Herbert Norman Howells CH, CBE (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.
Howells moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music. Here his teachers included Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry and Charles Wood. Among Howells' contemporaries in the student body were Gurney, Arthur Bliss and Arthur Benjamin.
Howells blossomed in what he considered the "cosy family" atmosphere of the College, and his Mass in the Dorian Mode was performed at Westminster Cathedral under R.R. Terry within weeks of his arrival. For the most part however his music at this time was orchestral; works included a piano concerto, withdrawn after its first performance, a light orchestral suite, The B's, portraying his friends at the college, and the Three Dances for violin and orchestra. More typical of the works with which Howells was later to be associated were his earliest important compositions for organ, the first set of Psalm Preludes (1915–16) and the first of the op. 17 Rhapsodies.
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