With this album, Matthew Schellhorn sheds new light on Herbert Howells as a truly significant20th-century composer for the piano. From the charming Summer Idyls, written before the composer began studies at the Royal College of Music, to the mature and subtle movements of the Petrus Suite, we encounter an extraordinary range of pianistic expression. Spanning over 60 years of Howells’ compositional style, every track on this release is a world premiere recording.
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REVIEW:
For this recording we are grateful to The British Music Society and there is more to follow, this being volume 1. We are further thankful to the soloist, Matthew Schellhorn, for unravelling scores that are, apparently, in Howells’ ‘spidery’ writing. The result is a most pleasing discovery, the influences obviously coming from French composers, and were, in length, quite short and are often picture cameos gathered together, by Howells, to form a suite. Schellhorn is a worthy Howells disciple who seems to have particularly enjoyed the seven pieces of the Petrus Suite. The disc’s sound quality is outstanding.
