What a poignantly beautiful piece of music.  I used to own the
Best/Hyperion performance of the "Hymnus Paradisi" but I wasn't too
enthused and traded it back a few years ago.  Finding myself with some
extra money on my used CD credit slip, I picked up the new Hickox version
on Sunday.

 From the very opening measures it's obvious that this is a committed
performance--intense in fact.  There are many delicate, and obviously
intimate, moments in this music and all are caught beautifully by Hickox,
soloists, and the BBC.

What does the music sound like? It's easier to say what it doesn't sound
like.  In mysterious sections, Howells colors material "touched by the
breath of the eternal," predictably, with delicate harp filigree and
rarefied chord progressions, but avoids the Holstian harp/vibraphone
twos against threes sound, (think "Saturn," of "The Planets"); reflective
moments glow appropriately, but Howells maintains a contrapuntal rigor and
forward motion even in times of repose, while Faure, Delius, and Durufle
can make one feel as though time is standing still.

Vaughan Williams' is about the closest reference I could give--though
only on occasion.  Howells does not employ any folk-song elements as far
as I can tell.  The music is chromatic and the vocal writing often sounds
declamatory rather than "smoothly melodic." Hymnus is a reworking of an
earlier Requiem, and was written as a sort of therapy after the death of
the composer's 9yr old son.  It was VW who convinced Howells to offer the
work for public performance.

The Chandos recording also contains a premiere recording of Howells' "A
Kent Yeoman's Wooing Song." It's an extrovert piece with a very endearing
love song as the 3rd mov't.

Solists include Joan Rogers, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, and Alan Opie.

Good stuff!

John Smyth