Libretto languages: French, German, Latin, English
Time: 127:44
Release Date: 2005
Review
As a composer of British choral music, Herbert Howells is sometimes considered a follower of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry. Yet the expansively breathed counterpoint, lush orchestral sounds, and impressionistic harmonies in his large choral works, such as the Missa Sabrinensis and the Stabat Mater on this 2005 Chandos compilation, mark him more accurately as a fellow traveler with Ralph Vaughan Williams in the English pastoral movement. (Interestingly, though both men composed works for religious uses, Howells and Vaughan Williams seem to have been agnostics who viewed composing sacred music merely as an opportunity to write glorious works for choir). Recorded in 1994 and 1995 by Gennady Rozhdestvensky and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, these mystical choral works sound symphonically spacious and almost cosmic in range and depth, quite far removed from any practical ecclesiastical functions. Indeed, the Missa Sabrinensis seems closer in a nearly pantheistic spirit to Vaughan Williams' "Sea" Symphony in its poetic wafting, and the ecstatic singing of soprano Janice Watson, mezzo-soprano Della Jones, tenor Martyn Hill, and baritone Donald Maxwell contributes to the striking resemblance between the two works. Chandos offers remarkable reproduction in these recordings, gorgeous in the Missa Sabrinensis, and at times bracing in the Stabat Mater. ~ Blair Sanderson, All Music Guide
