Presto Editor's Choice
July 2020

Matthew Schellhorn (piano)

Howells: Phantasy (1917)
Howells: Harlequin Dreaming
Howells: My Lord Harewood's Galliard
Howells: Finzi: His Rest
Howells: Summer Idyls
Howells: Siciliana (1958)
Howells: Pavane and Galliard
Howells: Petrus Suite

With this album, Matthew Schellhorn sheds new light on Herbert Howells as a truly significant 20th-century composer for the piano. From the charming Summer Idyls, written before the composer began studies at the Royal College of Music, to the mature and subtle movements of the Petrus Suite, we encounter an extraordinary range of pianistic expression. Spanning over 60 years of Howells’ compositional style, every track on this release is a world premiere recording.

"I hadn’t expected Howells’s piano music to occupy such different sound-worlds to his better-known works, the spare Satie-esque whimsy of Harlequin Dreaming and the Debussy-ish Phantasy and Summer Idyls taking me entirely by surprise. Schellhorn is a marvellous standard-bearer, witty and skittish in the quirkier pieces and giving works like the wonderfully languorous ‘June-Haze’ plenty of space to glow." - Presto Classical, July 2020.