Abstract

Although chiefly remembered as a composer of choral works and church music, Herbert Howells’s compositional output is wide-ranging, including solo songs, keyboard works, chamber music, sonatas, concerti, orchestral works and more. His unique sound world makes his music instantly recognisable and creates its particular appeal. This thesis is one performer’s attempt to understand that appeal.

Academic studies of Howells’s compositions approach the music in one of two ways. Some consider the music in impressionistic terms, assessing the mood of a piece, while others parse the harmonic and rhythmic features, analysing the particular building blocks that come together to create the specific sound world. We will attempt to combine both approaches in assessing and analysing a series of works composed by Howells for the organ, and the written research will be complimented by a recital of a selection of those works.

The three initial chapters will lay the building blocks for the analysis. Chapter 1 begins by assessing significant events in Howells’s life, particularly moments of tragedy which impacted upon his personality and compositional work. Chapter 2 assesses Howells’s complete output for organ, drawing the parameters of the study to a select group of works, and considering information about the composer’s intentions in performance alongside contemporary issues of performance practice. Chapter 3 analyses the structural building blocks used to create the particular sound world of Howells. The succeeding chapters then analyse each of the selected works in detail.

This is music to be enjoyed, consumed, listened to and heard as much as it is to be studied, and so the conclusion is, in part, the accompanying recital. Academically we are left pondering the consequences of deep trauma on the creative spirit, and how beauty emerges from pain as catharsis. The act of composition can be an expression of both grief and hope, lifting the wounded soul to a new reality. How does that challenge and shape performance?