Howard Skempton

This simple, well-crafted motet is bright, optimistic, and compelling. Skempton employs artful homophony and sensitive word-setting, and the repetitions of the opening refrain build towards an effecti...

Skempton's setting of the Preces and Responses is simple, well-crafted, and harmonically rewarding, and is perfect for choirs seeking new material for the liturgy.

A simple setting of this popular medieval Advent carol which has great originality and impact. The style is controlled, almost austere, and the effect is hypnotic. This is an unsettling but poignant p...

for flute, clarinet in A, harp, and string quartet. Sharing its scoring with Ravel's Introduction and Allegro, this work makes full use of the wealth of instrumental combinations available within the...

This is the second of two books of preludes and fugues for solo organ by Howard Skempton. Each book comprises 25 pairs of preludes and fugues based around the 24 major and minor keys. The additional e...

Featured on pianist William Howard's album Sixteen Contemporary Love Songs, this evocative miniature is simple but rewarding, with a repeating eight-bar chord progression that produces a kaleidoscopic...

More sweet than my refrain is a tender miniature for three-part choir set to the text of a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The motet features on the new Ars Nova Copenhagen recording, 'First Drop' (Cante...

Setting a variety of texts by Ralph Waldo Emerson, this four-movement work is in Skempton's inimitable minimalist aesthetic. The first three movements move in strict four-part homophony before the fin...

Fifty-five short pieces, the earliest of which dates from 1967, the most recent from 1993. Taken as a whole, this selection of pieces (chosen by the composer) provides a rich overview of the keyboard...

This is a collection of 36 piano pieces dating from 1995 to 2002. At times enigmatic, at others direct, the writing captures and reflects a myriad of moods, revealing Skempton's highly original voice....

These twenty easy piano pieces were written to accompany a television programme which celebrated 150 years of photography. The volume contains eight Preludes, two Songs, a set of Variations, eight Int...

For lute. This is based on the opening bars of the Sarabande from Bach's second cello suite in D minor. 'Par la bande' means 'in a roundabout way' and suggests a circularity of form and a less than di...

Skempton's simple and reflective setting of John Clare's poem was commissioned by the Aldeburgh Festival and composed for The Abbey Chapel Choir, Woodbridge. With its fluid changes of time signature a...

This serene and reflective setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis was commissioned to mark the 300th anniversary of the death of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells. With expansive harmonies and...

A short Mass setting for unaccompanied chorus, written for the Exon Singers recording, The Cloths of Heaven, on Delphian Records.

Skempton's Third Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis setting was written for Wells Cathedral and premiered in May 2012. The simplicity and purity of the setting is typical of Skempton's style, ideal for male...

This is a simple and elegant miniature in characteristic Skempton style, with graceful choral homophony, seamlessly fluctuating time signatures, and hypnotic, meandering harmonies. The text, by Willia...

O Sapientia is a tender setting of one of the seven Advent 'O' Antiphons. The rhythmic unison in this chorale-like setting brings an element of purity and calm, typical of Skempton's musical language.

Skempton's setting of the Preces and Responses is simple, well-crafted, and harmonically rewarding, and is perfect for choirs seeking new material for the liturgy.

This setting of the Song of Songs is a fine example of Skempton's distinctive ability to distil and express the emotional essence of a text. Beautifully understated, and employing a straightforward to...

This contemplative setting of Psalm 23 presents the well-loved 'The Lord is my Shepherd' text within a four-part, homophonic texture. Hymn-like and lyrical, this unaccompanied composition is illustrat...

This contemplative setting of Psalm 23 presents the well-loved 'The Lord is my Shepherd' text within a four-part, homophonic texture. Hymn-like and lyrical, this unaccompanied composition is illustrat...

This is an imaginative setting of a sequence of nine poems from 'Viking Poetry of Love and War' by Judith Jesch. The war poems are formal and celebratory, making vivid use of figures of speech known a...

This is an imaginative setting of a sequence of nine poems from 'Viking Poetry of Love and War' by Judith Jesch. The war poems are formal and celebratory, making vivid use of figures of speech known a...

Originally published in The Ivy and the Holly, this lively setting of a text by Francis Kinwelmershe features a lilting melody and homophonic texture throughout, allowing the spirit of the text to shi...