Composer: Gerald Finzi
Performer: Robert Plane, Lesley Hatfield, Tim Hugh, Peter Donohoe, Christopher Whitton, Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside, James Gilchrist, John Mark Ainsley, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Choir of St John’s College Cambridge
Orchestra: Northern Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Howard Griffiths, Christopher Robinson, David Hill
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8508017
Release: 2016
Size: 1.79 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
CD 01
Clarinet Concerto in C minor, Op. 31
01. I. Allegro vigoroso
02. II. Adagio, ma senza rigore
03. III. Rondo. Allegro giocoso
5 Bagatelles, Op. 23a (Arr. L. Ashmore for Clarinet & Strings)
04. No. 1, Prelude. Allegro deciso
05. No. 2, Romance. Andante tranquillo
06. No. 3, Carol. Andante semplice
07. No. 4, Forlana. Allegretto grazioso
08. No. 5, Fughetta. Allegro vivace
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Op. 28a
09. VII. Soliloquy No. 1, The King’s Poem
10. VIII. Soliloquy No. 2, Longaville’s Sonnet
11. IX. Soliloquy No. 3, Dumaine’s Poem
12. A Severn Rhapsody, Op. 3
13. Romance in E-Flat Major, Op. 11
14. Introit in F Major, Op. 6
CD 02
Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 40
01. I. Allegro moderato
02. II. Andante quieto
03. III. Rondo. Adagio – Allegro giocoso
04. Eclogue, Op. 10
05. Grand Fantasia & Toccata, Op. 38
CD 03
3 Anthems, Op. 27
01. No. 2, God Is Gone Up
02. Magnificat, Op. 36
3 Anthems, Op. 27
03. No. 1, My Lovely One
04. No. 3, Welcome Sweet and Sacred Feast
05. Thou Didst Delight My Eyes, Op. 32
06. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Op. 35
7 Partsongs, op. 17
07. No. 1, I Praise the Tender Flower
08. No. 2, I Have Loved Flowers That Fade
09. No. 3, My Spirit Sang All Day
10. No. 4, Clear and Gentle Stream
11. No. 5, Nightingales
12. No. 6, Haste On, My Joys!
13. No. 7, Wherefore Tonight So Full of Care
14. Lo, the Full, Final Sacrifice, Op. 26
CD 04
I said to Love, Op. 19b
01. No. 1, I Need Not Go
02. No. 2, At Middle-Field Gate in February
03. No. 3, Two Lips
04. No. 4, In Five-Score Summers
05. No. 5, For Life I Had Never Cared Greatly
06. No. 6, I Said to Love
Let us garlands bring, Op. 18
07. No. 1, Come Away, Come Away, Death
08. No. 2, Who Is Silvia?
09. No. 3, Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun
10. No. 4, O Mistress Mine
11. No. 5, It Was a Lover and His Lass
Before and after Summer, Op. 16
12. No. 1, Childhood Among the Ferns
13. No. 2, Before and After Summer
14. No. 3, The Self-Unseeing
15. No. 4, Overlooking the River
16. No. 5, Channel Firing
17. No. 6, In the Mind’s Eye
18. No. 7, The Too Short Time
19. No. 8, Epeisodia
20. No. 9, Amabel
21. No. 10, He Abjures Love
CD 05
Intimations of Immortality, op. 29
01. Prelude
02. There Was a Time When Meadow, Grove and Stream
03. The Rainbow Comes and Goes
04. Now, While the Birds Thus Sing a Joyous Song
05. Ye Blessed Creatures, I Have Heard the Call
06. Oh Evil Day! If I Were Sullen
07. But There’s a Tree, of Many, One
08. Our Birth Is But a Sleep and a Forgetting
09. Earth Fills Her Lap with Pleasures of Her Own
10. Oh Joy! That in Our Embers
11. But for Those First Affections
12. Then Sing, Ye Birds, Sing, Sing a Joyous Song!
