Take him earth for cherishing
Herbert Howells - (1892-1983)
Howells achieved early recognition, firstly with a fairly substantial output of instrumental music and later with his songs which were coloured by the love of his native Gloucestershire. Despite his long life, severe health problems kept him out of the First World War. He married Dorothy in 1920. Howells seemed to have eschewed the more avant-garde experimentation with music that was taking place in Europe and America. He produced a tonal style, and it is said that he was gifted at 'creating metrically complex music that flows like the finest silk'. Notoriously over-sensitive to criticism, he perceived that his second piano concerto had not been well received and ceased composing for about ten years prior to the Second World War. He was also harshly critical of himself and did not release much of his finest work for a great many years, if at all. However, a number of sad events were, in the 1930s, to bring about work ranking in the top of the English choral tradition.
Howells inherited from Holst the position of Director of Music at St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith: he left this post in the early 1960s but continued composing and teaching composition well into his 80s. His ashes are entombed in Westminster Abbey.
Take him earth for cherishing
The text is the English translation by Helen Wadell of the 4th century poem of Prudentius (348 - 413): Hymnus cica Exsequias Defuncti.
Howells set the text of this poem for an American commission occasioned by the assassination of President John F Kennedy. It was noted that Howells was deeply touched by the loss of a young promising life. This unaccompanied motet was first performed in Washington in 1964. The sparse opening octaves are repeated with a fuller harmony, leading to the bleak entreaty Take, O take him, mightly leader. The final resolution of the motet into B major affirms that feared death is the pathway to eternal light.
Programme notes compiled by Nicholas Shaw