I
am sure that many of us wondered
if this book would ever be finished.
After all if you time-travel back
to benighted 1977 and the Lyrita
LP of the Clarinet Concerto
you will find that the sleeve-note
is by Ms McVeagh. There she is
announced to be writing a book
on Finzi's life and music. That
was more than a quarter century
ago - not long in Finzian timespan
- after all he was the one who
set the Flecker poem in which
a poet shakes hands across a thousand
years with a contemporary reader.
Since
the 1970s Finzi's music has emerged
even more triumphant than some
of his more publicly illustrious
contemporaries. In the popularity
stakes he vies with Vaughan Williams.
He trounces Bax. His music has
Classic FM fame and he is known
and loved far and wide. His music
has taken off in the USA
and has been performed the world
over. His bright fame shows no
sign of diminution only of growing
further.
Despite
his Italianate name his music
taps deep into the sinews and
life force of England.
That said, his music is by no
means unremitting song. He uses
discord adroitly. It might be
Britten or Rawsthorne who had
written the grinding massed string
work at the start of the finale
of the Clarinet Concerto. The
raw and groaning shout of pain
from full orchestra in the Cello
Concerto suggests perhaps a yawning
grave from which the music turns
away in the sweet ballad finale
- part-rumba part-Rutterkin serenade.
The Eternal Silence evoked in
Intimations rumbles with mystery
and a hint of malcontent. The
Hardy songs can be eerie too -
especially the sliming worms in
Channel Firing and vivid ululating
drool of the glebe cow.
Finzi
himself can easily seem a sweetly
poetic character - a sort of singing
pre-Raphaelite. If you had any
such illusions McVeagh puts us
right. Finzi can be vitriolic.
He denounces the RVW 70th birthday
tribute pieces by Alan Bush as
ghastly and by Lambert
(Aubade Héroïque) as balls.
He has more time for Milford,
Rubbra and Maconchy. As for Bax’s
symphonies he agreed with Boult
in not being able to tell one
of them from any of the others.
He also despised the then popular
Charpentier opera Louise -
‘the property of arty sentimental
women’.
McVeagh
recounts Finzi travelling with
Rubbra to wartime Bristol to hear the Boult-conducted
premiere of Rubbra’s Third Symphony.
Speaking of Rubbra we find that
he and his violinist wife Antoinette
Chaplin were the soloists in Bach's
Double Violin Concerto with the
Newbury String Players in 1941.
Jacqueline Du Pré was the soloist
at an NSP concert in 1953 and
this fine performance is captured
in primitive but bearable sound
in a Cello Classics double issued
last year.
The
NSP concert seasons are listed
as an appendix. There the composers
whose works he nurtured and propagated
are catalogued as are the many
apple varieties he grew at his
specially constructed countryside
house at Ashmansworth. The composers
championed include his contemporaries
Anthony Scott, Robin Milford,
Edmund Rubbra, Kenneth Leighton,
R.O. Morris, Elizabeth Maconchy
Vaughan Williams (somewhat heroically
they attempted the Tallis Fantasia
in their 1945 season). From previous
generations of Brits he included
Mudge, Garth, Capel Bond, the
Wesleys and Stanley. Possibly surprising inclusions
were works by Richard Arnell and
Walton.
There
was a defiant humour in Finzi’s
character as well. He found the
experience of working as a civil
servant at the Ministry during
the second world war completely
sapping of life energy. The sense
he built into his music of desperation
at passing time was heightened
by the stultifying waste of those
years. In any event when he resigned,
his boss found his departure announced
by the composer having left a
copy of his Farewell to Arms
on the desk.
This
book is the very readable; typical
of Diana McVeagh's style. Crudely
this is to the slightly indigestible
but satisfyingly detailed Stephen
Banfield book Gerald Finzi
An English Composer what Jessica
Duchen's Korngold book is to Brendan
Carroll's. Both Duchen (hardly
ever mentioned) and McVeagh have
the gift of writing with an easy
communicative grace that pleasingly
conveys substance.
The
chapter in which the genesis and
evolution of the Ode to St
Cecilia (a commission) is
tracked gives a rare insight into
the give and take between Blunden
and Finzi. The two men's letters
trace their writing and rewriting
of the version of the poem to
be set with Finzi showing himself
an adept wordsmith. Finzi planned
a Blunden song cycle which was
not to be.
Tragedy
added to Finzi's melancholy inclinations.
By his teens a large complement
of sibling Finzis children had
been reduced by death to himself
and the only girl. The Great War
despatched brother Edgar and his
young teacher Ernest Farrar -
each killed within weeks before
the Armistice.
One
of his first loves was the violinist
Sybil Eaton, the dedicatee of
the Howells first violin sonata
and one of the few champions of
Holbrooke's Grasshopper Violin
Concerto. Sybil was to premiere
the Finzi Violin Concerto including
the serene Introit middle
movement. Ms Eaton was one of
the constants. She was there as
a member of the string quartet
when the NSP gave a performance
of the RVW Tallis Fantasia
in 1945.
Pragmatism
was also borne in on him. For
a while consistent with his socialist
principles he and his mother did
all the house and garden work
at their Gloucestershire home
in the early 1930s. That didn’t
last long.
The
book is well kitted out with
a 17 page index. There’s a catalogue
of works in Appendix 1. The select
bibliography is joined by a list
of his musical editions and writings.
The former include his performing
versions of the orchestral music
of Capel Bond, Boyce, Mudge, Garth,
Stanley and Charles Wesley. His own
writings take in articles on The
folksongs of Newfoundland,
an R.O. Morris obituary (Morris
may soon feature in the Toccata
Classics CD programme), Words
and Music, A Tribute broadcast
on RVW’s 80th, Herbert Howells
and, of course, the three Crees
Lectures on The Composer’s
Use of Words.
Looking
to the future there will surely
be premiere recordings of various
works outside the accepted Finzian
canon. By Footpath and Style
is a natural candidate; after
all it was broadcast by the BBC
twice on the 1980s (David Wilson-Johnson
and the Allegri in 1982 and Michael
George and the Bochmann in 1985).
Since the Violin Concerto has
been revived on CD (Chandos -
rather desiccated in the manner
of the Holst Double Violin Concerto
and the RVW Concerto Accademico
apart from the ineffably beautiful
middle movement Introit)
why not other works. The symphonic
suite The Bud, The Blossom
and The Berry
could surely be brought out.
The Fall of the Leaf is
the Berry movement
and Prelude is the first
movement. The middle movement
is the Nocturne. Then there's
the unrealised Piano Concerto.
If Elgar's Piano Concerto and
Third Symphony can emerge there
is no reason why the same should
not apply to Finzi. We shall see.
This
book jostles for front row with
the Banfield book. The fact is
that the McVeagh is a lithe yet
plangently detailed read. It is
well indexed and often touching
without being sickly or fey. Banfield’s
book is complementary and heavy
with scholarly detail. The blizzard
of letter references in the middle
of the text was not perhaps the
best choice. If I had to recommend
a book to read for an enthusiast
who had just discovered the composer
then there’s no doubt that the
McVeagh is first choice.
McVeagh
surely loves Finzi’s music and
it shows. However her devotion
is clear-eyed and her writing
completely avoids the sort of
pastoral hagiography that Finzi
scholarship can easily collapse
into.
The
book is self-recommending but
that does not stop me recommending
it.
Rob Barnett
