Herbert Howells - Piano Quartet in A minor • Fantasy String Quartet • Rhapsodic Quintet

Bernard Roberts, piano
Nona Lidell, violin
Marilyn Taylor, violin
Jean Stewart, viola
Bernard Richards, cello
Thea King, clarinet

Label: Lyrita
Copyright: 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England
Catalogue number: SRCD.292
UPC/EAN: 5020926029225
Format: CD
Analogue / Digital recording: ADD
Number of discs: 1
Total playing time: 53.20
Price: £ 14.99 (+ postage & packing)

Tracks 1 - 3: Recorded at Walthamstow, June 1973
Tracks 4, 5: Recorded at Walthamstow, 17 & 19 September 1973, Producer: Michael Woolcock, Engineer: Kenneth Wilkinson

Herbert Howells was the last of the great English Romantics whose tongues were loosened by folksong. He was born in Gloucestershire in 1892 and what Marion M. Scott wrote of Ivor Gurney: "his education may be said to have begun with the beauty he saw about him, the lovely countryside, the hills, the Severn river" is equally true of Howells. For him, as for Holst, Finzi, Gurney, C. W. Orr, Julius Harrison, and Vaughan Williams himself, the West of England country scene became a vital shaping force - we may easily feel that the colour and temper of all his finest creations have been quietly determined by it ...