Biography
Composer Dorothy Howell produced ambitious orchestral scores in a late-Romantic idiom and earned the nickname “English Richard Strauss” from contemporary critics. She also exerted lasting influence as a teacher.
Born in Birmingham on February 25, 1898, she spent her childhood in nearby Handsworth. Her father, Charles Edward Howell, ran an ironworks, while her maternal grandfather contributed music criticism to the Birmingham Daily Post. She received her schooling at a convent. Because the entire family was musically inclined, she began composition lessons with Granville Bantock once her gifts became evident. At thirteen she completed six piano pieces that were accepted for publication. Entering the Royal Academy of Music at fifteen, she studied composition with John Blackwood McEwen and piano with Tobias Matthay. In 1919 she appeared in recital at London’s Aeolian Hall; that same year Sir Henry Wood conducted the first performance of her tone poem Lamia, drawn from Keats, at the Proms.
The success of Lamia brought widespread notice, and during the 1920s several large-scale works received hearings. Among them were the ballet Koong Shee (1921), whose scenario originated in promotional copy for Chinese porcelain; a piano concerto that Howell herself played in 1923 and again in 1927; and the expansive overture The Rock, prompted by a visit to Gibraltar. She also composed chamber music, winning Britain’s Cobbett Prize in 1921 for her Phantasy for violin and piano. Later she completed the Three Divertissements for orchestra, a score scheduled for 1940 but postponed by wartime bombing and finally introduced in 1950.
Diagnosed with cancer in her late forties, Howell nevertheless continued to write, turning in later years to concise sacred pieces; she lived until just short of eighty-four. Her teaching career began in 1924 at the Royal Academy of Music, where she remained on the faculty until 1970, and she subsequently joined the staff of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire while also maintaining a private studio after formal retirement. She died in Malvern on January 12, 1982.
After her death Howell’s music received scant attention, even as works by other women composers returned to the repertoire. A Dutton recording of her chamber music, performed by violinist Lorraine McAslan and pianist Sophia Rahman, appeared in 2004, and in 2024 conductor Rebecca Miller led the BBC Concert Orchestra in a Signum Classics anthology of her orchestral output.
Born in Birmingham on February 25, 1898, she spent her childhood in nearby Handsworth. Her father, Charles Edward Howell, ran an ironworks, while her maternal grandfather contributed music criticism to the Birmingham Daily Post. She received her schooling at a convent. Because the entire family was musically inclined, she began composition lessons with Granville Bantock once her gifts became evident. At thirteen she completed six piano pieces that were accepted for publication. Entering the Royal Academy of Music at fifteen, she studied composition with John Blackwood McEwen and piano with Tobias Matthay. In 1919 she appeared in recital at London’s Aeolian Hall; that same year Sir Henry Wood conducted the first performance of her tone poem Lamia, drawn from Keats, at the Proms.
The success of Lamia brought widespread notice, and during the 1920s several large-scale works received hearings. Among them were the ballet Koong Shee (1921), whose scenario originated in promotional copy for Chinese porcelain; a piano concerto that Howell herself played in 1923 and again in 1927; and the expansive overture The Rock, prompted by a visit to Gibraltar. She also composed chamber music, winning Britain’s Cobbett Prize in 1921 for her Phantasy for violin and piano. Later she completed the Three Divertissements for orchestra, a score scheduled for 1940 but postponed by wartime bombing and finally introduced in 1950.
Diagnosed with cancer in her late forties, Howell nevertheless continued to write, turning in later years to concise sacred pieces; she lived until just short of eighty-four. Her teaching career began in 1924 at the Royal Academy of Music, where she remained on the faculty until 1970, and she subsequently joined the staff of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire while also maintaining a private studio after formal retirement. She died in Malvern on January 12, 1982.
After her death Howell’s music received scant attention, even as works by other women composers returned to the repertoire. A Dutton recording of her chamber music, performed by violinist Lorraine McAslan and pianist Sophia Rahman, appeared in 2004, and in 2024 conductor Rebecca Miller led the BBC Concert Orchestra in a Signum Classics anthology of her orchestral output.