St Peter In Westminster-Herbert Howells is a giant of 20th century Anglican church music the remainder of whose oeuvre is in the process of gaining new appreciation. Over the course of his compositional life he created many settings for the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis. Howells made a practice of writing his settings for these texts and completed twenty services generally specifically for the church buildings or cathedrals in which they were to be performed. In this way he wrote works for the cathedrals of St Paul’s Worcester and Gloucester as well as York Minster King’s College Cambridge New College Oxford and St John’s College Cambridge among others. This setting was written forWestminster Abbey in 1957.
