Herbert Howells

Composer, born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, SWC England, UK. He studied under Stanford at the Royal College of Music, where he became professor of composition (1920). He followed Holst as director of music at St Paul's Girls' School (1936), and became professor of music at London University (1952–62). He is best known for his choral works, especially the Hymnus paradisi, which combine an alert sense of 20th-c musical developments with a firm foundation in the English choral tradition.

Herbert Norman Howells CH (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher.

Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, and was the youngest of six children born to Oliver and Elizabeth Howells. He studied first with Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Cathedral, as an articled pupil alongside Ivor Novello and Ivor Gurney, the celebrated English songwriter and poet, with whom he became great friends. Later he studied at the Royal College of Music under Stanford, Hubert Parry and Charles Wood.

In 1915 he was diagnosed with Graves' disease and given six months to live. he later served as acting organist of St John's College, Cambridge during World War II.

In his twenties and thirties his compositional output focussed chiefly on orchestral and chamber music, including two piano concertos. The hostile reception given to the second of these effectively silenced Howells's compositional activities for some time. both Howells himself and his music were never the same after this period of his life. Though not an orthodox Christian, he became increasingly identified with the composition of religious music, most notably the Hymnus Paradisi for chorus and orchestra.

Hymnus Paradisi was the first of four large-scale sacred choral works. His Missa Sabrinensis is on the same scale, in terms of length and forces required, as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, while An English Mass is scored for significantly smaller forces, is performed almost entirely in English, and follows the Anglican tradition of placing the Gloria last.

Howells is particularly known for his large output of Anglican church music, including a complete Service for King's College, Cambridge (the Collegium Regale) and settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis for the choirs of St John's College, Cambridge, New College, Oxford, Westminster Abbey, Worcester, St Paul's, and Gloucester cathedrals, amongst many others. The motet Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing, written shortly after the assassination of President John F.

He wrote two works for brass band: Pageantry and Three Figures. Howells arranged its first movement, King's Herald, for full orchestra for the coronation of King George VI in 1937.

In later life he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University, and was made a Companion of Honour.