Talk:Herbert Howells

message: I've amended the information on Howells' religious views and the performance of Hymnus Paradisi based on information in Spicer.
Wilus 11:35, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Old version of article

message: As the article had got rather bitty and repetitive I've done an almost total rewrite. There's more to be said of course, and it could do with a section on Howells' musical style and importance. I may come back and add that when I can get hold of the sources, unless anyone else does it in the meantime. Wilus (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite

message: As the notion that Michael Howells died of spinal meningitis is extremely widespread I thought I should justify why it's relegated to a footnote in the article. The chief sources on Howells are the biography by Paul Spicer, the Centenary Celebration by Christopher Palmer, the article in the Oxford DNB, again by Spicer, and the article in Grove by Paul Andrews (all cited in the References section of the article). These are all highly authoritative sources written by leading experts on Howells and they all agree that the boy died of polio. There are detailed accounts of this traumatic event in the books by Spicer and Palmer which leave little room for doubt. As if that wasn't enough, there is this interview with Howells from 1971, in which we have it from his own mouth - and he would know. Now, Palmer does muddy the waters in the first chapter of the Celebration, when on p. 88 he makes a passing reference to Michael's death - from spinal meningitis! However when he comes to deal with the death in detail in the next chapter he is quite clear - polio was diagnosed on the patient's arrival in London, and the only way the boy could have lived was as "a prisoner in an iron lung." 
I haven't yet identified where the notion of meningitis originates. There is an earlier book by Palmer (1978) which I haven't yet read, and it could be in that. But I don't think there's really any doubt, given the consensus outlined above, that Michael Howells died of polio. Wilus (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just found this interesting and touching article by a doctor and polio survivor, which gives further information from a medical viewpoint. Wilus (talk) 14:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Michael Howells' death

message: While I'm clearing up ambiguities I'll write a little about the date of the Requiem. This is still often said to have been composed in 1936, and the Novello edition of the score still states as much on the back of the title page (or did when I bought my copy around 2002). The implication is that it was written as a response to Michael's death, and this is still sometimes stated as fact in programme notes. The Palmer and Spicer books however make it quite clear that it was written in its entirety over a few days in 1932 with a view to performance in King's College and quote Howells' letters at that time in which he refers to its composition. It would be interesting to learn how it came to be released and published in Howells' last years, and how the error in date came about. My hunch is that Howells, in his late eighties and becoming a little vague as Spicer's biography makes clear, had simply forgotten when and why he wrote it. Wilus (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Date of the ''Requiem''

message: The addition of his most extended Magnificat and Nunc dimittis was reverted, saying "". No, it wasn't, the one mentioned was the 1945 for the Collegium Regale, nor was mentioned that he set more than one Mag & Nunc (rather 18 to 20, depending on which source you look at). What can we do? A list of works at least, in the article or separately? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:07, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I have started List of compositions by Herbert Howells. An article of the same name was previously deleted for copyvio, but this time it should be OK. Cnbrb (talk) 08:27, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mag & Nunc