Herbert Norman Howells CH CBE was born on October 17, 1892, and died on February 23, 1983. He was an English composer, organist, and teacher. He is best known for creating many pieces of music used in Anglican churches.
Life
William Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, as the youngest of six children. His father, Oliver Howells, was a plumber, painter, decorator, and builder. His mother was named Elizabeth. Oliver played the organ at the local Baptist church, and Herbert, William’s younger brother, showed early musical talent. He first helped his father play the organ and later became a choirboy and unofficial assistant organist at the local Church of England parish church at age eleven.
The Howells family faced serious financial problems when Oliver declared bankruptcy in September 1904, when William was nearly 12 years old. This was a difficult and embarrassing situation in their small community, and William never fully recovered from the experience. With help from a family member of Charles Bathurst, 1st Viscount Bledisloe, who supported William’s musical interests, he began music lessons in 1905 with Herbert Brewer, the organist of Gloucester Cathedral. At sixteen, William became Herbert Brewer’s apprentice at the cathedral, studying alongside Ivor Novello and Ivor Gurney. William and Gurney became close friends, often walking through the countryside and discussing music and English literature.
A major influence on young William was the premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in September 1910. Later in life, William recalled that Vaughan Williams sat beside him during the concert and shared a copy of Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with him. Both Vaughan Williams and the Tudor composers, including Tallis, greatly influenced William’s music.
In 1912, following the example of Ivor Gurney, William moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music. His teachers included Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry, and Charles Wood. His classmates at the college included Gurney, Arthur Bliss, and Arthur Benjamin.
William felt comfortable at the Royal College of Music, which he described as a "cosy family" environment. His Mass in the Dorian Mode was performed at Westminster Cathedral shortly after he arrived. Most of his early works were orchestral, including a piano concerto, which was never performed again after its first showing, and a light orchestral suite titled The B’s, which depicted three of his friends at the college. He also composed Three Dances for violin and orchestra. His first important organ compositions were the first set of Psalm Preludes (1915–16) and the first of the op. 17 Rhapsodies.
William’s future seemed uncertain in 1915 when he was diagnosed with Graves’ disease and told he had only six months to live. His poor health prevented him from being drafted into World War I, which may have saved him from the dangers faced by friends like Gurney. At St Thomas’ Hospital, he received experimental radium injections in his neck twice a week for two years. During this time, he traveled between London and Lydney, where his mother cared for him. Despite his illness, he continued to compose. In 1916, he created his first mature work, the Piano Quartet in A minor, dedicated to "the hill at Chosen and Ivor Gurney who knows it." The quartet was first performed at the home of Marion M. Scott in July 1916 and later at the Royal College of Music. Its public debut was at Oxford in November 1917. In 1918, William became assistant organist at Salisbury Cathedral but left the position after a few months due to the difficulty of traveling to London for treatment. Friends arranged a grant from the Carnegie Trust, allowing him to help R. R. Terry edit Latin Tudor music at Westminster Cathedral. This work led to a multi-volume edition of Tudor Church Music published by Oxford University Press in the 1920s. It provided William with a stable income and helped him study the English Renaissance style, which he later used in his own music. His first major choral works, the Three Carol-Anthems (Here is the Little Door, A Spotless Rose, and Sing Lullaby), were written around this time.
In 1920, William married Dorothy Eveline Goozee, who was informally adopted by John and Alma Dawe. Dorothy was a singer he had met in 1911 when he accompanied her. Their marriage lasted despite William’s infidelities, and they had two children: Ursula (1922–2005), who later became an actress, and Michael (1926–1935).
That same year, William joined the staff of the Royal College of Music, where he worked until 1979. His students included Robert Simpson, Gordon Jacob, James Bernard, Paul Spicer, Madeleine Dring, and Imogen Holst. From 1925, he also served as Director of Music at St Paul’s Girls’ School and frequently judged music competitions. These responsibilities limited the time he could spend composing, but he continued to write orchestral and chamber music, such as the string quartet In Gloucestershire (originally written in 1916, revised multiple times, and completed in the 1930s), the overture Merry Eye (1920), and the second Piano Concerto (1925). The premiere of the concerto caused a protest from a critic, and William, who was very sensitive to criticism, withdrew the piece and produced few significant compositions for several years. His friend and fellow composer, Martin Sumpter, encouraged this temporary pause in his large-scale works. One exception was Lambert’s Clavichord (1928), a rare piece for a clavichord, inspired by an instrument lent to William by his friend Herbert Lambert, an instrument maker and photographer from Bath. Other major works from this period remained unperformed, including an a cappella Requiem in English (1932) and a choral piece, A Kent Yeoman’s Wooing Song (1933).
In September 1935, William’s nine-year-old son, Michael, contracted polio during a family trip and died in London three days later. Michael was buried in the churchyard of St Matthew’s Church in Twigworth, Gloucestershire.
William was deeply affected by Michael’s death and remembered the event for the rest of his life. At his daughter Ursula’s suggestion, he channeled his grief into music. Over the next three years, he composed much of the large-scale choral work Hymnus Paradisi, using material from his unpublished Requiem of 1932. This work remained a personal, private document until 1950. Other pieces from this time include the Concerto for Strings (1938), the slow movement of
Honours and legacy
Herbert Howells was given the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1953 and became a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1972. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1961. His daughter, Ursula, started the "Herbert Howells Society" in 1987. After Ursula passed away in 2005, the "Herbert Howells Trust" was created to support the promotion of his musical works.
There are several portraits of Herbert Howells. A 1974 oil painting by Leonard Boden is part of the Royal College of Music's collection. The National Portrait Gallery in London displays a chalk sketch by Boden, an oil portrait by Howard James Morgan, and photographs by Herbert Lambert, Clive Barda, and Elliott & Fry. Julian Lloyd Webber, a cellist, was Howells' godson.
Compositions
Howells wrote many types of musical works, including orchestral, choral, and chamber music. He is most famous for his religious music for choirs, especially his compositions for morning services (called Mattins, which include the Te Deum, Benedictus, and Jubilate) and evening services (called Evensong, which include the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis). Many of these works are dedicated to specific places of worship, such as Gloucester Cathedral (Gloucester Service), King's College, Cambridge (Collegium Regale), and St Paul's Cathedral (St Paul's Service). He also wrote several hymn tunes and a Requiem.