Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Psalms and Psalm Preludes
David Hill (organ)
The Choir of Durham Cathedral / Daniel Cook
Joseph Beech (organ)
rec. June & July, 2023, Durham Cathedral, Durham, UK
Psalm texts included
Regent Recordings REGCD586 [83]
What a splendid and inspired programming idea for a CD! Recordings of Herbert Howells’ six Psalm Preludes for organ are quite plentiful, either in complete collections or as individual items in mixed programmes. However, to the best of my knowledge this is the first time that all of the Preludes have been recorded in company with the Psalms that inspired them. Moreover, all the chants used here – ten in all – are by Howells and some of them are receiving their first recordings. If that were not enough, the choice of Durham Cathedral as the location for this project is a felicitous one. It has a fine organ, originally built by Henry ‘Father’ Willis in 1876/77 and then rebuilt twice (between 1905 and 1935 and again in 1970) by the renowned Durham-based firm of organ builders, Harrison and Harrison. David Hill, who plays the organ solos here, will be no stranger either to Durham Cathedral or its organ since he was Sub-Organist there from 1980 to 1982. Finally, the Durham Cathedral Choir shows itself to be an excellent ensemble, evidently well trained by Daniel Cook; they sing the various Psalms very well indeed.
Herbert Howells was not a conventionally religious man. He may well have been a churchgoer in his formative years when he was an articled pupil of Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Cathedral, but for most of his adult life I believe that he eschewed expressions of religious faith. It is, therefore, a supreme paradox that he should have been arguably the single most significant twentieth-century English contributor to the Anglican liturgical repertoire, justly celebrated for his many masterly settings of the Morning and Evening Canticles and for his wonderful anthems. Also, as this album reminds us, he composed a number of chants for the Anglican psalmody. How can we explain this paradox? I think Jonathan Clinch hits the nail on the head in his excellent and informative booklet essay, when speaking thus of Howells’ attraction to the Book of Psalms as a source of inspiration: “Despite his lack of faith, the emotional depth of what he referred to as an ‘immense prose’ spoke to him vividly and he revelled in the sense that the words had been providing comfort for centuries, connecting us with all humanity across time”. He goes on to observe that “[f]or some, his psalm-based works matched the man himself: the intensity, the passion and the constant holding of pain beneath the surface, in a peculiarly English manner”. From what I have learned of Howells over the years, that judgement seems spot on and this album provides powerful evidence for the strong connection between the composer and the Psalms. In addition, there are a number of other works in which Howells set words from the Psalms: I think principally of the lovely Requiem, the gorgeous anthem Like as the Hart, and of course, the sublime Hymnus Paradisi.
The opening piece in the programme was not specifically linked by Howells to a psalm but its inclusion is highly relevant. In his essay, Jonathan Clinch takes us back to 6 September 1910, when the young Howells and his great friend, Ivor Gurney attended a Three Choirs Festival concert in Gloucester Cathedral. The main item on the programme was Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius but it was preceded by the first performance of a work by a man who was then a lesser-known composer. The two friends heard Ralph Vaughan Williams conduct Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; it was a life-changing experience for Howells. As is well-known, the melody upon which VW based his masterpiece was a metrical tune for Psalm 2 which Tallis had composed in 1567 for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter. Clinch tells us that much later Howells was to speak of his 1940 piece, Master Tallis’s Testament as a ‘footnote’ to VW’s Fantasia. The music has a fine sense of space and Howells makes us feel that the past is reaching out to the present. David Hill’s performance is excellent; eventually, he builds the piece to a majestic climax before the music subsides to a tranquil ending.
