Gerald Finzi
Vocal and Instrumental Works

*  In Years Defaced
*  Prelude for string orchestra
*  Romance for string orchestra
*  Concerto for Small Orchestra and Solo Violin

John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Tasmin Little (violin), City of London
Sinfonia/Richard Hickox
CHANDOS CHAN9888 Total time: 54:34

Summary for the Busy Executive: Proud songsters.

I always think of Gerald Finzi as the English Faure, mainly because of
his songs.  Both composers have the gift of following the twists and
turns of often complex poetry without resorting to faux-recitative or
to dropping a melodic thread.  Finzi's songs sound right, rather than
labored, although he often spent many years getting them into that state.
His concern was always that his music sound "natural," and this and his
self-criticism both lengthened times to completion and also reduced his
output.  He preferred to keep things in his desk drawer rather than to
force them.  Of course, financial independence (his father made money
in shipping) allowed him this option.

Very widely read, Finzi had a special affinity for the poetry of Hardy
and produced at least three major song cycles to Hardy's words.  The
song group In Years Defaced culls stuff from various sources.  In many
ways, it's a tour-de-force.  Like Faure, Finzi preferred the baritone
voice and wrote most of his songs for piano accompaniment.  He orchestrated
"When I set out for Lyonnesse" (from the Hardy baritone cycle Earth and
Air and Rain) in the Thirties for tenor Steuart Wilson as kind of an
encore to a concert featuring the premieres of 2 Milton Sonnets and A
Farewell to Arms.  Recently, someone had the bright idea of orchestrating
more and commissioned the composers Judith Weir, Anthony Payne, Colin
Matthews, Christian Alexander, and Jeremy Dale Roberts to choose and
orchestrate other Finzi songs: "To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence," "In
Years Defaced," "Tall Nettles," "At a Lunar Eclipse," "and Proud Songsters."
The results are all at least very good, and in the cases of the first
three orchestrators, at any rate, very Finzian.  That is, they sound
like other orchestrations by the composer.  Furthermore, considering the
wide perimeter of choice and the independence of each composer, I'm
surprised that the songs all seem to go together.  Perhaps Finzi was
drawn to a certain outlook or mood from work to work.  Finzi's music has
often been lumped into English Pastoralism, and with good reason.  But
there's also an intellectual distance - as there is in Hardy and Housman
- between the perceiving sensibility and the pastoral scene, a duality
also reflected in Finzi's Jewish background and his identification with
"Englishness."

Finzi had more trouble with instrumental music than with vocal.  There
aren't that many instrumental works to begin with.  He suppressed or
ruthlessly excised many early efforts, including a piano concerto.  The
Prelude of 1928 he intended as part of a chamber symphony.  He completed
only one more movement - The Fall of the Leaf.  The Romance, from 1929,
was originally going to be part of a string serenade.  Again, Finzi never
completed the larger work.  The Prelude has a bit of the sound of
Elizabethan virginal music.  The Romance, on the other hand, sings in a
characteristically warm way, familiar to those who know his late clarinet
concerto.

The violin concerto undergoes the same sort of history.  It begins in
1925, so it's fairly early.  Finzi disliked the first movement and threw
it away.  However, spurred by Vaughan Williams, he wrote another.  Vaughan
Williams conducted the once-again complete (though different) violin
concerto in 1928.  Again, the first movement failed to please the composer,
and he consigned it to oblivion by listing only the slow movement as an
"official" work.  This became the Introit for solo violin and chamber
orchestra.  Composers are generally no more perceptive about the quality
of their own work (either way) than anyone else.  You listen to the first
movement and wonder what the hell Finzi was thinking of.  It's a wonderful,
lively movement, similar in spirit to the neoclassical works of Vaughan
Williams and Holst - the Concerto accademico, the Fugal Concerto, and
so on - but speaking in Finzi's own accent.  The gorgeous slow movement
will break your heart, it's that beautiful, full of both regret and
acceptance.  I find the finale the weakest movement of the three, but
there's nothing seriously wrong, except that you wish there were more
of it.  While not at the level of the concerti for clarinet and for
cello, this work should strengthen the hearts of old fans and win those
of new ones.

Hickox plays this music from the inside - basically, the only way to
play it.  I think he's inherited Boult's mantle as an advocate for a
certain type of British music - the Vaughan Williams wing - although he
also does well with Britten, Walton, and Tippett.  At his best, he sings.
John Mark Ainsley is a Gerald English tenor, rather than a Richard Lewis
or Peter Pears one.  It's light, but it's clear and flexible.  Occasionally,
he forgets himself and swoops and scoops at moments of Great Emotion.
At this point, however, it amounts to little more than an imported
affectation from Italian opera - something Finzi really doesn't need -
and Ainsley can do something about it, before it becomes an ingrained
habit.  Perhaps he can think more of the beauty of a note hit straight
on.  Tasmin Little does well, but the Finzi concerto doesn't let the
spotlight shine on a soloist.  The music's mainly the thing.  However,
she does wonderfully well in the concerto's slow movement.  She "gets"
it.

Steve Schwartz