27? //b/j - digital library/67531/metadc277863/m2/1/high... · 27? //b/j the solo vocal collections...

27? //B/J

THE SOLO VOCAL COLLECTIONS OF GERALD R. FINZI SUITABLE FOR

PERFORMANCE BY THE HIGH MALE VOICE, A LECTURE RECITAL

TOGETHER WITH THREE RECITALS OF SELECTED WORKS OF

J.S. BACH, H. WOLF, R. VAUGHAN WILLIAMS,

A. JOLIVET, F.J. HAYDN, J. BRAHMS,

L.V. BEETHOVEN, R. STRAUSS,

J.P. RAMEAU, M. RAVEL,

S. BARBER, G. FAURE'

DISSERTATION

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

University of North Texas in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS

By

Samuel R. Germany, Jr., B.M., M.M.

Denton, Texas

August, 1993

0

Germany, Samuel R., Jr. The Solo Vocal Collections of

Gerald R. Finzi Suitable for Performance by the High Male

Voice. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), August, 1993,

157 pp., 3 figures, 13 examples, bibliography, 73 titles.

Gerald Finzi represents a notable figure among

twentieth century composers of English solo song. His solo

vocal works are contained in thirteen song collections.

Previous scholarly research has identified his considerable

contribution to the repertoire of the low male voice;

however, the importance of his works for the high male voice

has not been substantiated. This study focuses on the three

song collections designated for tenor, Two Sonnets by John

Milton, Farewell To Arms, and A Young Man's Exhortation, the

two posthumous collections for high voice, Oh Fair To See

and Till Earth Outwears, and the solo cantata Dies Natalis

(for soprano or tenor).

A primary purpose of the study was to articulate the

significance of these compositions to the twentieth century

repertoire, with special attention given to Dies Natalis,

recognized as an outstanding contribution to English music

literature. Overviews and specific analyses, with pertinent

performance applications and background data, fulfill this

purpose and provide information of merit for the programming

and performance of Finzi's songs for high male voice.

Regarding Dies Natalis, the study compiles a more complete

body of material than has previously existed in any single

source. This includes extensive material on author Thomas

Traherne and previously undisclosed matters of detail

regarding the text sources of Dies Natalis.

The study's investigations substantiate an apparent

predilection for male voice in the writings of Finzi. This

disclosure supports a secondary purpose of the study,

affirming that the aforementioned six collections are indeed

appropriate to the specific repertoire of the high male

voice. A significant finding, supported by certain

compositional practices of Finzi's, reveals that

transposition could be an acceptable practice for

potentially providing an even greater body of literature for

high male voice.

The study also includes pertinent biographical and

stylistic data on Finzi, noting his historical role as a

culminating figure and his outstanding methods of music-

textual synthesis.

Copyright by

Samuel R. Germany, Jr.

1993

111

Tape recordings of all performances submitted as

dissertation requirements are on deposit in the University

of North Texas Library.

IV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the continuing guidance and

support of my major professor, Dr. Pattye Johnstone, and the

members of my advisory committee: Henry Gibbons, Harold

Heiberg, and Dr. Jay Allison. A special thanks goes to Dr.

Edward Baird for his helpful suggestions.

I am deeply indebted to Christopher Finzi, Dr. Howard

Ferguson, and Rev. Richard Birt for their gracious consent

to personal interviews that offered invaluable information

and insight without which this work would have been

incomplete. I am equally indebted to Edward Cline and

Pamela Blevins for shared information and contacts.

I must formally acknowledge the assistance and support

of ray family, friends, and colleagues. I extend special

thanks to Renee, Susan, and Judy for your individual

expertise in putting this document together properly. My

most personal thanks goes to Teri for continual support.

Boosey and Hawkes, Inc., publishers of the music used

in this project, granted permission to list copyright

credits here, in a central place rather than with each

example cited in the body of the document:

Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis. Winthrop Rogers Edition. London: Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., 1939.

Excerpts reprinted by permission of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Recital Program I (April 18, 1988) viii

Recital Program II (February 19, 1990) ix

Recital Program III (November 11, 1991) x

Recital Program IV (April 19, 1993) xi

LIST OF FIGURES xii

LIST OF EXAMPLES xiii

Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION 1

Purpose of the Study 1 Pertinent Biographical Data 3 Personality Profile 16 Historical Perspective 18

II. STYLISTIC TRAITS OF FINZI'S VOCAL MUSIC 26

General Output 26 Stylistic Traits 27

Textual Influences 27 Compositional Process 30 Lack of Chronological Development 32 Harmonic Usage 3 3 Melodic Element 35 Prosody 36 Accompaniments 40 Formal Structure 42 Melancholy Influence 42

General Performance Applications 43 "Cyclic" (Collective)

Publication/Performance 43 Diction Considerations 44 Interpretative Indications 45 Vocal Preferences 48 Transposition 53

VI

III. OVERVIEW OF WORKS APPROPRIATE FOR MALE HIGH VOICE 55

Works Designated Specifically for Tenor.... 55 Two Sonnets by John Milton 55 Farewell to Arms 58 A Young Man's Exhortation 61

Posthumous Works Designated for High Voice. 65 Till Earth Outwears 66 Oh Fair to See 67

IV. STUDY OF DIES NATALIS 70

Compositional and Performance Background... 70 Compositional Circumstances 70 Premiere Performance and Recording 71 Historical Performance Perspective 73

Background on Text of Dies Natalis 74 Author Thomas Traherne 74 Textual Sources for Dies Natalis 78 Finzi and Traherne 87

Overview of Dies Natalis 91 Song-by-Song Analysis and Performance Application 94

"Intrada" 94 "Rhapsody" 96 "The Rapture" 104 "Wonder" Ill "The Salutation" 116

V. SUMMARY 123

APPENDIX A: COMPREHENSIVE FINZI SONG LIST 130

APPENDIX B: LISTING OF GERALD FINZI'S SOLO VOCAL

COLLECTIONS BY VOICE DESIGNATION 136

APPENDIX C: DIES NATALIS TEXTS AND THEIR SOURCES 140

REFERENCE WORKS 151

Vll

North Texas State University School of Music

Graduate Recital

SAM GERMANY, TENOR

with

John Tarver, Piano George Rosenbaum, Viola Ellen Ritscher, Harp

Rogine Russell, Oboe/English Horn Pan Washburn, Cello

Monday, April 18, 1988 8:15 p.m. Concert Hall

Kantate No. 189 Johann Sebastian Bach

Aria "Meine Seele ruhmt und preist" Recit. "Denn seh' ich aich" Aria "Gott hat sich hoch jesetzet" Recit. "0 was fur grosse Dinge" Aria "Deine Giite, dein Erbarmen"

Auf ein altes Bild Huso ffolf Muhvoll koma' ich und beladen Hugo Volf Ach, des knaben Augen Hugo Volf

Intermission

Four Hymns Ralph Vaughan Villiams

I. Lord! Come Away! II. Vho is this fair one?

III. Come Love, come Lord IV. Evening Hymn

Suite Liturgique AndrS Jolivet

Prelude Salve Regina Alleluia Magnificat Musette Benedictus Interlude Final

Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Musical Arts

v m

College of'Mixm presents

Graduate Recital

SAMUEL R. GERMANY, JR, tenor

Monday, February 19, 1990 8il5 p.m. Concert Hall

Program

Zufriedenheit Auf aeines Vaters Grab Die zu spate Ankunft der Mutter Lob der Faulheit

An ein Veilchen Ein Sonett Wahrend des Regens Feldeinsaakeit Botschaft Heiokehr

Adelaide

Franz Joseph Haydn

Johannes Brahas

Intermission

Zueignung Kornblumen Die Sieben Siegel Du aeines herzens Kronelein "Ach Lieb, icb muss nun scheident* Morgen Ich liebe dich

Ludtfig von Beethoven

Richard Strauss

Presented In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Mamies! Arts

i x x

I .ViiV/H^sii v Vi( WIH I

I InUfgfl n t ' M m f . presents

A Graduate Recital

SAMUEL R. GERMANY, JR, tenor assisted by

Kathryn Fouse, piano and harpsichord Pamela Washburn, cello

Monday, November 11,1991 8:15 fun. Concert Hail

L'Impaxience Ricitalif: Air Gai: Ricixadf: Air Tendre: RAciiatif:

Jean Phiiiipe Rameau *Ces lieux brUlent dija .. "Cf n'est plus le poids de ma chaine" *Les aiseaux d'aientour chantent.. "Pourquoi leur envier leur juste recompense?" mMais Corine parait..

