Herbert Norman Howells CH (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher.
Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, and was the youngest of six children born to Oliver and Elizabeth Howells. His father was an amateur organist, and Herbert himself showed early musical promise. He studied first with Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Cathedral, as an articled pupil alongside Ivor Novello and Ivor Gurney, the celebr...
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Herbert Norman Howells CH (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher.
Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, and was the youngest of six children born to Oliver and Elizabeth Howells. His father was an amateur organist, and Herbert himself showed early musical promise. He studied first with Herbert Brewer at Gloucester Cathedral, as an articled pupil alongside Ivor Novello and Ivor Gurney, the celebrated English songwriter and poet, with whom he became great friends. A September 1910 concert in Gloucester Cathedral included the premiere of a mysterious new work by the yet little-known Ralph Vaughan Williams. Howells not only made the composer's personal acquaintance that evening, but (as he often recounted) the piece, the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, profoundly moved him. Later he studied at the Royal College of Music (RCM) under C.V. Stanford, Hubert Parry and Charles Wood.
In 1915 he was diagnosed with Graves' disease and given...
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