchestra of the University of South Carolina, where she is Assistant Professor of Choral Music. It seems that the performance was a great success and that she has converted a lot of the students taking part to be fans of Howells.

[9] POSSIBLE RELEASE OF THE CLASSIC WILLCOCKS HOWELLS RECORDINGS IN KING’S IN THE MID-1960SA number of members have asked about the possibility of re-issuing the classic David Willcocks recording of some of his choral music, issued originally on the Argo label. It seems there has been a general reluctance to re-issue analogue recordings in an age of “clean” digital sound, with the highest quality CD / SACD recordings being issued these days. However, our member, David Cook, has been in touch with Australian Eloquence, who are now planning to issue these pieces alongside some other King’s recordings of that period. More news when I hear.

[8] E MAIL ADDRESSESThe Secretary is happy to deal with members’ enquiries via E mail rather than by post. In addition, some members may prefer to receive Newsletters by E mail rather than by post (a substantial portion of the membership now receives Newsletters this way). This would save the Society postage and duplicating costs. Please advise Secretary if you would prefer this, and send details of your E mail address.

[9] SUBSCRIPTIONSPlease see the attached separate note on subscriptions for those who do not pay by Standing Order.

[10] AGM NOTICE: SATURDAY 19TH OCTOBER IN MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORDThe formal notice of the AGM is attached to the Newsletter. Please note that only members of the Society are entitled to vote at the meeting. However, spouses and friends of members are most welcome to attend the events of the day.

After doing the job of Membership Secretary for nearly 10 years, Ros Saunders is standing down at the AGM. We are delighted however that Julian Parkin has offered to take up the post from Ros. Julian has been much involved recently in the design and printing of our new brochure, and is familiar with the Society’s activities through a membership which goes back many years. He is also active as a choral conductor of Howells’ music through his choir based in All Saints Church Leamington Spa.

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His election to the committee needs to be ratified by the AGM, but I am taking the liberty of giving his contact details now, below, in order to avoid having to send it all out again after the meeting, assuming that the meeting agrees his election. I am also updating the front page.Julian Parkin, Tel : 0777 2152747 E mail : julian.parkin@hotmail.co.uk

The Society would like to thank Ros for all of her hard work over the past ten years in attracting new members to the society, and for her support for the officers of the society.

[11] ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING IN 2014 : The date for the AGM next year has not yet been fixed. We have some ideas about venue, but nothing definite yet.

Andrew MillingerHon. Secretary Herbert Howells Society newslt 32 vF

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