Thereafter, the Psalm Preludes are presented in order with each one preceded by the Psalm which provided the inspiration. It’s important to note, however, that in the case of each Prelude Howells extracted just a verse from the psalm in question; he does not attempt to portray the multiple imagery of the psalm as a whole. It’s worth making an initial general point about the chants that have been selected for each of the six psalms sung by the Durham Cathedral choir. It seems to me that in every case the chosen chants complement the sentiments in the relevant set of verses. I wonder whether Howells had specific psalms in mind when he composed these chants. In fact, Jonathan Clinch mentions only one such specific case: one of the two chants to which Psalm 34 is sung was written with the similar imagery of Psalm 106 in mind. In Psalm 34, the psalmist speaks, in Clinch’s words, “of faith and deliverance”; as such, its principal sentiment is optimism. The two chants selected here were both composed for John Birch, who was not only Organist of Chichester Cathedral (1958-1980) but also a colleague of Howells at the Royal College of Music, where he was Professor of Organ (1959-97). The chants are most interesting and, as is the case throughout this album, the psalm is very well sung by the Durham choir; they are well disciplined and their diction is very clear. The Psalm Prelude that follows is interesting, not least in terms of the way in which Howells was inspired by the psalm in question. As I mentioned, Psalm 34 is essentially optimistic, yet the verse which Howells took as his inspiration reads as follows: ‘Lo, the poor crieth, and the Lord heareth him; yea, and saveth him out of all his troubles.’ To be sure, there are grounds for optimism in the second half of the verse but its beginning invites melancholy, to all of which Howells duly responds. Howells described the Prelude as a ‘shy tribute’ to its dedicatee, Sir Walter Parratt. He also said this of the piece: ‘Structurally it is an essay in slow, prolonged, cumulative development of climax, followed by an equally unhurried descent dismissing and eliminating complexity, movement, sonority’. That description is worth bearing in mind because, to an extent Howells followed the same pattern in some of the other Psalm Preludes. Here, David Hill makes the most of a climax that is both powerful and impassioned.
Psalm 37 is a long one; here it takes 11:01 to deliver. Wisely, Daniel Cook breaks it up, utilising three chants. The first of these was written for Lionel Dakers in 1974, Jonathan Clinch tells us, while the other two were written for Harold Darke around the same time as the linked Psalm Prelude was composed, in 1916. The Dakers chant, which has interesting harmonies, opens the psalm and is brought back for the last few verses and the ‘Glory be’; the first of the Darke chants is notable for introducing darker, more dramatic music. For the Psalm Prelude Howells took as his inspiration the verse ‘But the meek-spirited shall possess the earth and shall be refreshed in the multitude of peace’. Such sentiments invite warm, mostly tranquil music and that’s just what characterises Howells’ piece.
Psalm 23, ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ is quite short and so needs only one chant; this is another written (for Lionel Dakers?) in 1974. Here, I find the chromatic harmonies at the end of each line especially stimulating. Tellingly, perhaps, Howells took as the inspiration for his organ piece the verse ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’. The Psalm Prelude in question was written in 1915 and is the earliest surviving such piece; tantalisingly, Jonathan Clinch mentions an earlier Prelude dating from 1913, which has not survived. He describes the 1915 composition as “a grand funeral march”. It opens with a sombre tread in the pedals and an air of hushed foreboding. About halfway through, the darkness is alleviated to some extent and the music broadens out into a potent, sustained climax, the retreat from which brings us to a calmer and eventually quiet end, though at the last the sombre tread of the pedals is still evident. Both the piece and David Hill’s account of it are most impressive.
There was gap of more than twenty years between the composition of the first three Psalm Preludes and the second set. According to Jonathan Clinch, the composer began work on the second set in the week preceding the third anniversary of the death of his son Michael. Was it, I wonder, the piece which became the first of this set with which he began? That might be the case since the inspiration for that Prelude is the opening verse of Psalm 130, ‘Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord’. Psalm 130 itself is here sung to another chant written for John Birch; this one dates from 1972. The music is dark and chromatic and, as such, ideally suited to the text. The Psalm Prelude opens in a dark, brooding vein. In due course, the pulse quickens and the music grows significantly in urgency until a shattering climax is attained (4:34). Thereafter, the piece subsides in what Clinch aptly describes as “a coda of sublime tranquillity”; the last chord seems to be held forever. It’s a magnificent, eloquent composition which David Hill plays superbly and with great imagination.
