Herbert Howells (1892-1983) occupies a special place in English choral music as the composer of fresh, 20th-century approaches to the Anglican rite and as the creator of larger-scale works, the last of which, his Stabat Mater, he completed for the Bach Choir in 1965. Here, David Hill uses a score marked up by Howells with several radical tempi changes that he discovered by chance just a month before recording. The result is a fine reading, much enhanced by the tender beauty of tenor soloist Benjamin Hulett, who brings elegance and urgency to this anguished work, one of several in which Howells tries to come to terms with the loss of his son, Michael, at the age of nine.