A Spotless Rose

The central panel of Howells’ three Carol-Anthems, A Spotless Rose, is all the more remarkable when you look at its date. Writing in 1919, after World War I had taken so many of those dear to him, and left still more (including friend and fellow-composer Ivor Gurney) irrevocably scarred, Howells produced a work of such radiant simplicity and beauty. Scarcely three minutes long, the unaccompanied choral anthem is a statement of faith against the odds—a vision of a rose blooming “amid the cold, cold winter. And in the dark midnight”. Flexible time signatures and keys, slipping and shifting freely, give the carol its sense of organic growth. The composer doesn’t overwhelm his anonymous medieval text, letting it breathe, first in a swelling, ebbing choral verse, then as a tenor solo pillowed against a slow-moving cloud of voices. The closing choral verse is crowned with a final cadence so exquisite that fellow composer Patrick Hadley declared his desire to die while listening to it.