Herbert Howells: Evening Canticles throughout June
Most Anglican service music is known somewhat technically and not very imaginatively by the key in which it is written. Thus the prospect of hearing Purcell in G minor or Stanford in C will only mean something to those who are already familiar with these settings. The titles of Herbert Howells’ canticles, however, are more interesting: he wrote no fewer than nine sets which all bear the name of the cathedrals for which they were written. On each of the Sunday evenings in June we shall hear Howells’ evening canticles for five of the great musical cathedrals and collegiate chapels of the 20th century Gloucester, Westminster and St Albans Abbey, together with King’s College, Cambridge and New College, Oxford.
It’s not only the titles which make Howells’ settings distinctive the music itself is also uniquely adapted to the acoustic of each building. Howells came to writing sacred music comparatively late in his composing career and was already in his 50’s when he wrote the first set for King’s in 1944 (generally known by its formal title of Collegium Regale’ – although to generations of choristers more affectionately as Coll: Reg:’). Thus the style of his service music is mature and expressive: he has a sure ear for the inflections of Anglican prose, and a broad, uplifting melodic line in the vein of his contemporary Vaughan Williams. But Howells’ harmonic language does not always make easy listening. Sometimes you have to wait to understand where he is going. There may be sharp dissonances and inscrutable harmonies, and the resolutions may be surprisingly much sharper or much flatter than you expect. In the opening bars of the Gloucester Magnificat two treble lines weave together in almost stifling proximity you have to imagine the sounds hanging in the lofty air of Gloucester’s roof space, jangling above until they finally drift into consonance. Often there is a timeless modality to Howells’ harmony, well described by Hugh Ottaway as a spiritualized sensuousness’. In the Nunc Dimittis of Collegium Regale, you have to imagine the effect of the solo tenor voice rising serenely out of the choir stalls, and continuing to float up through the choral texture. Whatever uncertainties may have been encountered on the way, the concluding Glorias are always richly satisfying. This may not always be easy music, but it is profound and effective.
Gill Perrin
Music
Gill Perrin