A Hymn for St Cecilia (Howells) - from CDA66678 - Hyperion Records

Track(s) taken from CDA66678

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.

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Recording details: July 1993
St Paul's Cathedral, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Arthur Johnson
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: February 1994
Total duration: 3 minutes 14 seconds

A Hymn for St Cecilia

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)

St Paul's Cathedral Choir, John Scott (conductor), Andrew Lucas (organ)