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