Air Legen "Tu te plaisf enfant de Cythere"

Deux tpigrammes de Cttment Marot D'Anne qui me jecta de la Neige D'Anne jouant de I'Espinette

Milodies Passageres Puisque tout passe Un cygne Tombeau dans un pare Le docker chante Depart

• Intermission -

Maurice Ravel

Samuel Barber

La Bonne Chanson Une Sainte en son auriole Puisque I'aube grandit La lune blanche luit dans les bois J'aUais par des chemins perfides J'ai prtsque peur9 en riritf Avant que tu me t'en ailles Done, ce sera par un dair jour d'iti N'est*ce pas? Lhiver a cessi

Gabriel Faur£



University of North Texas

CoHye of 'Mm presents

A Graduate Lecture Recital

SAMUEL R. GERMANY, JR., tenor accompanied by

Greg Ritchey, piano

Monday, April 19, 1993 6:30 p.m. Concert Hall

THE SOLO VOCAL COLLECTIONS OF GERALD R. FINZI SUITABLE FOR PERFORMANCE

BY THE HIGH MALE VOICE

Dies Natalis, sob cantata Gerald R. Finzi (1901-1956)

text by Thomas Traherne (c. 1637-1674) I. Intrada

II. Rhapsody (Recitativo stromentato) III. The Rapture (Danza) IV. Wonder (Arioso) V. The Salutation (Aria)



X I

Figure

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

1. A textual comparison of versions of Traherne's poetry with Finzi's Dies Natalis adaptations 82

2. Generalities of length in the songs of Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis 96

3. Structural Development of Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis Movement III: "The Rapture" 106

XII

LIST OF EXAMPLES

Page

Example

1. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, II. "Rhapsody", measures 113-129 98





6. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, III. "The Rapture", measures 20-29 108

7. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, III. "The Rapture", measures 48-51 109

8. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, III. "The Rapture", measures 90-96 n o

9. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, IV. "Wonder", measures 1-8 112



12. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, V. "The Salutation," measures 1-12 118

13. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, V. "The Salutation," measures 44-49 120

Xlll

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Purpose of the Study

Gerald Finzi represents a notable figure among

twentieth century composers of English solo song. His solo

vocal works are contained in thirteen song collections.

Previous scholarly research has identified his considerable

contribution to the repertoire of the low male voice;

however, the importance of his works for the high male voice

has not been substantiated. This study focuses primarily on

the three song collections designated for tenor, Farewell To

Arms, Two Sonnets by John Milton, and A Young Man's

Exhortation, and on the solo cantata Dies Natalis (for

soprano or tenor). In addition, the study includes the two

posthumous collections for high voice, Oh Fair To See and

Till Earth Outwears.

The purpose of this study was to articulate the

significance of the aforementioned compositions to the

twentieth century repertoire, with special attention given

to Dies Natalis, which critics recognize as an outstanding

contribution to English musical literature. A secondary

focus was to investigate any possible substantiation for a

predilection for male voice in the writings of Finzi and

thereby to affirm the appropriateness of this body of

material to the specific repertoire of the high male voice.

A third consideration was the presentation of specific

analyses, with pertinent performance applications and

background data, to provide information of merit for the

programming and performance of Finzi's songs for high male

voice.

In the course of this study, chapter one presents

pertinent biographical data on Finzi. An historical

perspective of his role in the field of English solo song is

reviewed, with notice of his importance as a culminating

figure. Finzi's general stylistic traits, and most notably

his idiomatic treatment of the English language, are

emphasized in chapter two. This study highlights Finzi's

unique music-textual synthesis as one of his most noteworthy

contributions to the field of English solo song. Special

attention is given to matters of performance practice,

specifically as it relates to Finzi's body of literature

which could be appropriate for high male voice.

The collections appropriate for performance by high

male voice are the focus of chapter three. An overview of

each is presented, including material relevant to the

compositional circumstances and premiere performances,

background on the authors of the texts, and general

statements regarding the nature of each collection and its

importance.

Chapter four presents a specific analysis of the songs

of Finzi's Dies Natalis and includes a more complete body of

background data and performance application than has

previously existed in any single source. Extensive coverage

of Thomas Traherne, the author of the Dies Natalis text

sources, is included. Pertinent matters of detail regarding

text sources and features which connect Finzi and Traherne

are noted. Individual song analyses present matters which

should benefit and enhance the future performer's study and

performance interpretation.

Pertinent Biographical Data

Gerald Raphael Finzi was born on July 14, 1901, into a

prosperous businessman's family. This heritage allowed

Finzi a comfortable provision, for which he was grateful the

rest of his life, but it offered little of the emotional

support which he direly needed.1 Among the five Finzi

children, Gerald was the only one with musical talent, and

was understood, in this respect, only by his mother. From

the beginning, those who could have been his first

companions and friends, his sister and brothers, treated him

1. Joyce Finzi, "Gerald Finzi, 1901-1956," speech at the opening of the Finzi Book Room, University of Reading, Reading, England, December 9, 1974.

as a stranger.2' 3 As a result, a sense of isolation

developed in Finzi during his childhood and remained, with

him to some extent into his adult years. Finzi's sense of

security, then, was sharply shadowed by the successive

premature deaths of virtually all significant male figures

of his young life. Thereafter, Finzi was frequently haunted

by thoughts of transience and mortality.4' 5 Thus affected

with an introspective nature, Finzi sought and found solace

in literature.6

His private world of "companion minds from other

times"7 served, furthermore, to compensate for what his

2. Adrian Caesar, Introduction, The Finzi Book Room at the University of Reading: A Catalogue by Pauline Dingley (Reading: The Library of the University of Reading, 1981), vii.

3. J. Finzi, OP. cit. Finzi compared his relationship with his siblings to "a group of telegraph wires, each being able to communicate forward and backwards to eternity, but never to the closely adjoining lines on either side."

4. Caesar, OP. cit.. vii.

5. Diana McVeagh, record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Intimations of Immortality, performed by Ian Partridge, Guildford Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Vernon Handley (Lyrita SRCS.75, 1975). These deaths included his father when he was 6, his three elder brothers when he was 11, 12, and 17. Also when he was 17 Ernest Farrar, the young composer with whom he briefly studied, was killed.

6. Diana McVeagh, "Gerald Finzi: 1901-1956," Hifi News and Record Review (October 1981), 67.

7. J. Finzi, loc. cit.

conventional education lacked. Finzi achieved dismissal

from prepschool by feigning swooning fits. A subsequent

period of tutoring was brought to a premature close by the

outbreak of World War I. Then after the age of thirteen, he

was largely self-educated, believing he could determine what

he needed and learn it for himself. The great minds of the

past were available to him by his reading their works.8 The

amount he read, especially during his teens and early

manhood, was remarkable. His life's philosophy and his

well-spring of song emanated from this devotion to

literature.9

By his early teens, Finzi conceived the desire which

was to regulate all his future activity: he would be a

composer. Music became a primary focus, in spite of the

obstacles before him. Sir Charles Stanford of the Royal

College of Music strongly discouraged him from a career in

music due to Finzi's lack of facility on any instrument.10

Virtually the only encouragement Finzi received came from

his mother as he turned to pursue his study via private

instruction.11

8. McVeagh, "Gerald Finzi," Hifi, 67.

9. J. Finzi, loc. cit.

10. Howard Ferguson, Interview at Cambridge, England, September 30, 1992.

11. Caesar, loc. cit.

His first major study of composition, and that which

was of the most profound influence, was with Ernest Farrar

from 1914 to 1916. Farrar was thoroughly Stanford-trained,

acquainted with many important musicians, and himself an

active composer. "He understood the sensitive, stubborn

teenager, who, had he met at that early stage a dry,

orthodox teacher, might easily have withered."12 It is

understandable, therefore, that Farrar's calling up to war

and subsequent death on the front made such an imprint upon

Finzi's consciousness that he could still remember it with a

great deal of bitterness and melancholy even thirty-five

years later.13

Finzi's remaining compositional study was with Sir

Edward Bairstow until 1922. This contact gave Finzi crucial

exposure to sacred choral music and observations of the

lessons of other pupils, among them solo singers. It is

almost certain that Finzi learned much of his skill in vocal

composition this way, for he never studied singing

himself.14 It was here that he first heard the young

soprano, Elsie Suddaby, perform Ivor Gurney's "Sleep," a

composition which was to affect him immensely.15 in 1922,



14. McVeagh, "Gerald Finzi," Hifi. 67.

15. Ferguson, loc. cit.

Finzi moved to rural Painswick to compose in the romantic

seclusion of the countryside of Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and

Gurney.16

A subsequent study of counterpoint with Richard 0.

