The Guardian, Edward Greenfield
Five Stars

Howells’s Rhapsodic Quintet for clarinet and string quartet is one of the most beautiful clarinet works of the 20th century. Written in 1919, the piece brought the young composer immediate recognition.

Robert Plane… plays with a ravishing range of tone and natural warmth… Plane is also the brilliant soloist in Howells’s ambitious clarinet sonata of 1946, a work in two extended movements, one reflective, one fast and more percussive than one expects from this composer.