Howells, Herbert Norman (1892–1983)

English composer, organist, and teacher. His works are filled with an ‘English’ quality, as with those of Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Often elegiac in expression, as in some of the Six Pieces for Organ (1940), much of his music after the mid-1930s reflects his mourning over the death of his son. He wrote choral and chamber music, as well as solo works, both sacred and secular.

Howells studied under Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Cathedral and later under Charles Stanford at the Royal College of Music in London, where he became professor of composition. Later, having been first sub-organist at Salisbury Cathedral, he lived a retired life 1917–20 owing to poor health. He succeeded Gustav Holst as music director at St Paul's Girls' School 1936–62, and was professor of music at London University 1952–62. His best-known work is the Hymnus Paradisi (1938), written in memory of his son, in which he escapes the influence of Vaughan Williams and other pastoralists.

Works Orchestral Procession (1922), Paradise Rondel (1925); concerto for strings (1939), two piano concertos (1913, 1924).

Choral Hymnus Paradisi for soloists, chorus, and orchestra (1938), Collegium Regale, for unaccompanied choir (1944), Stabat Mater (1963).

Chamber clarinet quintet; two organ sonatas; oboe sonata, clarinet sonata; Lambert's Clavichord (1926–27) and Howells' Clavichord (1951–61) for clavichord.

Other much church music; piano pieces; songs, especially to words by Walter de la Mare.