Herbert Howells was born in the small Gloucester town of Lydney in 1892. He showed musical promise from an early age and became an articled pupil of Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Cathedral, subsequently winning a scholarship to study composition with Stanford (who claimed him as his ‘son in music’) at the Royal College of Music, where he later taught for nearly sixty years. In the early part of his career he made a reputation as a composer of orchestral and chamber works (including two piano concertos, the celebrated Piano Quartet and Rhapsodic Quintet), piano music and songs. He was appointed Director of Music at St Paul's Girls' School in succession to Gustav Holst, as well as Professor of Music for the University of London.

His most profound music was often inspired by a deep sense of nostalgia and personal loss. The death from polio of his nine-year old son Michael in 1935 affected him profoundly and eventually led to the composition of his masterpiece Hymnus Paradisi. Howells was Acting Organist at St John's College, Cambridge during the Second World War and there he began to take an interest in writing music for the church. The first fruits of this were the much loved Canticles for the King's College, Cambridge. This aspect of his career blossomed after the war and the body of work that he produced, anthems, motets and services, including over 20 settings of the Evensong Canticles, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, have assured his place in the repertory and remain the pieces for which he is best known. Herbert Howells died in 1983.

Paul Andrews