13. And O, Ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills and Groves
For St. Cecilia, Op. 30
14. Delightful Goddess, in Whose Fashionings
15. Changed Is the Age; Mysterious, Man’s Next Star
16. How Came You, Lady of Fierce Martyrdom
17. How Smilingly the Saint Among Her Friends
18. Wherefore We Bid You to the Full Concent
CD 06
Earth and Air and Rain, Op. 15
01. No. 1, Summer Schemes
02. No. 2, When I Set Out for Lyonesse
03. No. 3, Waiting Both
04. No. 4, The Phantom
05. No. 5, So I Have Fared
06. No. 6, Rollicum-Rorum
07. No. 7, To Lizbie Browne
08. No. 8, The Clock of the Years
09. No. 9, In a Churchyard
10. No. 10, Proud Songsters
To a poet, op. 13a
11. No. 1, To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence
12. No. 2, On Parent Knees
13. No. 3, Intrada
14. No. 4, The Birthnight
15. No. 5, June on Castle Hill
16. No. 6, Ode on the Rejection of St. Cecilia
By Footpath and Stile, Op. 2
17. No. 1, Paying Calls
18. No. 2, Where the Picnic Was
19. No. 3, The Oxen
20. No. 4, The Master and the Leaves
21. No. 5, Voices from Things Growing in a Churchyard
22. No. 6, Exeunt Omnes
CD 07
A Young Man’s Exhortation, Op. 14, Pt. 1
01. No. 1, A Young Man’s Exhortation
02. No. 2, Ditty
03. No. 3, Budmouth Dears
04. No. 4, Her Temple
05. No. 5, The Comet at Yell’ham
A Young Man’s Exhortation, Op. 14, Pt. 2
06. No. 6, Shortening Days
07. No. 7, The Sigh
08. No. 8, Former Beauties
09. No. 9, Transformations
10. No. 10, The Dance Continued
Till Earth Outwears, op. 19a
11. No. 1, Let Me Enjoy the Earth
12. No. 2, In Years Defaced
13. No. 3, The Market-Girl
14. No. 4, I Look into My Glass
15. No. 5, It Never Looks Like Summer Here
16. No. 6, At a Lunar Eclipse
17. No. 7, Life Laughs Onwards
Oh Fair to See, op. 13b
18. No. 1, I Say “I’ll Seek Her Side”
19. No. 2, Oh Fair to See
20. No. 3, As I Lay in the Early Sun
21. No. 4, Only the Wanderer
22. No. 5, To Joy
23. No. 6, Harvest
24. No. 7, Since We Loved
CD 08
Dies natalis, op. 8
01. I. Intrada
02. II. Rhapsody
03. III. The Rapture
04. IV. Wonder
05. V. The Salutation
06. Prelude in F Minor, Op. 25
07. Elegy, Op. 20 “The Fall of the Leaf”
2 Sonnets, Op. 12
08. No. 1, When I Consider
09. No. 2, How Soon Hath Time
10. Nocturne, Op. 7 “New Year Music”
Farewell to Arms, Op. 9
11. I. Introduction
12. II. Aria
More than any other composer, Gerald Finzi (1901–1956) has come to embody the lyrical pastoralism so associated with English twentieth-century music. This anthology includes eight critically acclaimed recordings of Finzi’s works. The themes of fragility and transient existence are expressed in three early song anthologies with words by Thomas Hardy, Finzi’s favourite poet. Intimations of Immortality is a deeply touching lament for the passing of the freshness of childhood, while the tender Dies Natalis is a setting of texts by the 17th-century poet Thomas Traherne. Lo, the Full, Final Sacrifice takes the listener through a feast of moods and textures and ends with one of the most sublime Amens in all choral music. Finzi’s enchanting Clarinet Concerto was completed in 1949 in response to a commission from the Three Choirs Festival, and the Cello Concerto, with its elegiac slow movement, was composed when Finzi learned that he was suffering from an incurable illness and is one of his finest works.