Morris in 1925 led Finzi to move to London. Morris and

others convinced Finzi that he needed a change of

environment to stimulate his composition and to counteract

his introspective bent. The London period, which extended

from 1926 to 1933, was a fruitful time for Finzi. He

frequented concerts, theaters, and galleries, becoming

thoroughly acquainted with all the current trends in music

and art. For the first time, he mingled with other young

artists/musicians, developing a circle of friends including

Howard Ferguson, Edmund Rubbra, Robin Milford, and Marion

Scott.17 Finzi had first contacted Ralph Vaughan Williams

via correspondence in 1923, and by 1927 he was a regular

visitor in the renowned composer's home. Records of a

steady stream of correspondence between the two show a great

deal of mutual admiration and shared advice concerning

16. Diana McVeagh, "Finzi, Gerald (Raphael)," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 20 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980), VI, 594.

17. Ibid.

composition. Through Vaughan Williams, Finzi also became

friends with Gustav Hoist.18

Finzi's compositional efforts at that time produced

some of his freshest, most individual, music as well as some

weaker pieces. Occasional performances of his works

increased his confidence as his name became known. In 1928,

Vaughan Williams conducted the first performance of a violin

concerto by Finzi, although it was later withdrawn from

publication, along with the Severn Rhapsody.19 There were

performances of individual songs on poetry by Thomas Hardy

and the first of many Hardy collections (A Young Man's

Exhortation in 1933). Among his other works of the time

were a great number of unfinished song fragments and

complete single songs, many of which later became parts of

published sets for high male voice, such as Two Sonnets by

John Milton, Farewell to Arms, and Dies Natalis.20 Further

acknowledgement came with Finzi's appointment to teach

composition at the Royal Academy of Music (1930-1933) .21

18. Hugh Cobbe, "The Correspondence of Gerald Finzi and Ralph Vaughan Williams," Finzi Trust Friends Tenth Anniversary Newsletter X/l (Summer 1992), 9.

19. McVeagh, "Finzi, Gerald (Raphael)," Grove. VI, 594.

20. Stephen Banfield, Sensibility and the English Song; Critical Studies of the Earlv 20th Century. 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), II, 444-445.


It was clear, however, that London provided too much

stimulation for someone of Finzi's enormous intellectual and

nervous energy. His marriage to Joyce Black (also called

Joy) in 1933, though conducted in private simplicity with

the Vaughan Williamses as sole witnesses,22 was seen by

Finzi as saving him from a nervous breakdown.23 Howard

Ferguson recalls the intense, restlessness of his character

prior to this:

Hoist was a great friend, you know, and the first time after they were married, they went to visit him. Dear Gustav said to Joy, "Have you managed to get him to sit down while he's taking breakfast yet?"24

Ferguson states that beneath a vibrant, buoyant exterior,

Finzi allowed only a privileged few to see an underlying

pessimism, which was even more intense at that point in his

life.25 Reports indicate that Joy's liberating warmth,

practical efficiency, and undying support of Gerald's work

did much to ease his introspecitive solitude.26 Joy,

22. Cobbe, OP. cit.r 10.

23. Caesar, OP. cit.. viii.

24. Ferguson, loc. cit.

25. Howard Ferguson, "Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)." Music and Letters XXXVIII (1957), 134.

26. McVeagh, "Finzi, Gerald (Raphael)," Grove, VI, 594.

10

herself an artist of astounding natural gifts in sculpting

and drawing, selflessly and untiringly gave of herself to

free Gerald to do his work. Her immense strength of

character proved to be one of his major resources for the

rest of his life.27

Soon after his marriage, it became clear to Finzi that

quiet and concentration were absolutely essential to his

compositional method. Earlier, in 1922, Finzi and his

mother settled in a rural atmosphere at Painswick in

Gloucestershire. There he attempted to put his emerging

philosophical ideals to practice. Convinced of the

superiority of rural life, he eagerly sought the chance to

live independently off the land as a vegetarian and to

compose in solitude. Now, after the interruption of the

London years, he looked again to the country for a place to

27. Ferguson, interview. Ferguson recalls something that was absolutely characteristic. Gerald would say to Joy:

"*Dear, now you must go do some of your sculpture or some of your drawing art,' or whatever it was, and 5 min. later he would go knock on the door and say, *Dear I want you to come and type a letter for me.' And that was absolutely typical of their existence together. And she didn't mind this. . . . She had a great sense of humor. She would laugh when he did things like that. But he wasn't aware of this at all, how much he used her. A lot of his friends, me included, frequently wanted to slap him, because he was absolutely merciless. She seemed to be perfectly happy with it that way."

11

settle with his family. First living at Aldbourne in

Wiltshire, where their two sons were born, the Finzis

eventually acquired a 16-acre site high on the Hampshire

hills. By 1939, the home they designed for working

practicality was completed at Ashmansworth, near Newbury:

It was a house to settle into and work in, easy-to-run, with Finzi's music room, where he could be undisturbed, at the opposite end of the house to the nursery, and his wife's studio, where she could—theoretically—be undisturbed, over the old stables. There was room for Finzi's growing collection of books and rare apple trees and for the other crops a vegetarian enjoyed.2®

Aside from the war years he spent working in London in the

Ministry of War Transport, Finzi resided permanently there

at Church Farm at Ashmansworth.29 Finzi's new-found

contentment with wife and family enabled him to address many

projects with great enthusiasm. Finzi hated the idea of

things passing away, and thus he was driven to collect and

cultivate, always championing the cause of the neglected.30

Whether it was the informal welcoming of stray cats, the

salvation of some 400 varieties of apple trees from



30. McVeagh, "Finzi, Gerald (Raphael)," Grove, 594.

12

extinction, or his more academic undertakings, all were

pursued with great commitment.31' 32

Finzi's first encounter with the music of Gurney during

his study with Bairstow not only influenced his own

composition but also motivated a commitment to Gurney's work

and the furthering of his reputation. Finzi was a major

force behind the Music and Letters Gurney Symposium of 1938,

and the publications of Gurney's works: the first volume of

songs in 1937, another song volume in 1952, and a collection

of poetry in 1954. Similar efforts in later years followed

with the scholarly editing of eighteenth century musical

works by William Boyce, John Stanley, Capel Bond, Richard

Mudge, and others.33

Finzi was never proficient on any instrument. His

founding of the Newbury String Players, a small, mainly

amateur orchestra, toward the beginning of World War II

provided him with his first experience performing music

31. Arthur Bliss, "Gerald Finzi — An Appreciation,11 Tempo XLII (Winter 1956-1957), 6.

32. Caesar, op. cit.. x. Regarding both composers and poets:

"His belief was in talented expression of personality whether found in works of obvious stature or in those of less gifted figures, and with respect to his contemporaries or near contemporaries, this belief assumed the status of a moral imperative."

33. Ibid., viii.

13

publicly and proficiently. Although by nature one who

disliked public appearances, Finzi was to find his

experiences as conductor of the group to be a vital feature

in his own musicianship, as well as in his personal campaign

for the underdogs, as it were. Following Finzi's intent,

the group explored chamber music by little-known composers

of the past, including those who benefited from his

previously mentioned editorial efforts. First performances

were also given to new music by unsung young composers. To

many of these, he offered assistance or consultation as

private students of composition.34

Following World War II, Finzi received the first of

several commissions for his compositional efforts, including

such choral works as Lo, the Full, the Final Sacrifice and

For St. Cecilia.35 Other choral works, such as the

ambitious Intimations of Immortality, brought recognition

with their performances at the Three Choirs Festival. His

34. Donald Eugene Vogel, A Recital of Selected Songs for Low Male Voice Composed bv Gerald Finzi Using the Poetry of Thomas Hardv Ed.D. Dissertation (Columbia University, 1966: University Microfilms, 307219), 9.

35. Christopher Finzi, Interview at Church Farm, Ashmansworth, Berkshire, England, September 27, 1992. Commissioned works were harder for Finzi:

"Generally he still had copyists copying out the parts just 2 days before the first rehearsal. It was all very hurried, but he got there in the end. . . . He always swore that everytime he did one of those that he would never do it again; but he did."

14

confidence and experience were evident in the larger works

for orchestra which he completed during this time, two

concertos (clarinet and cello) and the Grand Fantasia and

Toccata for piano and orchestra.36 Two solo song sets found

their completion dates within this period as well: Let Us

Garlands Bring and Before and After Summer.31 Yet as

always, there is no easy chronological dating of any of

these works. Finzi was a slow worker, often taking several

years to complete a single movement or song.38 Their

listing here is largely indicative of their having been put

together in final form for publication at that time.

In the final stage of his life, Finzi was, as he always

had been, preoccupied with time, or the lack of it. He was

haunted by the sense that he would never have time to

complete all that was in him to write. This was apparent

long before, reaching back to his childhood when he was

forced to deal with the deaths of so many before their time.

