Dorothy Howell - Orchestral Works
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Label: Signum
Cat No: SIGCD763
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Orchestral
Release Date: 8th March 2024
Contents
Artists
BBC Concert OrchestraConductor
Rebecca MillerWorks
Divertissements (3)Humoresque
Koong Shee
Lamia
The Rock
Artists
BBC Concert OrchestraConductor
Rebecca MillerAbout
Featuring four works receiving their world premiere recording, Signum Classics are proud to announce the new album, ‘Dorothy Howell - Orchestral Works’, conducted by Rebecca Miller with the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Until now, these works have rarely been performed, and the majority of Dorothy Howell’s works are unpublished and only exist in manuscript form.
“I hope this album can help to revive Dorothy’s music, to help her live on, to finally have the recognition she deserved and never received, and to secure this music’s rightful place in the centre of the classical music repertoire” – Rebecca Miller
Until now, these works have rarely been performed, and the majority of Dorothy Howell’s works are unpublished and only exist in manuscript form.
“I hope this album can help to revive Dorothy’s music, to help her live on, to finally have the recognition she deserved and never received, and to secure this music’s rightful place in the centre of the classical music repertoire” – Rebecca Miller
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Humoresque (1919)
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2The Rock (1928)
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3Three Divertissements (1950): I
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4Three Divertissements (1950): II
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5Three Divertissements (1950): III
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6Lamia (1919)
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7Koong Shee (1921)
Europadisc Review
Having last year read Leah Broad’s absorbing book Quartet – a detailed account of the lives, careers and music of Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell and Doreen Carwithen – it’s now a pleasure to be able to welcome a new recording devoted to orchestral works by Dorothy Howell. Her music is less well represented on disc than Smyth’s or Clarke’s. And although there are already two recordings of her symphonic poem Lamia (her only major orchestral work to be published, thanks to its sensational success at the 1919 Proms), the rummaging through manuscripts still in the ownership of the Howell family by conductor by Rebecca Miller was a labour of love that has clearly paid off.
Miller has already conducted this music in public with the Southbank Sinfonia in 2019. On this new Signum Classics disc she is at the helm of the BBC Concert Orchestra, which proves an ideal match for these engaging, expertly crafted scores. Howell’s music was championed by Henry Wood, whose blue pencil marks are still in some of the manuscripts. Wood’s faith in her work was well placed, for the music shows a natural inventiveness and understanding of orchestral sonority rooted in her upbringing in a large, musical Catholic family in the early 20th century.
Howell, unlike Smyth, was not a natural self-publicist, and when her early success with Lamia failed to lead to bigger things – partly because of the chauvinism of male critics, but also due to other circumstances like the outbreak of war in 1939 – she retreated to less public musical activities, moving back to her native West Midlands. But even in small forms these orchestral pieces are highly compelling. The Humoresque that opens the disc is an orchestration of a 1919 piano miniature, but its quirky opening bassoon solo – which soon proves to be an accompanimental figure – immediately grabs the listener’s attention before a tenor-register theme on the strings, contrasted with livelier material in the winds.
Although Howell’s own instruments were the piano and violin, she demonstrates a refined sense of woodwind and brass capabilities. The three Divertissements, written for the 1940 Proms but unperformed until 1950 because of World War II, open with some effective percussion writing (notably the castanets, reflecting Howell’s fascination with Hispanic culture) and quirky rhythms. The two livelier outer numbers frame a hauntingly beautiful central movement which the composer herself described as ‘ethereal’, redolent of the perfumes of the night and vividly realised by Miller and the BBC musicians.
The 1928 symphonic poem The Rock was inspired by a 1924 trip to Gibraltar, and it’s another work which brilliantly evokes the Mediterranean world as well as the bustle of street markets and a dance-like elegance. Once again, idiomatic wind solos in particular catch the attention, and Howell sustains interest across the work’s ten-minute duration with consummate ease.
On a still broader canvas is Lamia, based on a poem by Keats which tells the tale of a serpent transformed into a woman who falls in love with a human but, on the revelation of her true identity, returns to serpentine form. The rolling flute figures at the outset suggest a snake-like slithering against which a melancholic string melody emerges. A love theme is introduced by solo oboe before being taken up by strings and woodwind, and the work builds to an exultant climax before things begin to uncoil and Lamia reverts to her true guise. The solo-strings episode as the work nears its end is really touching in this beautifully-paced performance, and the piece’s larger-scale passages are scored with a brilliance that recalls Ravel. No wonder it was such a hit at the Proms.
Less successful was the 20-minute ballet Koong Shee (1921), which – given the dire state of British ballet at the time – had to make do with a Proms concert premiere that did not play to its narrative strengths. On the evidence of this recording, however, this retelling of the popular Willow Pattern tale – light on more obvious chinoiserie but still highly evocative with vivid orchestral colours – would more than merit a belated stage premiere, even if its length would pose questions regarding couplings (Lamia might be one possibility?). Miller and the BBC Concert Orchestra give a highly persuasive account of the score, rhythmically alert, and with the more poetic passages taking on a wonderful tenderness, again showing Howell’s manifest gifts in solo scoring for wind and strings.
This disc is just the shot in the arm that Howell’s music deserves, and it’s good to hear the BBC Concert Orchestra – whose future has recently been the subject of a BBC review – in such fine form: let’s hope the suits in high places hear it! The recording, made in St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead in June 2022, is warmly resonant but still sufficiently focussed for orchestral detail to tell, and there are booklet notes by Leah Broad. Highly recommended!
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