A Hymn for St Cecilia (Howells) - from CDH55456 - Hyperion Records

A Lake Landscape at Sunset by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)
Christie's, London / Bridgeman Art Library, London

Track(s) taken from CDH55456

A Hymn for St Cecilia, commissioned by the Livery Club of the Worshipful Company of Musicians to mark Howells’s Mastership of the Company in 1959–60, sets a poem in praise of the Patron Saint of music by Ursula Vaughan Williams as a three-verse hymn. The wonderful dancing-on-tiptoe nature of this piece takes its cue from the syncopated first vocal entry and each phrase finds increasingly high notes as the verse goes on. It is a classic ‘cumulative’ tune which carries the singer along on a tide of increasing emotional energy and leaves an impression of being a piece much bigger than its constituent parts.

Digital booklet (PDF)

Recording details: June 2004
Wells Cathedral, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: June 2005
Total duration: 3 minutes 17 seconds

A Hymn for St Cecilia

First line:

Sing for the morning's joy, Cecilia, sing

composer

Herbert Howells (1892-1983)

for the Livery Club of the Worshipful Company of Musicians; first performed on 22 November 1961 in St Paul's Cathedral

author of text

Ursula Vaughan Williams (1911-2007)

Wells Cathedral Choir, Malcolm Archer (conductor), Rupert Gough (organ)