At age 26, his own brief stay in a sanatorium for

tuberculosis no doubt added to this haunted sense.39 He had


37. Banfield, OP. cit.. II, 446.

38. C. Finzi, loc. cit.

39. Ferguson, "Gerald Finzi," Music and Letters. 134.

15

set the Milton texts at that time, and he quoted a portion

again in 1941, when his work was interrupted by war:

When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless . . .40

When in 1951, he was diagnosed as having a form of leukemia

and was given only 10 years to live, his fears were

realized. He quoted the poet Tychborne in the "Preface" to

his own catalog of works, soon after his knowledge of the

diagnosis: "At 49 I feel I have hardly begun my work, *My

thread is cut, and yet it is not spun;/And now I live, and

now my life is done.'"41 Even with the knowledge of his

declining health, Finzi was apparently unrebellious. He

continued with his quiet, conscientious composition in rural

seclusion until his death.42 The disease had greatly

weakened his immune system, and he died of shingles on

September 26, 1956, from a chance contact with the

chickenpox virus during the Gloucester Festival of that same

year.43

40. Banfield, OP. cit.. I, 277. 41. Vogel, OP. cit.. 10.

42. Banfield, OP. cit.. I, 275.

43. Diana McVeagh, record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Let Us Garlands Bring. Two Milton Sonnets. Farewell to Arms. In Terra Pax, performed by Ian Partridge tenor, John Alldis Choir, et al. conducted by Vernon Handley (Lyrita SRCS.93, 1979).

16

Personalitj^Profilg

Previous scholarly studies, in their attempts to

explain his long-standing connection with Thomas Hardy, have

shed much light on the personality of Gerald Finzi. McVeagh

quotes Finzi's own explanation of this connection, in which

Finzi singles out a sentence from Rudland's Life of Hardv:

I have always loved him [Hardy] so much and from earliest days responded, not so much to an influence, as to a kinship with him. (I don't mean kinship with his genius, alas, but with his mental make-up.) "The first manifest characteristic of the man . . . is his detestation of all the useless suffering that fills the world; and the thought that it is unnecessary is to him a nightmare.1,44

In childhood, Finzi had witnessed his own share of

suffering, much of it connected with war and premature

death. Thus, his own feeling of the futility of war

intermingled with his fundamental misgivings about life.45

T. Hold recognizes, however, that in his music, Finzi

captured the melancholy of such feelings without the

bitterness.46 Perhaps this was also true in his life.

44. Diana McVeagh, record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Earth and Air and Rain, performed by Martyn Hill tenor, Stephen Varcoe baritone, and Clifford Benson piano (Hyperion Records Ltd. A66161/2, 1984).

45. Banfield, op. cit.. I, 276.

46. T. Hold, "xCheckless Griff' or Thomas Hardy and the Songwriters," Musical Times CXXXI (June 1990), 310.

17

Finzi was an agnostic, possessing in his character a

mixture of stoicism and fatalism. Like Hardy, he held to

the force of chance in life.47 But whereas Hardy's

rejection of Christianity was bitter and rigid, Banfield

comments on Finzi's more mellow temperament even in such

matters as these: "Personally unable to accept the

Christian myth, he was nevertheless capable of wishing that

its truth might be regenerated for him."48 Christopher

Finzi notes that his father's position on such matters was

neither vehement nor hesitant. It was simply a matter of

fact.49

Finzi's personality was encircled by a vibrancy and an

abundance of energy. He certainly could be quite defiant on

issues when he felt such a reaction was needed. Yet within

the man was a strong sense of nostalgia, in which the past

was, in some ways, more intense than the present.50 He

treasured the "power of the memory to crystallize the

past."51 And it is increasingly apparent that a sense of

melancholy was definitely present within his complex makeup

of intellect and emotion. Finzi stated that "the proportion

of feeling, combined with intellect, must, of course

47. McVeagh, record jacket notes from Earth and Air.


49. C. Finzi, loc. cit. 50. Ibid.


18

vary with the individual."52 In Finzi, the scales tipped

more toward feeling than reason.53 It was the ability to

respond freely that was most essential to him.54 He valued

it in others, referring to it as the heightened perception

with which all response is intensely felt:

If this form of heightened perception is possessed by a few throughout their lives, and is experienced at certain heightened moments by almost everyone, to the more sustained artist who possesses the "endorsement from a centre of disciplined experience" it is a constant inner flame, a part of his make-up, a reservoir of feeling on which he can call at anytime. . . ,55

Historical Perspective

The early roots of English vocal music were rich with

sensitivity to the English language. Purcell and his

predecessors knew how the English language responded to

music, and how music responded to the English language. But

in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, English

song composers largely attempted to follow foreign examples

in song settings. Henry Raynor states that such an approach

left the composers limited "in the ability to approach

either the poetry that grows immediately out of colloquial

52. Gerald Finzi, "The Composer's Use of Words," Three lectures, The Royal College of Music, May 6, 13, and 20, 1955. Photocopy from The Britten-Pears Library, Aldeburgh, England, II, 14.

53. Banfield, op. cit.. I, 276. 54. C. Finzi, loc. cit.

55. G. Finzi, "The Composers Use of Words," II, 9.

19

speech or that which intensifies the idiosyncrasies of the

language.1,56 During that time the English language was

largely considered to be inappropriate for music. As a

result, stilted, metrical settings of songs prevailed, and

England, until about 1880, lacked a musical response to

almost the entire Romantic movement with its wealth of

subjective response to language in song.57

Gerald Finzi is recognized as one of a large group of

English song composers of the early twentieth century who

adopted the texts of Romanticism and assimilated the methods

of musical Romanticism to bring, as it were, "the deadened

imagination out of hibernation."58 Stephen Banfield

relates, in Finzi's own terminology, the crucial need that

had existed for a compulsive "chosen identification," the

need to express something individual and personal in the

composer's own imagination by comparing it with the poet's:

A start could only be made by the careful nurturing of a response which had not been forced upon the composer's sensibilities from some alien source but which was innate and could be personal, different for each individual: a response to literature, the only secure lifeline to the sources of English Romanticism. Thereby the composer could develop his "chosen identification."59

56. Henry Raynor, "Influence and Achievement: Some Thoughts on Twentieth-Century English Song," The Chesterian XXX (Winter 1956), 66.

57. Banfield, OP. cit.r I, 12.

58. Ibid. 59. ibid.

20

Finzi often stressed that an individual response to

words constitutes the most significant factor in composing

songs and that native song emerges from native language.60

His own chosen identification was with his beloved English

literature and resulted in a compellingly realistic

presentation of the sounds of the English language in music.

His receptiveness to poetry's variable nuances made Finzi

one of the finest composers of English song in this or any

era.61 He created melodic lines whose rhythmic complexity

accepted prolongations, hesitations and minute varieties of

stress as fundamental. Although his word setting can be

seen as directly in line with the work of Vaughan Williams,

Moeran, Ireland, Warlock, and Gurney,62 none truly predated

him in this ability or to this degree.63

Finzi's subjective expression of the text through

accompaniment and harmony follows in the essentially

Romantic tradition, creating a culminating rather than an

60. G. Finzi, "The Composer's Use of Words," I, 3.

61. A. Walker, "Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)," Tempo LII (1959), 8.

62. Raynor, op. cit.. 70.

63. Ferguson, interview. There have been others since Finzi, who have done similar kinds of things with word settings. "I don't think anyone has really done it to the same extent since then either. I think he rather stands out."

21

innovative effect.64 This conservative, backward-looking

element gives evidence not only of the musical influences

which are present in his work but also of those which are

notably absent. Vaughan Williams, Elgar, and Parry are

readily identifiable as native contributors to the Finzi

style. The noticeable foreign influence is that of Bach,

whose Baroque contrapuntal characteristics are clearly more

apparent than those from any intervening periods.65

Conspicuously absent are the contemporary influences of the

Parisian neo-classicists and the Viennese serialists.66

Bliss states that Finzi "owed nothing to Schoenberg,

Hindemith, Bartok, and Stravinsky. . . . Well versed in the

musical and literary traditions of England, he expressed

love for their traditions alone."67 Boyd comments that

"Gerald Finzi is a quiet composer, whose music breathes the

air of the countryside by which he is surrounded."68

64. Banfield, op. cit.. II, 324.

65. McVeagh, "Finzi, Gerald (Raphael),11 Grove. VI, 595.

66. Jerry McCoy, The Choral Music of Gerald Finzi: A Study of Textual/Musical Relationships D.M.A. dissertation (The University of Texas at Austin, 1982: University Microfilms, 797927), 8.

