Herbert Howells: Nunc Dimittis (Latin Church Music 3): SATB: Vocal Score

Herbert Howells's Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis for the Gloucester service is one of his most popular choral settings. This sheet music is arranged for SATB Choir and Organ.   Herbert Howells  was a renowned English composer of church music in the Anglican evensong tradition best known for his 'Hymnus Paradisi' and as a teacher at the Royal College of Music. His lesser-known evening canticles include this piece: with its famoustreble duet opening the work it calmly progresses to an affirmation of the glory of heaven through distinctive Lydian harmony and soaring highs. Each individual voice has its own part to play in this piece with melodies that rise to uplifting highs and fall to booming lows the combination of voices blends and binds to create a gliding and soaring unity of harmony.    This Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis sheet music is the most accurate transcription available of an awe-inspiring piece that is acclaimed by fans of choral music for its beautiful composition and wondrous voicing.     

Herbert Howells’ Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (Collegium Regale) for SATB and Organ accompaniment is a vibrant sacred work with beautiful voicings and a wonderful effervescence. This is rich and colourful church music with integrity he has successfully brought together Tudor church music and merged it with modern harmony and counterpoint. It is this best-of-both-world’s feature that makes Howell’s version of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis a pleasing one and it is dedicated to King's College Cambridge.

St Peter In Westminster-Herbert Howells is a giant of 20th century Anglican church music the remainder of whose oeuvre is in the process of gaining new appreciation. Over the course of his compositional life he created many settings for the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis. Howells made a practice of writing his settings for these texts and completed twenty services generally specifically for the church buildings or cathedrals in which they were to be performed. In this way he wrote works for the cathedrals of St Paul’s Worcester and Gloucester as well as York Minster King’s College Cambridge New College Oxford and St John’s College Cambridge among others. This setting was written forWestminster Abbey in 1957.

Herbert Howells composed his Magnificat And Nunc Dimittis evening canticles for St Paul's Cathedral in 1951 going on to become among his most famous and enduring works. These beautiful canticles were composed by a master of setting the Anglican liturgy and are arranged for SATB Chorus and Organ Accompaniment.  These two wonderful works of choral music are characterised by a unique blend of unison harmonies and disparate melodies that highlight each voice perfectly. The lingering notes crescendos and subtle dynamic changes were composed with the acoustics of that great cathedral in mind but they also workequally well in any setting.

Herbert Howells' setting of the Evening Canticles Magnificat And Nunc Dimittis for SATB choir and Organ.

Sing, Choirs! is a library in miniature. It contains many of the Christian church's popular traditional anthems, including at least one example that will be suitable for each of the major services of the year. A number of Anglican chants (Psalms, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis) are included, set out in a way that should enable those who are unfamiliar with the style to perform them easily. The selection of movements from the Mass can be used to enrich the music of the liturgy in services. Many of the works in Sing, Choirs! are presented in their original form, such as Bruckner's Locus Iste and Mozart's Laudate Dominum . Others are arrangements, adaptations or longer pieces, abridged to bring them into the scope of a useable anthem, including choral arrangements of Handel's Largo , the Ave Marias by Schubert and by Bach and Gounod, and Franck's Panis Angelicus amongst many others. This collection has practicability as a priority. The Organ parts can be played on either the Piano or the Keyboard. Much of the music in Sing, Choirs! will be suitable for special occasions, making this an indispensable volume for choirs singing at weekly church services, weddings, funerals and in the concert hall. / Choeur Mixte (SATB) Et Orgue

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