The Haunting Music of GERALD FINZI, two compilations/ [320 MP3]

So much can be said about the music and short life of Gerald Finzi. He cultivated apples as well as young musicians & poets. He loved English literature and his library was vast. The music manifested from the words, he stated. He worked hard to resurrect forgotten composers; and feared his little contribution, like himself, might be forgotten.

“His music is shot through with visionary gleams: in Dies Natalis, the sultry gold of ‘the corn was orient and immortal wheat’ or the bated breath of ‘everything was at rest, free and immortal’… Not loud or commanding, Finzi’s voice is lyrical, candid, and fastidious. No one else has quite his shades of shy rapture or melancholy, characteristic radiance.”

[Gerald Finzi: His Life & Music by Diana McVeagh]

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I was driving and listening to the classical radio station when the host announced she was about to play something incredibly beautiful, something she will always remember the very place and moment when she first heard it. ‘Eclogue for piano and strings’ carried me along the highway with a poignant swell of deepest feeling that would eventually lead me on journey to discover the further haunting work of this remarkable composer. Much later when I introduced his work to a friend, she responded, “Anyone would have to be crazy not to love this man’s music’.

These are two sampler discs of my own compilations. I have gathered everything I could, listened to version after version. Most special is Dies Natalils. Inspired by words of the short lived, practically unknown (Finzi was always the advocate of the underdog) metaphyicical poet Thomas Traherne. The orchestra is conducted by Christopher Finzi and the tenor is Wilfred Brown. Listen to how it is sung: so succinct to a point of piercing clarity and full of true passion and complete understanding of the words. This is a child looking at the world for the first time:

“From dust I rise
And out of nothing now awake;
These brighter regions which salute mine Eyes
A gift from God I take:
The earth, the seas, the lofty skies,
The sun and stars are mine; if these I prize.”

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I most sincerely hope you enjoy this very special musical journey that is so close to my heart. As Finzi wrote:

“To shake hands with a good friend over the centuries is a pleasant thing, and the affection which an individual may retain after his departure is perhaps the only thing which guarantees an ultimate life to his work.”

Gerald Finzi (1901-1906)

1) Romance for string orchestra

Farewell To Arms for tenor & orchestra
2) Introduction
3) Aria

Requiem da Camera for baritone, chorus & orchestra
4) Prelude
5) Quasi senza misua
6) Con dignita
7) = about 66

8) The Fall of the Leaf: Elegy for orchestra
9) Prelude for string orchestra
10) Nocturne: New Year Music
11) Concerto for Clarinet: 2nd Movement

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)

1) Eclogue for piano and strings
2) Love’s Labor’s Lost: Introduction
3) A Severn Rhapsody for strings
4) Introit for violin and small orchestra
5) Magnificat for chorus & organ

Dies Natalis for tenor & strings
Wilfred Brown and The English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Christopher Finzi
6) Intrada
7) Rhapsody
8) The Rapture
9) Wonder
10) The Salutation
11) Cello Concerto: 3rd movement

NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Dear Phideas 1,

It sounds like you have found a remarkable composer that I have never heard of before today. I would be grateful if you would consider sharing some of this music with me.

Sincerely,

Firestars004

Proper links are now in place… 😉

Thank you very much. I’m going to check out the book too. 🙂

The book is a great biography. It not only covers the composers life but takes time to cover and break down the music. That is what an artist’s biography SHOULD be. Not just backstairs gossip but details about the imagination & creation that went into the work. Diana McVeagh, who did meet Finzi, paints a fascinating portrait of a man who did not tolerate fools, created his own private world, surrounded himself with a myriad of young talent, conducted an amateur orchestra (that Britten made fun of), and lost everyone that he held dear at an early age.

Ralph Vaughan Williams became a great friend. Loved Finzi’s house ‘Ashmansworth’ so much that he insisted after dinner in London they drive all the way there to see the morning sunrise. RVW said there were no clocks in the house except one in the kitchen ‘and that wrong’. He brought home a kitten from the house and named it ‘Crispin’. It was Finzi that RVW expected to inherit his cloak of leading British composer and thus was devastated when the man died (Finzi kept his cancer quiet).

Recently I looked up the book on Amazon. Heavens! The price is now amazing!

Nevertheless, this book introduces you to many, many composers of that period. Finzi was always very frank in his opinions. Whose work he liked and did not like. He was not very impressed with American life, but did admire composers like Copeland and Roy Harris. It was Bernard Herrmann who conducted a version of Dies Natalis with a tenor soloist, and this made Finzi reconsider the composition that up until then was designated for simply ‘high voice’.

This sounds interesting. Thank you!!!

Ah, finally some class. We need more of this!

Most artists write for posterity and want their message to survive. In Finzi, the need was paramount.

‘To a Poet

I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along…

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.’