67. Arthur Bliss, "Gerald Finzi - An Appreciation," Tempo XLII (Winter 1956-1957), 6.

68. C.M. Boyd, "Gerald Finzi and the Solo Song," Tempo XXX (Autumn 1954), 18.

22

In fact, at St. James Church in Ashmansworth, adjacent

to the Finzi's Church Farm, an engraved window by Laurence

Whistler was dedicated to the memory of Gerald Finzi.69 The

window depicts music as a symbolic tree, its roots ending,

or rather beginning, with the initials of fifty English

composers, and its branches budding into notes. The English

countryside is shown surrounding the tree. Framing the

scene are four famous lines of English literature in praise

of music. It is entitled "In Celebration of English Music"

and aptly portrays Finzi's place in history as a truly

English composer, one known most for his vocal music and one

whose work is absorbed by the expression of his native

English language and literature.70

Yet it was more than just the fires of nationalism at

work, for Finzi's harmonic isolation from the surge of tonal

experimentation was even more severe than that of many of

his own English contemporaries.71 For this element, he was

frequently criticized, especially in the earlier years.

Finzi's view of art does not demand originality in concepts.

He does not strive to grasp the new or the unexpressed.

69. Richard Butt, "Reports: Radley," Musical Times CXXVIII (October 1987), 581.

70. A Window to English Music, pamphlet providing background on Laurence Whistler engraved window "A Celebration of English Music," found in entranceway to St. James Church, Ashmansworth, Berkshire, England.

71. McCoy, op. cit.. 9.

23

Banfield quotes Barton: "As has been said of Hardy, xAs an

artist, he prefers an old world, whose accumulated tragedies

he can count as part of his own experience.'"72 But

increasingly, as Finzi's work has gained repute, rebuttals

of such negative views show his conservatism in a positive

light. Russell evaluates Finzi's work as "unremitting

exaltation . . . of integrity over novelty."73 "His style

is so different from those of his much-noised contemporaries

that he is regarded as a placid backwater off the main

stream; as one who (it would seem) almost perversely writes

music which is a joy to perform and a pleasure to listen

to."74 N.G. Long states: "The point is that Finzi writes

sensitive and fastidious music, and it should be judged and

enjoyed on its merits, and not prejudged according to

whether or not it follows some hypothetical stream of

music."75


73. John Russell, "Gerald Finzi - An English Composer," Tempo XXX (Autumn 1954), 9.

74. Russell, OP. cit.. 15.

75. N.G. Long, "The Songs of Gerald Finzi," Tempo I (September 1946), 7.

24

In summarizing Finzi's historical role, Stephen

Banfield writes:

Standing off from some of Finzi's greatest songs . . . one perceives in them an uncanny sense of the eschatological. The poet's preoccupation with love and its ultimate cessation and the composer's assimilation of the old, dry, unadorned bare bones of three or four centuries of dominant-based western tonality are fused together in lyrical statements about love and death, time, tradition and destiny. Bearing the weight of the Romantic experience in this musical language as Hardy does in the philosophy, Finzi stands at the end of a lyrical tradition, a tradition stretching back beyond Schubert to figures such as Lawes and Pelham Humfrey. While Britten was still to build on parts of that tradition, there were vital aspects of its codification of deep, timeless emotions through the expressiveness of tonality that Finzi was perhaps the last composer fully to understand.76

Certainly Finzi possessed a clear understanding of his

own place in the historical scheme of things. In a series

of lectures presented at the Royal College of Music entitled

"The Composer's Use of Words" he articulated a

knowledgeable, and on occasion provocative view of the

history and aesthetics of the English song.77

Although Finzi's comments that follow were not intended as a

defense of his own position as a composer of the twentieth

century writing in an essentially nineteenth century idiom,



25

perhaps they could serve such a purpose more than

adequately:

Not all things can be bad simply because they are succeeded by something else. . . . We must therefore be careful not to confuse idiom with individuality and we must realise that composers may still be significant even though their language is one which, for the time being, is not in current use. Throughout musical history we find the same confusion of idiom with individuality. We condemn a school because the language has become familiar or distant, jaded, or incomprehensible to us, and it needs a rare critical judgement to realise that greatness remains greatness whatever idiom it uses.78

Whether such examples from the past help us to have sounder judgements today depends upon how much we realise that men are great or small not according to their language but according to their stature.79


79. Ibid.. Ill, 8.

CHAPTER II

STYLISTIC TRAITS OF FINZI'S VOCAL MUSIC

General Output

Gerald Finzi's musical output contains three large

orchestral works in the genre of the concerto with solo

works for piano, cello, and clarinet. He also wrote several

instrumental chamber works.1 However, the bulk of his

output, and that which has received the most critical

acclaim, is made up of vocal compositions. Both choral

compositions and solo songs were his major venues. He is

acknowledged essentially as a miniaturist in his greatest

compositional achievements, the solo songs. Finzi completed

90 solo songs, 71 of which comprise thirteen song

collections. This figure, no doubt, would have been larger,

had he finished the over 60 song fragments that remained

incomplete upon his unfortunate early death.2

1. Diana McVeagh, Gerald Finzi. Publicity Catalogue (London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1980).

2. Banfield, op. cit.. II, 444-447. (See Appendix A.) Banfield's songlist appears to be the most inclusive list currently in print. The 71 songs, which were included in solo collections, are recognized by this writer as perhaps the relevant works to be considered. Finzi always collected his works for publication into sets. The following list enumerates solo songs which are not

26

27

Stylistic Traits

Textual Influences

An immense and deep perception of English literature

and poetry, unusually we11-developed at an early age, formed

the foundation and springboard for much of Finzi's

creativity.3 His son, Christopher, states: "He was

probably a literary man first and a musician second, in one

sense. I think there was no other musician who read as

widely in the English language as he did, or had such an

extensive knowledge of English literature.1,4 In everyday

2. (continued) included in the lower figure (71) quoted in this document: (1) 4 selections were withdrawn from the early collection

By Footpath and Stile in a revision by Finzi in 1941. (2) 4 selections were written for Shakespeare's * Love's

Labour's Lost' and their voice designation is not specified on Banfield's list. These are also referred to by McVeagh in the Hifi discography listing as Stage Works.

(3) 10 individual solo songs, all early works prior to 1926, were evidently not included in collections for publication, and also have no specific designation.

(4) 1 solo for baritone is listed which is taken from a choral work, the Requiem da Camera, and perhaps should be considered an extract from the choral work.

Manuscripts of all composed songs and remaining fragments, totalling 160, can be found at the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

3. Andrew Burn, record jacket notes from A Recital of English Songs, performed by Anne Dawson soprano, and Roderick Barrand piano (Hyperion Records Ltd. A66103, 1983). "By his 20's his perception of literature and poetry in particular was immense and deep." After his death, his library was donated to the Reading University Library and is now housed in the Finzi Book Room.

28

talk and letters, Finzi quoted from the great English

writers because they were his chosen everyday companions.5

Finzi's own outstanding library of over 3000 volumes

contained English literature of every period, revealing a

breadth of interest and devotion to both major and minor

authors.6 Among those who provided inspiration for his

music were Thomas Hardy, John Milton, Robert Bridges, Edmund

Blunden, Thomas Traherne, William Wordsworth, and William

Shakespeare.7 In the selection of texts to be set to music,

Finzi chose only those with which he felt a strong kinship.

General textual topics which support his own philosophies of

life recur in his settings. Among these topics are those

that reveal a preoccupation with the passing of time, a

sense of fatalism, and the power of the memory to hold

moments of the past. Also reappearing are those dealing

with the futility of war and the beauty of nature. Finzi


5. McVeagh, record jacket notes from Intimations.

6. Caesar, op. cit.. ix-x. Finzi not only promoted lesser known composers, but also felt duty-bound to support poets by reading and buying their work. As a result, his library contains, in addition to the large number of major authors, "an enormous number of twentieth century poets who are very little known and whose work varies considerably in kind and quality."

