The Unbelief, yet Half-Religion, of Herbert Howells (III)

Continued from part 1 here and part 2 here.

Having gone some way, in a fair manner I hope, to work out what Herbert Howells and Vaughan Williams really believed about life and the ultimate things, and how their glorious music fitted into it, there is another question waiting to be answered: where does the unbelief of these church composers — however nuanced, however thoughtful — leave us, their listeners?  

John Skelton’s whimsical ode ‘To Mistress Margaret Hussey’, the middle movement from Howells’ suite ‘In Green Ways’, 1919.  This mood of whimsy disappeared for ever from Howells’ music after the death of his son Michael.

One way to approach this question, of course, is from the national perspective: to ask how, and why, these great Englishmen seem to have anticipated the enormous lapsation in faith that has befallen this country over the course of the past century or so.  There is no question that they were highly attuned to the spirit, character and landscape of England (indeed, both men received commissions for the Queen’s Coronation ceremony in 1953, setting to music prayers for the entire country.)  What change did these men, sensitive as they were, and so well-acquainted with Christian tradition, detect in the air; why did they not find in the old religion the assurances their forefathers found, as so many of our countrymen do not find it now?  An answer to this might take us some way towards working out why the Christian and the English imaginations have, for the moment, so catastrophically lost each other.  But, of course, their own personal reticence about these things — in its very Englishness! — deprives us of a clear answer.  

Howells’ anthem for the Coronation of Elizabeth II: ‘Behold, O God our defender, and look upon the face of thine anointed’.  The opening motif in the strings is echoed, more duskily, more lingeringly, in the final bars.  The most extraordinarily beautiful music.

And what of us as individual listeners?  The writer Boyd Tonkin has recently argued — and I do not disagree — that agnostic listeners should not hesitate to draw spiritual comfort from church music, not least given that this is precisely what its composers, believers and unbelievers alike, were often seeking. [1]  But what about the other way around?  Can believing listeners find valid affirmation of a confessional faith in the sacred music of an unbelieving composer?  Or can an agnostic composer ultimately only ever compose ‘agnostic music’?  If we are uplifted by a Vaughan Williams hymn or a Howells anthem; if, as well as beauty, we find it expressive of truth to which we know they did not assent, are we misleading ourselves in our faith, and doing an injustice to their legacy?  

From the score of the anthem ‘Like as the Hart desireth the waterbrooks’ (Oxford University Press).

The question bites because we are afraid of deceiving ourselves.  Are we dupes?  Doubt, and the fear of mistaken belief, can be at least as contagious as faith, and there is something chilling about those words of Howells, ‘You know there’s nothing’.  Michael White is blunt: ‘Countless churchgoers who find Christian affirmation in the Howells oeuvre are hearing things he did not put there.’ [2]  When I asked a comparable question about the Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, whether his vivid and lyrical music is spoiled by his apparently unswerving loyalty to the Soviet Union, my hope was to be able to distance the music from the composer’s professed ideological fervour, to hold it at arm’s length, so that I could enjoy his music in greater comfort.  But with Howells it is the other way around: his position introduces an unwanted distance that we have neither anticipated nor desired.  By turning aside from the very Christian religion that his music ornamented and beautified, it is he, however unknowingly, however blamelessly, who seems to hold himself away from us.

It is not simply a question of comfort, though.  The fear behind the question is not simplistic; it is not that we are afraid of ambiguity or adventure.  After all, even confirmed and practising composers do not always offer an easy ride: that is not what faith is for; faith is full of mystery.  The difference is that, in the case of a believing composer, we are surer of our ground in approaching the music in the first place; more confident that we will know where to look for its meaning; more assured that we are all entering the world of the music through the same door, side-by-side with the composer.  The difficulty with Howells, then, is not that his music is mysterious — far from it; this is largely what is so appealing about it! — but that we are not quite sure how we are supposed to approach its mysteries.  We are necessarily less sure in our grasp of the inner sense of his work.

The orchestrated version of Howells’ setting of the Te Deum for King’s College, Cambridge (Collegium Regale), sung by the choir and in the chapel for which it was written.

