Howells and Wood – String Quartets by Pupil and Teacher
By Ralph Graves
This release pairs two string quartets: one by the teacher, the other by the pupil. The teacher was Charles Wood.
Wood was an Irish composer active in the last decades of the 19th Century and up to the First World War. Wood built his reputation on Anglican church music. His use of modes gave his music a distinctively “English” sound.
He was part of the first class of the Royal College of Music. He studied with Charles Villiers Stanford and Carles Hubert Hastings Parry. Both worked to create an English school of composition.
As a composition professor, Woods’ students included Ralph Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells. Both composers would represent the height of that British school.
Wood provides the link between the generations. And his music shows it. His sixth string quartet is performed here. This 1916 work has strong elements of both British and Irish folk music. It’s a solid composition and one I was happy to discover.
Howells had a fascination for the music of Tudor England — and English folksong. His string quartet “In Gloucestershire” encapsulates those interests. The work had a perilous journey to recording.
Howells wrote the work in 1916, and the score was almost immediately lost. He rewrote it in 1920. After a few performances, that manuscript also disappeared. In the 1980s a set of parts from the 1920 version were found. This recording was made from those parts.
The London Chamber Ensemble Quartet is heavily invested in this music. Cellist Joseph Spooner worked on the reconstruction of the Howells quartet. First violinist Madeleine Mitchel made string quartet arrangements from Howell’s “Three Pieces for Violin and Piano.” . Those two selections are also included on this album.
The quartet plays this music with sensitivity and deep understanding. The “Englishness” of these pieces comes through without sounding cloying or artificial. Wood and Howells were masters of their craft. And the inherent beauty of these works is what the quartet delivers.
The liner notes suggest that a cycle of Charles Woods string quartets is underway. Based on this quartet, it’s a cycle I’d love to hear.
Herbert Howells & Charles Wood: Quartets
London Chamber Ensemble Quartet
Somm Recordings SOMMCD 0692