7. Banfield, op. cit.f II, 444-446.

29

was additionally drawn to the innocence of youth and

childhood.8

In selecting these texts with which he felt such strong

kinship, Finzi often chose poetry which some considered

unsettable. Finzi acknowledged technical reasons for

difficulty with certain texts:

Often unsingable sounds dominate (too many consonants, or poor placement of vowels on which to sing), or poems were too tightly packed with intellectual concepts to allow a successful setting. The composer risks finding problematic areas in any group of words, but should not be deterred by difficulties if one identifies with the words, and intuition strongly bears out the musical impulse to set the words.9

Finzi ardently disagreed with critics who recommended that

musicians should avoid distorting great or even good poetry

by coupling it with music.10 He wrote:

I do hate the bilge and bunkum about composers trying to "add" to a poem; that a fine poem is complete in itself, and to set it is only to gild the lily, and so on. It's the sort of clich§ which goes on being repeated (rather like the phrase "but art is above national boundaries"). I rather expected it [over the setting of the two Milton Sonnets] and expect it still more when the Intimations [of Immortality] is finished. But alas, composers can't rush into print, particularly

8. Ibid.. I, 276-278.

9. G. Finzi, "The Composer's Use of Words," II, 5.

10. Edward DeWitt Cline, The Language and Music of Finzi. Faur6 and Schubert adopting "The Composer's Use of Words" bv Gerald Finzi as a Guide M.M.A. thesis (University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 1988), 13.

30

where their own works are concerned (though I do some-times have a sneaking wish that editors would ask for one's opinion!). Obviously a poem may be unsatisfactory in itself for setting, but that is a purely musical consideration—that it has no architectural possibilities; no broad vowels where climaxes should be, and so on. But the first and last thing is that a composer is (presumably) moved by a poem and wishes to identify himself with it and share it. Whether he is moved by a good or a bad poem is beside the question. John [Herbert Sumsion] hit the nail on the head the other day when we were going through a dreadful biblical cantata, which X had sent him. . . . John said, "He chose his text, it didn't choose him." I don't think everyone realizes the difference between choosing a text and being chosen by one.11

Compositional Process

Diana McVeagh illustrates the initial stage of Finzi's

unusual compositional process and the manner in which the

literature so inspired him: "As lines [of poetry] ran

through his head, so they would gather music to them."12

"He would read something and it would produce maybe only a

couple of bars . . . a completely spontaneous reaction. He

might then find that was all he got, and he would put it

away in his drawer and leave it."13 He would not

necessarily start with the first line, but with any phrase

that suggested music. Only rarely were revisions made to

these first incomplete sketches.14 Works would then

11. Ferguson, "Gerald Finzi," Music and Letters. 131. Quoting from Finzi letter of 1936.


13. C. Finzi, loc. cit. 14. Banfield, OP. cit.. I, 287.

31

continue in process, each added to from time to time until a

large batch of sketches, generally quite discontinuous, was

compiled for a particular work.15

Finzi often spread the composition of a single work out

over a number of years until he began the completing stage.

This putting-together of the sketches by filling in the gaps

was never an entirely fluent endeavor; songs that appeared

spontaneous might have been compiled only after endless

sketches and rough drafts.16 Finzi hated intellectually

contrived solutions. Yet his favorite phrase, "art conceals

art,"17 reveals the balance he sought:

The emotional response . . . was evidently innate in him and the more intellectual response . . . he had to kind of force upon himself. In such a manner, he was trying, I guess, to arrange so that a technical solution would not appear technical. It is apparent that he was generally successful at that. You'd think that would be absolutely impossible, but it never sounds like a patchwork quilt. 8

Due to his compositional process, unfinished works from

many early years abound. Over 60 song fragments remained

unfinished upon his death although a gratifying number of

early fragments were completed in his final, comparatively


16. Ibid.


18. Ferguson, interview.

32

prolific year.19 Finzi assigned opus numbers when he began

works rather than when he completed them. Thus blank opus

numbers have resulted from works which were planned but not

finished. In addition, the posthumous works have earlier

opus numbers than those of the last works published in his

lifetime.20

Lack Of Chronological Development

Other features are recognizable as being directly

linked to Finzi's idiosyncratic compositional process.

Amazingly, stylistic disunity is never noted in collections

whose individual pieces were composed over a long period.

This is due to what some refer to as a homogeneous style,

which permeates all Finzi's music. Apart from the very

early writings, Finzi's work shows very little chronological

development. This has been a controversial issue among

critics seeking to evaluate his work.21

Harmonic Usage

Finzi's conservative harmonic language is definitely

tonal. Tonic and dominant scale-degrees still possess a

traditional, mutually polarizing, function.22 Often these

degrees are used obsessively in a characteristic inverted



21. C. Finzi, loc. cit. 22. Banfield, OP. cit.. I, 284.

33

pedal point. Banfield refers to these as restless,

searching tonic and dominants which subjectively depict

textual mood.23

Evaluators note that most of Finzi's specific harmonic

traits are tools of subjective mood setting. N.G. Long

recognizes a prevailing type of harmony with many seventh

chords, other extended harmonies, and suspensions as

correlating with the brooding or fatalistic substance of

many poems which Finzi chose to set.24 In contrast,

exclusive use of triadic harmonies is quite rare.25 Finzi's

rich, nostalgic harmony, then, employs chromaticisms of the

nonharmonic tone type to convey the mood of the text.26

This results in a rich harmonic effect, spiced with the

bittersweet dissonances which resolve, only to be replaced

by new ones in other lines.27

Finzi employs other chromaticisms temporarily to blur

or suspend the tonality and to achieve color by segments of

23. Ibid., I, 324. 24. Long, op. cit.. 9.

25. George E. Hansler, Stylistic Characteristics and Trends in the Choral Music of Five Twentieth-Centurv British Composers; A Study of the Choral Works of Benjamin Britten. Gerald Constant Lambert. Michael Tippett. and William Walton Ph.D. dissertation (The University of Texas at Austin, 1982: University Microfilms, 797927), 403.

26. Burton Parker, "Textual-Musical Relationships in Selected Songs of Gerald Finzi," The NATS Journal xxv (May-June 1974), 18.

27. Hansler, op. cit.. 403.

34

modality in the manner of Ralph Vaughan Williams.28 Even

though the tonality is clear, Finzi often uses tonic

avoidance at cadences to achieve continuation of poetic

thought.29 Occasionally, he uses other practices to obscure

the tonality in varying degrees: the employment of the

tonic only in weak inversions or on weak beats after a new

key is suggested by accidentals; and the suggestion of two

closely related keys, often a major and its relative minor,

without clearly establishing either one.30

Finzi does not use harmony as a structural device.31

He almost totally avoids fully harmonized modulations to the

dominant and subdominant keys. Frequently he begins and

ends a song in different keys, with no apparent sense of

pattern. This is not seen as a freeing influence of the

twentieth century upon his work. Whether this is a chosen

abhorrence of intellectually contrived solutions32 or

28. Cline, OP. cit.. 32.

29. Burton Parker, OP. cit.. 18.

30. Hansler, OP. cit.. 398.

31. Ferguson, interview. "Structurally, he had absolutely no sense of key at all."


"Yes, he would say that if you said that I have to end in the same key that I started in, that would be an intellectual thing. He would have felt that what mattered was what gave the picture that he wanted."

35

something which simply is not inherent to his nature33,

perhaps it is connected to his fragmented compositional

process.34

Melodic Element

Finzi produces some of the most singable melodies in

the English repertoire of the twentieth century, a feature

that is remarkable for a non-singer.35 Banfield compares

this singable quality to that of a folktune:

However much he disguises the simplicity of his vocal lines by irregularising the phrase-lengths and elasticating the rhythms to the mould of speech-stresses, one is nearly always aware of the fundamental plan of a neatly and simply phrased tune that needs no accompaniment to give it structural balance.36

This fluency with creating vocal lines also affects his

instrumental writing. Few contemporary composers, in the

33. Ferguson, interview. "It just didn't enter into his scheme of things. I think you have the sense of key structure or you don't and he didn't."

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

"It must have been a natural gift, because he would never sing his own songs even when he and I were trying them through. I would play the accompaniment, and he would play the voice part on the piano and never sing it. I don't think I ever heard Gerald sing at all!"

36. Banfield, or?, cit.. I, 280.

36

lyrical aspect, wrote so vocally in every way. "The voice

was his starting point."37

Prosody

As the vocal melody is his initial inspiration for the

rest of the musical composition, so the sound and meaning of

the text provide the initial impulse for the melody. Finzi

comments to Edmund Blunden: "I like music to grow out of

the actual words and not be fitted to them."38 Walker

observes that Finzi allows the poetry to shape his musical

thought: "He never imposes himself upon the words but

rather allows himself to be imposed upon by them."39 His

resolution of text into musical solutions is not a

technical thing; it is spontaneous, in keeping with his

general compositional process.40


38. Andrew Burn, record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis. Clarinet Concerto, and Farewell to Arms, performed by Martyn Hill tenor, Michael Collins clarinet, and the City of London Sinfonia, conducted by Richard Hickox (Virgin Classics Ltd. VC 7 90718-1, 1988).

