Another positive review for the Merton College Choir’s recording of Venables’ Requiem and the orchestrated Howells anthems:
“This inspired recording project – a synthesis of musical intersections and connections, repertoire new and old, arrangements and homages – has been so carefully conceived and knitted together that it’s a winner before you even hear a note. Once you do, however, it only gets better….The whole recording feels like an exercise in the play of musical light and shade, arrangements picking out new moments in silhouette, recessing others into shadow. Take Howells’s Like as the hart, for example: in Howard Eckdahl’s orchestration the text’s water-brooks swirl and eddy with new currents, a reflective pool beneath the blended choral voices.”
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/howells-anthems-for-choir-and-orchestra-venables-requiem
Howard Eckdahl 