Dorothy Gertrude Howell (25 February 1898 – 12 January 1982) was an English composer and

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

Biography

Howell was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

, grew up in Handsworth, and received a convent education. She received private composition lessons from

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before beginning her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, aged 15. Her teachers there included

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and

Tobias Matthay Tobias Augustus Matthay (19 February 185815 December 1945) was an English pianist, teacher, and composer. Biography Matthay was born in Clapham, Surrey, in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised Brit ...

.Mike, Celia, "Howell, Dorothy", in ''The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers'' (Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel, eds.). The MacMillan Press (London & Basingstoke), p. 231 (1994, ). Howell achieved fame with her symphonic poem ''Lamia'' (inspired by the

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

) which Sir Henry Wood premiered at

The Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...

on 10 September 1919. Wood directed ''Lamia'' again that same week, on 13 September 1919. He subsequently conducted ''Lamia'' again in the 1921, 1923, 1924, 1926, 1930 and 1940 Proms seasons, but in subsequent years ''Lamia'' was neglected, until its revival in the 2010 season of The Proms. It received a centenary performance at the Proms in 2019. Howell dedicated ''Lamia'' on its 1921 publication to Wood.Burton, Anthony, Programme Notes for Prom 68, 116th Season of The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, 5 September 2010. Among other compositions by Howell, Wood conducted ''Koong Shee'' in 1921, her Piano Concerto in 1923 and 1927 with the composer herself as pianist on both occasions, and ''The Rock'' in 1928. He was scheduled to conduct the first performance of ''Three Divertissements'' in 1940, but the concert was cancelled owing to

The Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

. Her Air, Variations & Finale for oboe, violin & piano (1949) can be obtained from June Emerson Wind Music (E620). ''Three Divertissements'', Howell's last known orchestral work, did not receive its premiere until the 1950 Elgar Festival in Malvern. Howell won the Cobbett Prize in 1921 for her '' Phantasy'' for

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

and

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

. She received the nickname of the "English Strauss" in her lifetime. Wood attempted to recruit Howell to his conducting class at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in 1923, but she instead became a teacher at the RAM in 1924. During

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, she served with the

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. She taught at the

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is a music school, drama school and concert venue in Birmingham, England. It provides professional education in music, acting, and related disciplines up to postgraduate level. It is a centre for scholarly res ...

from 1950–57. She retired from the RAM in 1970, and after her retirement, continued to teach students privately. She died in Malvern, aged 83. Howell tended the grave of

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for several years, and herself is buried near Elgar in the churchyard of

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. Her music has been recorded commercially on the Dutton Digital and Harlequin labels. The Cameo Classics label recorded ''Lamia'' in 2008 with Marius Stravinsky conducting the first modern recording of Howell's orchestral music with the Karelia Symphony Orchestra. In 2010 Cameo Classics recorded Howell's Piano Concerto with

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as soloist at Cadogan Hall. The conductor was Toby Purser with his Orion Symphony Orchestra of London, with the Cd (CC9041CD) released in September 2012. The CDs are now available from Nimbus Wyastone. In 2019

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conducted the

BBC Philharmonic The BBC Philharmonic is a national British broadcasting symphony orchestra and is one of five radio orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Philharmonic is a department of the BBC North Group division based at Med ...

in a recording of ''Lamia'' and other British tone poems for Chandos Records.

Selected works

* Piano Sonata (1916)Hardy, Lisa, ''The British Piano Sonata, 1870-1945''. The Boydell Press (Woodbridge, UK), p. 52 (2001; ). * ''Lamia'' (1918, symphonic poem) * ''Danse grotesque'' (1919, for orchestra) * ''Two Dances'' (1920, for orchestra) * ''Humoresque'' (1921, for orchestra) * ''Koong Shee'' (1921, revised 1933, for orchestra) * ''Minuet'' (1923 for orchestra) * Concerto for pianoforte (1923) * ''Two Pieces for Muted Strings'' (1926) * ''The Moorings'' for violin and piano * ''Phantasy'' for violin and piano * ''Three Preludes'' for piano * ''The Rock'' (1928, for orchestra) * ''Fanfare'' (composed for the Musicians' Benevolent Fund) * ''Three Divertissements'' * Violin Sonata (1947) * Piano Sonata (1955)

References

External links

Presto Classical page with selected list of Dorothy Howell works

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography page on Dorothy Howell

* ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/events/composers/6b85e5aa-6d1a-4680-a39c-d96a1ad567e2/works BBC Proms – Performances of works by Dorothy Howell
The life and works of Dorothy Howell - MA Thesis by V J Byrne (2015) Birmingham Libraries article on Dorothy Howell
{{DEFAULTSORT:Howell, Dorothy English classical composers 1898 births 1982 deaths Women classical composers Musicians from Birmingham, West Midlands English classical pianists English women pianists Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Academics of the Royal Academy of Music 20th-century classical composers 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century English composers 20th-century English women musicians People from Handsworth, West Midlands Women music educators Women classical pianists 20th-century women composers 20th-century women pianists