39. Walker, OP. cit.. 8.


"I am sure it was not technical. . . . I think the response just happened. Probably not a very long one, there would be a phrase or two, and that's it. He would jot it down and put it away. . . . He was a great believer in the unconscious doing things. He

37

The melodic contour of the vocal line is never

virtuosic or obtrusive, and this quality of "homeliness" is

determined by Finzi's speech-like word settings. The shapes

of his melodies often follow the rise and fall of the

inflection of the conversational or reciting voice. This

has the effect of making Finzi's vocal lines quite unforced,

natural, and often emotionally low-pitched and

conversational.41 In settings, Finzi aptly uses a mixture

of lyrical arioso and recitative.42

Rhythmically, the vocal lines of Finzi's songs are

obvious conversational matches to the poetry.43 In some

settings, on the surface, Finzi's rhythms can appear to be

highly complex and difficult, yet upon reading the text they

make sense. Finzi emphasizes that "the natural rhythm and

stress of words must be preserved at the expense of metrical

accents."44 However, he sometimes uses metric manipulation

of irregular with regular meters for proper transcription of

40. (continued) felt that if he was working on something and he just couldn't do it, he just put it away at all. It wasn't ready to be completed. He hated trying to force solutions onto things."


42. Boyd, op. cit.. 21.



38

syllabic emphasis.45 When setting poetry with lines of

equal length and more recognizable rhyme schemes, Finzi

exhibits more regularity and repetition.46 The overall

rhythmic freedom of the vocal line within the framework of a

more tightly constructed instrumental accompaniment is

crucial to the effectiveness of much of Finzi's vocal

writing.47

Finzi's songs are almost exclusively syllabic.48 In

his lectures, "The Composer's Use of Words," Finzi does not

express opposition to melismatic settings, but he recognizes

that such a style places words in a somewhat secondary

role.49 He writes: "Melisma . . . can become the handmaid

of a melodic line and enhance it in a way that syllabic

treatment could never do, even though it may be, in a slight

way, at the expense of the words."50 However, his feelings

regarding virtuosic exhibition in song are clearly stated:

It is no condemnation of virtuosity to say that in any age where the cadenza becomes more important than the song, where the audience goes to be thrilled by the purely physical at the expense of content, the composer for whom words have any significance, must find himself in a vacuum.51

45. Cline, OP. cit.. 34. 46. Parker, OP. cit.. 14.

47. Long, OP. cit.. 9. 48. Banfield, OP. cit.. II, 325.

49. G. Finzi, "The Composer's Use of Words," III, 2.

50. Ibid.. Ill, 5. 51. Ibid.. Ill, 3.

39

He also did not exalt the extreme of merely heightened

speech:

At their extremes both [melismatic and strictly syllabic settings] court disaster, the disaster of meretriciousness, of superficial soap-bubble emptiness at the one end and of pedantry and un-creativeness at the other, whilst [sic] a fusion of the two, in varying proportion seems to be the basis of the finest expression in any age.52

With his prevalent syllabic style, Finzi's own position

on the continuum indeed can be seen as ruled more by the

words and his respect for their recognition. Perhaps Finzi

felt a close affinity with the French songwriters, whose

common use of syllabic settings he correlated with an

intense respect for their language.53

Banfield refers to the severely syllabic style as

"the circumscribed invention of the vocal content,"54 and

criticizes it as a limitation to song composition. Banfield

cites this limitation as most evident in Finzi:

In English song, from Parry onwards, one must . . . consider the almost ethical aversion to melismatic or virtuoso vocal writing, and the adherence to the more than ethical Anglican tradition of "for every syllable a note." "Just declamation," at its severest in Finzi, became an inhibition which needed to be broken down . . . [in order to achieve greater freedom and expression to the vocal line].55

52. Ibid.. Ill, 2. 53. Ibid.. Ill, 5.

54. Banfield, op. cit.. II, 325. 55. Ibid.

40

Finzi, however, recognizes more florid settings, as

exemplified by Benjamin Britten, as an acceptable,

alternative style to that in which words are the first

consideration.56 He states that "neither view is better

than the other; their value is in their difference; neither

are new conceptions and both styles will inevitably flower

again and again, one after the other, for the continual

refreshment of the spirit."57

Accompaniments

Donald Ivey credits Finzi, along with Warlock, with the

establishment of a more linear texture in English song

writing with greater contrapuntal interest between

accompaniment and vocal line.58 Finzi's affinity for

contrapuntal writing is quite evident early on, and the

imitative aspect, even when it is not strict counterpoint,

stays very strong throughout his life. Finzi's writings

indicate preference for the free or partially free type of

imitation.59 Interludes and underpinings in the

accompaniments are riddled with imitative entrances based on

motives from the melodic line. Motivic ideas, much more

56. G. Finzi, "The Composer's Use of Words," III, 7.

57. Ibid.. Ill, 8.

58. Donald Ivey, Sona. Anatomy. Imagery, and styles (London: The Free Collier Press, MacMillan, Ltd., 1970), 239.

59. Hansler, OP. cit.. 397.

41

than harmonic ideas, control forward movement,60 often

resulting in what is considered to be rather weak harmonic

progression.61

The essentially vocal inspiration gives Finzi's

accompaniments certain other limitations. The first of

these, an excessive continuity, contributes to one of the

cliches of Finzi's work. The steady pulsing bass line, and

other such ostinato patterns in accompaniments not unlike

Elgar and Vaughan Williams, are characteristic of many

69 « • • •

songs. A second limitation is apparent in Finzi's piano

accompaniments. In the early years, they were not really

piano writing at all. They were just contrapuntal lines.63

Finzi was not a pianist, and even though it was his chosen

instrument for composition, he could not play his own

accompaniments.64 Only in the later years did Finzi develop

a feeling for writing for the piano, especially notable in

all the late songs. Howard Ferguson states that although

these late works are not pianistic in the normal sense, they

do sound admirable on the piano in a completely individual

way.65



62. Long, OP. cit.. 9.


64. C. Finzi, loc. cit. 65. Ferguson, interview.

42

Formal Structure

It is difficult to define a consistent architectural

basis for Finzi's songs, for he rarely duplicates a form.

The loosely through-composed variety is among the most

effective because Finzi can thus seize all the dramatic

possibilities of the poem.66 Longer songs tend to avoid

sectional repetition and become "arioso scenas" whose

segments are differentiated by varying rates of movement and

figurations, which may or may not possess cross-references

between them.67 Straightforward strophic form is most

uncommon; Finzi rarely uses wholesale strophic repetition,

preferring to group stanzas into some other perceptible

patterns. Most dual-stanza poems are composed to sound like

"a single musical paragraph with a caesura in the middle."68

Melancholy Influence

Ferguson has commented on the private side of Finzi

which revealed a certain melancholy and which affected his

composition greatly. His earlier works were almost always

slow and lyrical. Slow movements and songs of larger works

were invariably the first to be composed. Ferguson states

that this was the characteristic mood of his music.69 An

66. Boyd, op. cit.r 21.

67. Banfield, op. cit.. I, 287. 68. ibid.


43

example of this can be seen in the completed single songs of

the late 1920's which came to be parts of later published

sets: Dies Natalis, Farewell to Arms, and Two Sonnets by

John Milton. The majority of these were slow, lyrical

songs,70 "but, as he himself said, a composer grows not only

by developing his natural bent, but by reacting against

[it]; so it need not surprise us if his mastery of a more

vigorous, extrovert type of music was a later

manifestation.1,71 Faster music was much harder for him to

write in the early years; however, this apparently was one

technical weakness which he overcame by the later years.72

General Performance Applications

"Cyclic" (Collective^ Publication/Performance

Finzi's preparation of completed songs into collections

for publication was a task involving much thought and

immense care. Only one of the collections can actually be

viewed as a cycle, and Finzi did not wish his Hardy settings

on the whole to be viewed as cycles. Nonetheless, all songs

were published in sets. Although it is doubtful that he

created songs with cycles or sets in mind, he would have

viewed the finished collections as complete volumes.73

70. Banfield, OP. cit.. II, 444-445.


72. Ferguson, interview. 73. C. Finzi, loc. cit.

44

Finzi claimed that in grouping the songs for publication, he

was lessening the chances of a single song being

overlooked or not being performed.74 Joy Finzi noted

Gerald's emphatic thoughts about the collective nature of

his work. The ordering of songs within a set was intended

to provide significant contrast for cyclic performance.75

Diction Considerations

Finzi's son, Christopher, and Ferguson both agree that

a major consideration for singing the songs of Finzi is the

articulation of the language. Christopher states that many

singers, especially those with big voices, have difficulty

singing English well.76 In addition to a lyric voice,

Ferguson states that special notice of the consonants is

necessary in order to achieve proper articulation of the

diction.77 Finzi himself stated that "to the composer for

whom words are significant (for they are not significant to

all composers) the surest way to communicate with his

audience is for them to be able to hear and understand the

words he is sharing with them."78

74. Banfield. OP. cit.. T. 2Qn. ~ ~

75. Vogel, op. cit.. 5.




45

Interpretative Indications

In his detailed approach to language setting, Finzi

made frequent use of grace notes. Rhythmically, they

should always appear before the note.79 Unfortunately,

other details of the musical score are not always as clear.