Psalm 139 is sung to another chant from 1974. It’s arguably the most harmonically searching of all the chants in this collection. I think that’s fitting because the psalm speaks of God’s searching knowledge of each individual man and woman. The Psalm Prelude is quietly meditative at the start; David Hill keeps the textures light and ensures that the music flows throughout the piece. The climax is nowhere near as powerful as is the case in some of the other Preludes. It’s a beguiling piece and here it’s played with great sensitivity.
The concluding psalm is Psalm 33. Much of the text is sung to a chant from Howells’ student days; perhaps it’s unsurprising, therefore, that this is the most conventional chant on this disc, though in saying that I don’t mean to dimmish it. Midway through, there’s a change for a few verses to a chant written for Harold Darke which, I presume, dates from around the same time as the two which were used in Psalm 37. The shift from one chant to another and then back again works well; the chants complement each other nicely. That’s followed by the last Psalm Prelude. Alone among the six, this is in a fast tempo. Howells took as his text verse 3 of Psalm 33, ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song’; thus inspired, he wrote a piece which is jubilant from the start. I was intrigued by Jonathan Clinch’s reference to Walton’s music with which Howells had developed an “increasing fascination” at this time. And, indeed, you can hear echoes of Walton’s style in this piece, not least in the use of punchy rhythms. The Walton influence is, perhaps, exemplified by a brief but forthright trumpet fanfare (1:25); the way David Hill voices this jazzy intervention – and a later one – on the Durham organ is terrific. Shortly after this fanfare the volume dies away almost to nothing – though the tension is undiminished – and Howells gradually builds back the celebration. The end of the Prelude is thrilling and positive.
This is a revelatory disc, which all admirers of Herbert Howells’ music should consider as a mandatory purchase. The Psalm Preludes are contextualised in a most revealing way thanks to the juxtaposition of the related Psalms. Furthermore, Howells’ chants are, I suspect, not all that often used by cathedral or collegiate choirs; on this evidence the case for their more widespread use is very strong. The Durham Cathedral choir are excellent advocates for the Psalms. As for the Psalm Preludes, David Hill’s playing of all of them is masterly. Nowadays, we experience him mostly as a conductor but it’s clear that he is still a formidable organist. If this disc does well, as it deserves to do, perhaps Regent might invite him to record Howells’ four Rhapsodies and the Organ Sonata.
The recordings, engineered and produced by Gary Cole, are excellent. I use the word recordings deliberately because the solo items were recorded separately at sessions in July 2023; the organ has been recorded with great presence and the wide dynamic range that Hill achieves is faithfully replicated in the recording. The psalm sessions took place in the previous month. The choir has been recorded very clearly while Joseph Beech’s well-judged accompaniments are nicely balanced with the singers. Jonathan Clinch’s expert notes give an authoritative overview of the music.
John Quinn
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Contents
Master Tallis’s Testament (Six Pieces for Organ, No 3) (1940)
Psalm 34 I will alway give thanks unto the Lord
Psalm-Prelude, Set 1, Op 32, No 1 (Ps 34, v6 – ‘Lo, the poor crieth’) (1916)
Psalm 37 Fret not thyself because of the ungodly
Psalm-Prelude, Set 1, Op 32, No 2 (Ps 37, v11 – ‘But the meek-spirited shall possess the earth’) (1916)
Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd
Psalm-Prelude, Set 1, Op 32, No 3 (Ps 23, v4 – ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’) (1915)
Psalm 130 Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord
Psalm-Prelude, Set 2, No 1 (Ps 130, v1 – ‘Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord’) (1939)
Psalm 139 O Lord, thou hast searched me out, and known me
Psalm-Prelude, Set 2, No 2 (Ps 139, v11 – ‘Yea, the darkness is no darkness with thee’) (1939)
Psalm 33 Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous
Psalm-Prelude, Set 2, No 3 (Ps 33, v3 – ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song’) (1939)
