This is drawn from
two LPs issued in 1979 and 1983. All
the Boult items are from SRCS 84 and
the two Handley/Katin items from SRCS
92 where they were the flipside fillers
for John Denman’s recording of the Clarinet
Concerto. The Denman recording is due
to be issued in March 2007 on Lyrita
with the first ever recording of the
Cello Concerto (Yo Yo Ma/RPO/Handley).
Boult is in his element
– the Butterworth one, that is – in
the Severn Rhapsody which was
clearly written under thrall of George
Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad
and Bridge’s Summer. Blue skies,
birdsong, sunny fields, cool coppices
and shaded brooks – all these breathe
through the pages of this Finzi score.
It remains a prentice work and although
a gentle yet irresistible melancholy
is there its identity is not yet strongly
Finzian. That was to come … and soon.
It is to be heard in the intense Nocturne
which in its melodic contours - their
rise and fall – is unmistakably Finzi.
Years later there came the music for
Love’s Labours Lost and rather
than the full suite (which you can hear
on Nimbus ) we have here the Three
Soliloquies – peaceable children
all and with a touch of the miniature
Elgar about them. The Romance for strings
inhabits the same world but with an
even stronger and personal melodic horizon
and smilingly coaxed along by Rodney
Friend’s solo violin. Then comes the
Prelude op.25, also for strings, which
in its idyllic warmth always reminds
me of Josef Suk’s Ripening. In
The Fall of the Leaf we also
detect another preoccupation – transience
and the passing of time – a preoccupation
explicitly reflected in Dies Natalis
and Intimations
of Immortality. The earnest
sweetness of Introit for solo
violin and small orchestra is touching,
elegiac, fragile and plaintive – a most
beautiful piece. Chandos and Tasmin
Little let us hear the whole violin
concerto from which this work was extracted.
The flanking movements are little more
than busy and are dramatically outclassed
by this Introit middle movement.
Eclogue in its first commercial
recording has a repose equalled or exceeded
in no other version. Handley and Peter
Katin established the gold standard
for a work that was carried the Finzi
standard worldwide and propagated his
musical orchards on an international
stage. The Grand Fantasia and Toccata
is a disconcerting diptych. Its first
section opens with a momentary flourish
for full orchestra which then drops
away for a full six minutes while the
piano explores a strongly Bachian fantasy
before a majestic Purcellian re-entry
enriched by grandly curvaceous themes.
A Waltonian syncopation enters at 9:20
reminding us in its carefree abandon
of similar writing in Intimations
and recalling for me Walton’s Sinfonia
Concertante. Indeed at 13:41 one
can hear the rearing up of a true symphonic
spirit also there in the first movement
of the Cello Concerto. In his final
years he intended a Symphony but it
was not to be.
Lyrita’s orchestral
Finzi shelves will be cleared in May
2007 when SRCD.237 appears: Let us
Garlands bring; Two Milton Sonnets;
Farewell to Arms; In terra
Pax (Carol Case/Partridge/Manning/RPO/New
Philharmonia/Handley). After that, perhaps
some time in 2008, we can hope for several
CDs of Finzi’s Hardy song cycles in
which the pianist was Howard Ferguson,
an influential Finzi champion and sympathetic
editor and a composer in his own right.
These were issued on LPs: SRCS 38 and
51. These versions compare extremely
well with their much later Hyperion
counterparts and preserve John Carol
Case’s voice in better fettle than it
was in his tremulously recorded Let
Us Garlands Bring made in the early
1980s. The LPs were SRCS-38 Before
and After Summer and Till Earth
Outwears and on SRCS-51 A Young
Man’s Exhortation and Earth and
Air and Rain.
This is a most generously
timed collection - essential Finzi in
many respects. It allows the listener
all the short classics but holds back
from the bigger works. Among the shorter
pieces all the major popular items are
there: Eclogue, Introit,
Romance and Prelude. Intriguingly
the sense of a striving for major ambitious
statements is also present. It can be
sensed in the Grand Fantasia and
Toccata not only in its final uproarious
Waltonian vivacity but also in the Bachian
gravitas of the Grand Fantasia.
It can also be glimpsed in part-achieved
major statements such as the chamber
symphony The Bud, The Blossom and
The Berry of which Prelude and
The Fall of the Leaf as movements.
The readable and enriching
notes are by the eminent Finzi authority
and biographer Diana McVeagh. They are
in English only as is true of all the
Lyrita releases.
Rob Barnett
The
Lyrita Catalogue
for
details
Rodney Friend (violin) 