Here are some personal thoughts as to a sensible approach.  Firstly, although faith, truth and authorial intention do matter, and although it would be unjust to brush over the doubts of such thoughtful composers, the simple truth is that both Howells and Vaughan Williams definitely intended their music to enrich Christian worship and belief.  They were not being cynical: they were willing for their work to sustain in others something they did not possess themselves.  Secondly, since the music they wrote was undoubtedly good and beautiful, and since the Church always upholds whatever is truly good and beautiful whatever its source, the right response is very clear: we are to rejoice in it.  Thirdly, we should not fear that in worshipping God in their music we are press-ganging their names onto our team, so to speak, as if we were a political party or a football team.  God exists beyond us and outside us, as well as within us; He is as He is, whatever we might say or do; He does not allow himself to be co-opted into factions or camps.  (In that sense, our religion is not our own possession).  

‘Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin…’  Hear how differently Howells treats the same words, the final verses of the Te Deum, at the end of his Collegium Regale setting above, and here, in the last bars of the setting for St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

Fourthly, I think this matter has something to teach us about the transcendence of great art, for, without ever coming loose from them, without ever drifting away as mere floatings of authorless ‘discourse’, artistic greatness is nevertheless capable of surpassing its creators, and their troubles or weaknesses, just as it can escape the limits of their circumstances and times.  It may indeed be the case, to repeat Michael White’s phrase, that ‘countless churchgoers who find Christian affirmation in the Howells oeuvre are hearing things he did not put there’ — but this does not mean that they are not there all the same, without him having had to put them there.  Howells may not himself have put the spirit of faith into his music, but I think it may fairly be said that he left room for it, a space where its animating force might nevertheless come to dwell.

Fifthly, I think that such composers’ doubts teach us to be grateful for our own faith, to remember that it is indeed a gift, as is even the desire for faith; and also that the gift of faith is distinct from the gift of spiritual insight through artistic sensitivity, however great a gift this too may be.  True faith, though it can rightly be approached rationally, ultimately belongs to a realm above and beyond reason, one that is mysterious even to believing folk, and one to which the point of assent or unbelief can seldom, if ever, be pinned down.  The doubts of great artists teach us the importance of generosity and humility towards those who, though without the gift of formal faith themselves, might yet have something to tell us about the eternal verities.

There is one particular work of Howells, one of his last, made in the very evening of his life, which I think it is fair to regard as his last testament.  Both the music and the words seem to encompass his whole spirit and artistic endeavour.  Here in one anthem is all that is characteristic of Howells: the radiance of creative ecstasy, the melancholic sensitivity to the fleetingness of earthly things, the ambiguity about God even as the harmonies set His name ablaze, and the adoration of beauty — except that this time the adoration is explicitly and confidently proclaimed, with all the solemnity of a Credo.  The words, by Robert Bridges, run —

I love all beauteous things,

I seek and adore them;

God hath no better praise,

And man in his hasty days

Is honoured for them.

I too will something make

And joy in the making;

Altho’ to-morrow it seem

Like the empty words of a dream

Remembered on waking.

Both Howells and Vaughan Williams were thoughtful and serious men; they were unafraid to contend with the truth about life; they were generous with their talents and our lives are the richer for them.  The Church is bigger and deeper than we know; let us who love their music give grateful thanks for their lives and for the art that they have left to us.

Howells’ setting of Robert Bridges’ poem ‘I love all beauteous things,’ sung by the choir of St. Alban’s Cathedral under Peter Hurford, broadcast on BBC radio on the 25th May 1977.

References

1.  Boyd Tonkin, ‘O come, all ye faithless’, published in UnHerd online magazine, retrieved 13 May 2021 from <https://unherd.com/2020/12/o-come-all-ye-faithless/>

2.  Michael White, ‘The sorrow that sounds like heaven’, the Independent, Saturday 10 October 1992.  Retrieved 13 May 2021 from <https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music-the-sorrow-that-sounds-like-heaven-when-herbert-howells-lost-a-son-the-church-gained-some-immortal-music-michael-white-pays-a-centenary-tribute-1556718.html>.