Rhapsody Op.25 'In memoriam Herbert Howells' Ian Venables; played by Piers Maxim

Rhapsody Op.25 'In memoriam Herbert Howells' Ian Venables; played by Piers Maxim on the organ at Great Malvern Priory
To quote Graham Lloyd: Ian Venables’ Rhapsody for Organ Op.25 ‘In Memoriam Herbert Howells’ was written as a direct response to the composer’s love of the music of Herbert Howells, and is dedicated to his memory. It is a wonderfully diverse work, alternating brooding, quasi motivic figures with a true rhapsodic melody. Whereas the melodic writing is at times pastoral in mood, it is underpinned by a harmonic language which is both intense and often tortured. While seeming to be one long continuous melody, it reaches three important climax points. The first and third climaxes are powerful but affirmative in mood, while the second sustains a more intense sound world, where sinuous melodic figures build up to a passage of extreme chromaticism. The ‘affirmative’ theme returns, this time heralding a pedal statement of the work’s main melodic idea. The piece ends with a recapitulation of the work’s opening idea, but this time with subtle changes of harmony and a sustained pedal C natural, forcing the work to end (in spite of its final major tonality) in a reflective and resigned mood.