Format : Sheet music
This is the full score of Herbert Howells' 1950 composition Hymnus Paradisi for Soprano and Tenor Soli SATB chorus and orchestra. Now available for the first time in print this score has been prepared from the known sources revised and edited with critical commentary and includes a preface by Paul Spicer and introductory notes by Sir David Willcocks. Four of the choral movements (II-V) are settings of Latin and English texts. These are drawn from the Psalms and the 'Miss pro defunctis' the book of Common Prayer and are immemorial reflections upon the transient griefs and indestructible hopes of mankind. All are appropriate to the mood and purpose ofa Requiem. Movement VI is a setting of lines from the Salisbury Diurnal used here in the translation by Dr G. H. Palmer appearing at the end of Robert Bridges' Anthology The Spirit of Man. The first performance was at the Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester on 7th September 1950 which the composer conducted. The Bach Choir gave the first London performance early in 1951 and recorded the work in 1970 with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Sir David Willcocks.
SKU: GI.G-R031
ISBN 9780854022755.
Herbert Sumsion was born in Gloucester in 1899, was a chorister in that city, and became an articled pupil of Sir Herbert Brewer, the Cathedral Organist. He later studied at the Royal College of Music before proceeding to organ and teaching posts in or near London. After a short period in America (1926–1928) as Professor of Harmony at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he accepted the appointment of Organist and Master of the Choristers at Gloucester Cathedral on the sudden death of Brewer. He was able to take up his duties just in time to conduct the 1928 Three Choirs Festival, immediately justifying the confidence placed in him by the high standard of his direction and musicianship. Sumsion was honoured with the Lambeth Doctorate of Music in 1947 and awarded the CBE in 1961. He retired from the post at Gloucester Cathedral in 1967 and continued to be active with teaching and composition until shortly before his death in 1995. He had a special sympathy for the works of the English composers stemming from Vaughan Williams and Elgar, and was responsible for bringing works of younger composers to the attention of the British public.Two great English choral works of this century - Herbert Howells’s Hymnus Paradisi and Gerald Finzi’s Intimations of Immortality - received their premieres at the 1950 Gloucester Festival. These two composers were particularly close friends of Sumsion. It would follow then that Sumsion’s own compositions are in this same mould, yet there is a very distinct style that endears his music to singers and listeners alike. Church music has benefitted tremendously from his work, for his compositions in this medium have been prolific and wide-ranging. Many of his choral works are published by The Royal School of Church Music.
