The doxology is built from material of the first one. Divided tenors emphasize the phrase "world without end", while all voices are divided for the final soft Amen. Howells knew Gloucester Cathedral's acoustics very well, as he was a pupil of Sir Herbert Brewer, the cathedral's organist. Howells used the resonant space for "fervent, majestic" doxologies concluding both canticles, but with a quiet and reflective close. Eric Milner-White, then Dean of York, is reported to have been "in inward tears for the rest of the day" after he first heard the Nunc dimittis. The composer's biographer, Christopher Palmer, described the "Gloucester Service" as being one of the three Howells canticle settings that "tower above the rest" (the others being "Collegium Regale" for King's College, Cambridge, and the "St Paul's Service" for St Paul's Cathedral) where the music "burns through the words' patina of familiarity into a dramatic and purposeful entity", while reflecting their "constantly varying nuances and inflections". The piece has been recorded several times, including a 2012 recording of music by Howells, called "Requiem", combined with anthems, the "St Paul's Service", and the Requiem, performed by the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, conducted by Stephen Layton, with organists Simon Bland and Jeremy Cole. Works cited