The Case for Gerald Finzi

Post date: Mar 28, 2013 6:09:36 AM

THE CASE FOR GERALD FINZI

WHEN

SPRING IS DELAYED

Many British composers from the first half of the twentieth century are ignored nowadays in the United States. The major symphony orchestras often program works by Ralph Vaughn Williams or Benjamin Britton, and occasionally a Gustav Holst composition will appear. It’s a long wait, however, before something by William Baines, Arnold Bax, George Butterworth, Gerald Finzi, Ivor Gurney, or Hubert Parry is heard in this country. Currently much of the United States is suffering through one of the coldest months of March in memory. Perhaps if chilled American ears were turned to the musical thoughts of Gerald Finzi, it would be easier to find some beauty in the brown turf and yellow grass of this elongated winter, and spring might arrive earlier, at least for a few moments, while we listen.

Finzi was born in 1901. Both his parents were Jewish, his mother German and his father Italian. Young Gerald grew up in a comfortable and prosperous London household. His father was a ship broker when Britania ruled the waves but died when Finzi was eight years old. Finzi experienced more loss and difficulty in adolescence, losing his private tutor and three brothers on the Western Front during World War I. Like almost all of the British composers of his era, Finzi’s demeanor and artistic expressions were profoundly affected by war. Also like many of them, he found comfort and contentment in the English countryside (hence the label which referred to them as the English “pastoral composers”), eschewing all aspects of urban life. As a result of his experiences, Finzi became an agnostic, a lifelong pacifist, and an expert in apple growing. His music does not reveal the scars from World War I nearly as much as it does his search for contentment and a reverence for nature. There is an emotional eloquence to Finzi's works that can leave a lasting impression on the listener. The three works described below are all good examples of this.

In 1942 Finzi finished a song cycle based on Shakespearean verse entitled Let Us Garlands Bring. One of the works is from As You Like It; it is entitled A Lover & His Lass. The lyrics and Finzi’s motifs deal cleverly with spring, but Finzi’s skill as a composer shows best here in the piano accompaniment. The piano score does not merely complement the vocalist; Finzi's piano writing blends so well and responds so empathically to the vocals that the work sounds more like a duet for voice and piano than a work for voice with piano accompaniment.

The third movement of his Clarinet Concerto (1949) is as profound as any of Brahms' compositions for the instrument, especially the hauntingly spell-binding solo motif for the clarinet about two thirds of the way through. This is the kind of composition that stays in the mind of the listener long after its initial hearing. It could have only been written by an individual whose life was shaped by a wide spectrum of profound experiences, both positive and negative, and who is finally at peace with what these experiences mean.

Two years after the Clarinet Concerto's completion, Finzi learned he was dying of Hodgkin’s Disease and began work on his Cello Concerto, which he completed in 1955. It first aired on national British radio the evening before he died in 1956. Many consider this to be Finzi's greatest instrumental work, and while it lacks the emotional poignance and eventual serenity found in the Clarinet Concerto, the unmistakable British swagger which the Cello Concerto conveys, particularly in the last movement, places it squarely in the Downton Abbey class of British culture and refinement.

Incidentally, if we juxtapose Mr. Finzi's existence to PBS' Downton Abbey, we can see that our beloved composer at the time was twenty years old, came from a moneyed family, had good breeding, was single, and was artistically inspired by the English countryside. This is the period when Lady Mary is suddenly widowed and younger sister Edith is still looking for Mr. Right. Could Julian Fellowes consider writing Gerald into the script, and have one of the young women enjoy the favor of his company while his compositions fill the great hall? The Dowager Countess would no doubt be very moved by young Finzi's artistic expressions, although her toe-tapping for sure would remain under her long skirt. That Cello Concerto would sound phenomenal in the huge foyer......