“… Director Nethsingha has a sure touch with Howell’s unique idiom, drawing pleasing interpretations at every turn. Both vocal and instrumental soloists perform splendidly, as does the organist.   Chandos delivers its usual pristine sound …”  “The album is a revealing one-stop survey for people with little or no Howells in their collections; it further offers a number of rarities that many of the composer’s legion of devotees have probably never heard.”
 

Koob

“…The Choir of St John’s College under Andrew Nethsingha rises to the very considerable challenges of Howell’s writing – it takes a brave choir to negotitate some of this composer’s ‘un-cathedral’ harmonic progressions and have still have enough breath to get to the end of his seemingly endless, winding melodic lines. Diction is excellent, as is the dynamic contrast …”

David Wordsworth

“…Nethsingha clearly likes a robust choral sound, but never at the expense of clarity and musical sense; his 16 trebles can pack a considerable punch, especially with the weight of four countertenors, five tenors and six basses behind them. They need to, because something like the Sequence for St Michael that opens the disc is not remotely dreamy or improvisatory but powerful and dramatic.”  “…At the opposite extreme, there are some exquisite miniatures in the anthology too.”
“…The various small solos are also well taken by choir members: the trebles are excellent and the tenor Pablo Strong in the Sequence for St Michael is another name to watch.”
“… Recorded in the chapel of St John’s, the sound is warm and reverberant… The organ scholar Timothy Ravalde aquits himself with distinction …”

Piers Burton-Page
 

                        ****

Andrew Clark
 

“…There is musicianship here of a rare and moving kind;”   *****
              

Relf Clark

 

“Howell’s evocative church music sung with vibrancy and conviction.”

Jeremy Dibble

Performance *****       Recording *****

“If you are at all interested in Howell’s church music this disc is an obligatory purchase. What makes it special  is the way in which the St John’s, Cambridge choir do more with a piece like Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis written for their own chapel than simply rattle it out mechanically for liturgical purposes. Here the emotion of the music feelingly and unapologetically wells upward to the surface, making raw and immediate spiritual impetus of Howell’s writing.
Deeply committed also is By the waters of Babylon… which is virtually operatic in its rhetorical impact. There is more fine solo work in A Spotless Rose and A Sequence for St Michael…”
“This is the first CD in St John’s three year contract with Chandos, and at least four more will follow. They will definitely be worth following more closely.”

Terry Blain
 

                                  **** 

Geoffrey Norris