As Finzi’s life drew to its close, his comments became more starker.

"You write your own music; you perform any music you think people ought to hear; and you help other people to make music part of them."

Fantastic, Phieas1! I only have a composition or two by Finzi, but am excited to hear more!

This represents two of three compilations I put together over the years. Only recently I added an elusive recording of his beautiful INTERLUDE FOR OBOE AND STRINGS.

Naxos released a number of Finzi recordings. While they are not always the best performances (to my taste), I am glad they exist. People need to be introduced to his beautiful work. These are treasures waiting to be discovered and embraced close.

Enjoy-

A discovery!
I too had never heard of him.
Many thanks, my friend!

I bid thee welcome and much thanks, sir.

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)

Grand Fantasia and Toccata for piano & orchestra
1) Molto grave
2) Alleggro vigoroso

In Terra Pax
3) A frosty Christmas Eve
4) And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them

Three Solioquies from “Loves Labours Lost”
5) I The King’s poem
6) II Longaville’s Sonnet
7) III Dumaine’s Poem

8) Elegy for violin & piano

Five Bagatelles for clarinet & strings
9) I Prelude
10) II Romance
11) III Carol
12) IV Forlana
13) V Fughetta

Ode For Saint Cecilia
14) Delightful Goddess
15) Changed is the age
16) How came you, lady
17) How smiling
18) Wherefore we bid you to the full consent

Many thanks, once again, my friend!

thank you so much, Phideas1

When "Aqualung", Jethro Tull’s fourth album, was released
in March 1971, ‘Disc and Music Echo’ pointed out:
"Good heavens, now Ian Anderson wants us to think!"
Krzytof Penderecki, Geirr Tveitt, Erich Wolfgang Korngold,
Gerald Finzi…
Well, I started thinking again.
Thanks for your efforts, my friend.

Thank you. I’ve just discovered the music of Herbert Howells and Finzi sounds like someone whose music would compliment his.

Finzi’s voice is unique. Howells is a different kind of composer, yet Finzi was a great support & promoted his work.

Phideas1, I truly thank you for this discovery… I am accustomed to collecting scores and classical music in here and elsewhere, but to be honest not many of them spark my soul and boost the endorphins…

Such a wonderful thing to write. I only hope that others can find the joy in this man’s beautiful music that touched me so deeply so many years ago… and continues to be great company.

“To shake hands with a good friend over the centuries is a pleasant thing, and the affection which an individual may retain after his departure is perhaps the only thing which guarantees an ultimate life to his work.”

any chance of a re-up of these? sounds good! thank u

Seconded. Just went to youtube after reading your write-up, Phideas and wasn’t dissapointed at all.

Re-up please?

I’ll also chime in my request for a re-up. After reading these positive comments on the quality of this composer, I’m quite interested in a listen.
Thank you.

After his death his friends described him- affectionately- as task-master, slave-driver, tyrant: ‘that characteristic admonitory finger’; but he drove no-one more furiously than he drove himself.

Finzi’s passion for preservation, for the single fine poem or song; his sympathy for the young life cut short in glamorous potential, for the under dog and neglected. Vaughan Williams declared that Gerald’s swans sometimes had only two white feathers’.

‘Old age is dust and ashes’: that at least Finzi was spared. And his creed: ‘A song out lasts a dynasty.’ ‘In the end we all come down to Born- works- died and that’s about all that is needed.’

Very kind of you, thank you.

I discovered Finzi many years ago when in my early twenties and his music has never left me. I often wonder what modern people see in the lastest pop rubbish. How far we have risen and how far we have fallen. Thanks for sharing his music and bringing joy to people here who have never heard of him.

Glad to find a like-minded soul when it comes to Finzi’s unique sound. The composer was so worried that his work would be forgotten, having worked so hard to reintroduce to the British public many composers that HAD been ignored and forgotten (again, his penchant for the underdog).

-Most characteristic of all is his ‘benediction’ music, which finds its fullest expression in the cello concerto. That music is a symbol: by being so ‘out of time’ it becomes timeless… (they) offer a spiritual tranquility only a hair’s breadth away from valediction, noble comfort from a man who gazed into ‘the eternal silence’.-

Finzi had been forgotten for a time after his death in favor of young, new composers. In the 1960s EMI recorded his Dies Natalis with the superb voice of Wilfred Brown. Lyrita made recordings of his music- but the label took many years to translate to CD. By the late 90s his work was surfacing and, as already written, Naxos began to release new recordings. Finzi is no longer forgotten. He does receive air play on Public Radio to some small extent; considered music that will ‘lower your blood pressure’. He is being remembered. And, in my opinion, you would have to be a complete boob not to appreciate his poignant and gentle heart-piercing sound. Much like Korngold, his life was cut short but he left us incredible treasures that are well worth seeking out and ‘such good company’.