Herbert Howells (1[zasłonięte]892-19) 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
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.
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