Ferguson, a frequent interpreter of Finzi's music in

performance, noted that in the early years, Finzi exhibited

a great deal of uncertainty in matters of detail for the

performer:

He tended to solve the difficulty by leaving out such indications altogether, until it was pointed out to him that this did not make the life of the performer any easier. He would then agree, rather reluctantly, to a piano here and a forte there, and an occasional slur to show the beginning and end of a phrase, adding under his breath that the performer, if he were any sort of musician would instinctively do it like that anyway.80

Due to his lack of performance experience, Finzi had

little confidence in such matters. These problems, however,

began to diminish with his conducting the Newbury String

Players. It was really with them that he first learned the

point of view of a performer, which he had ridiculed before.

As a result of these experiences, his attention to

interpretative indications became more detailed.81

79. Howard Ferguson, letter to the author, September 18, 1992.


46

Even with this increase in direction, Finzi was still

less specific than some other composers. This was due,

largely, to his never performing as a soloist and to his

lack of proficiency on any instrument. Thus, even with his

increased experience via conducting, he was unaware of all

the specifics a performer would want to know.82

Furthermore, as a profoundly shy man, he was far too

embarrassed to provide a good interpretation of his own

music for performance.83

Finzi always looked to the performer for

appropriateness in good interpretation of his work, and

there was flexibility in his thought process for that.

Finzi realized that no amount of markings could guarantee a

good performance. He was comfortable with the idea of

different interpretations of his compositions. Dangers do

exist, however, among the less than ideal situations of

performance. Christopher Finzi, who has conducted many of

his father's works, notes a tendency among performers to

overdo the direction Finzi did give.84 Ferguson remarks

81. Ferguson, interview. "He wasn't a natural performer at all. He was a very bad conductor. When he began he had absolutely no idea how to bring in an orchestra. It was as bad as that. He learned by experience . . . " and was essentially forced to indicate interpretative marks because it couldn't be left to the players in an ensemble.

82. Ibid. 83. C. Finzi, loc. cit.

84. Ibid.

47

that, regarding dynamic indication, sometimes too little and

sometimes too much was given; overall, it would be better

just for the singer to react.85

Ferguson gives important remarks concerning the

appropriate interpretation of Finzi's accompaniments. As

one of Finzi's oldest and closest friends, he was often

involved in the making of a Finzi work. He knew Finzi's

musical mind as well as anyone. Ferguson was the pianist in

several premiere performances, as well as on recordings.86

His remarks indicate that rubato, especially at the marginal

level, is an essential feature of Finzi's music which cannot

accurately be indicated and which is vital to the

accompaniment. Furthermore, it is this feature which makes

Finzi's music difficult for some to interpret at the piano.

"It's rather rare to encounter somebody who naturally feels

how Gerald's music should go. It's partly a give and take

rhythmically and a live line instead of something that's

strict." Ferguson was influential in the selection of

Clifford Benson as pianist for several recent recordings of

Finzi's works, noting that Benson has a remarkable natural

feel for Finzi's piano accompaniments.87


86. Diana McVeagh, "A Finzi Discography," Tempo CXXXVI (March 1981), 19.


48

Ferguson enumerates other elements which are essential

to an appropriate interpretation of Finzi's piano

accompaniments. It is obvious that in Finzi's music there

is never a conception of a vocal line and a foundation upon

which it is set. Instead, the pianist must recognize the

equal partnership which exists between voice and piano.

There are many times that the accompaniment seems to be

singing exactly what was just sung by the voice. The

contrapuntal nature of the piano writing supports what

should be incorporated in any accompaniment. "You have to

mentally orchestrate it, so that it's in different layers of

sound, rather than something flat that you just throw at the

wall."88

Vocal Preferences

Commentators have noted general inclinations in Finzi's

voice designations for his solo works. Joy Finzi spoke of

Finzi's affinity for middle-ranged instruments and voices.89

It has been noted that this affinity included male solo

voices. In the last year of Finzi's life, Joy reported on a

compositional effort: "Hoping it was going to be a tenor

song it turned, in the final making, into an inevitable

88. Ibid.


49

baritone.1,90 Previously documented research efforts have

already supported this fondness for the baritone.91

It has been recognized that Finzi had a marked

preference for the male solo voice in general,92 but perhaps

this feature has not been given adequate notice. There is a

marked absence of anything written specifying mezzo soprano

and no work exclusively for soprano. Only Dies Natalis

lists the soprano voice, and then it is an option (soprano

or tenor). Of the nine collections compiled by Finzi

himself, eight contain specifications for male voice and

none contain the generic high/low voice indication. Four of

the thirteen solo collections were published posthumously,

and only these contain the generic indication. Finzi's

possible intentions for these latter works appear in the

"Editors' Notes" from the published scores of Oh Fair to See

and Till Earth Outwears. When explaining the transposition

of songs, the editors state that Finzi described uncertainty

over whether a given song was suitable for baritone or

tenor. Perhaps, had Finzi lived to publish the remaining

90. Banfield, OP. cit.. I, 299. Quoting Joy's diary entry from Feb. 21, 1956.

91. Research conducted by both Edward Cline and Donald Vogel supports this idea.

92. Ferguson and C. Finzi interviews.

50

works himself, his previous practice would have continued

with predominant specification of the male voice.93

Finzi song lists do show a majority of works written

specifically for baritone. However, errors in previous

research data possibly have exaggerated this as a greater

percentage than it is in actuality. Donald Vogel's research

of 1966 contains a listing of Finzi's published compositions

by opus number. Vogel includes the solo vocal collections,

giving the number of songs in each, but without detailing

the individual song titles.94 Banfield's research of 1981

contains a more specific listing of all the individual songs

and fragments composed by Finzi, published and unpublished,

indicating those compiled to form solo vocal collections.95

(See Appendix A.) Taking into account deleted items from

Banfield's list which are irrelevant to this study,96 both

lists contain the same vocal collections, which, in fact,

include 71 songs. However, Vogel lists only 63 songs in the

body of his document. It is obvious from the way he lists

93. Howard Ferguson, Joyce Finzi, and Christopher Finzi, Editor's Note of Till Earth Outwears by Gerald R. Finzi (London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1958).

94. Vogel, op. cit.. 117-119. Vogel fails to list the number of songs incorporated in the tenor collections Dies Natalis, and Farewell to Arms.

95. Banfield, op. cit.. II, 444-447.

96. See annotation of footnote #2.

51

the items in his Appendix that he fails to count Dies

Natalis, Farewell to Arms, and Two Sonnets (all with tenor

designations) among the total song compositions of Gerald

Finzi. These would account for the eight-song difference

between his quoted figure of 63 and the actual total of 71

songs which are included in the combined collections.

Furthermore, Vogel's introductory statement is not

consistent with his own appendix list. He states that 39

songs are designated specifically for the low male voice,

whereas, in his own list, only 22 songs are shown as

specified for baritone. His miscalculation goes on to list

seventeen remaining songs for low voice which could be

suitable for the male voice, an error which inaccurately

presents the works for baritone as constituting 89% of

Finzi's output.97 According to Banfield, there are 27 songs

specified for baritone, with twelve remaining for low voice,

giving 39 which could be appropriate for baritone, a

possible 54.9% of the complete output.98 (See Appendix B.)

Second highest on the list of songs would be works

written specifically for tenor. Fourteen songs were written

specifically for tenor, and another four for soprano or

97. Vogel, OP. cit.. 2.

98. Banfield, OP. cit.. II, 444-447. Banfield's list, which corresponds to that of Diana McVeagh in Grove, shows Let Us Garlands Bring as specified for baritone whereas Vogel shows it for low voice. This collection contains 5 songs.

52

tenor." Of the remaining fourteen posthumously published

works for high voice, many could be considered more

appropriate for the male singer due to textual

considerations. All of these fourteen could be

appropriately performed by tenor. This constitutes a total

of 32 songs, from six collections, a possible 45.1% of

Finzi's output, which could be performed by the high male

voice.100 (See Appendices A & B.)

Additional data taken from solos in major choral works

support this penchant for the male soloist. The high male

voice, specifically, is given exclusive, significant solo

designation in two of Finzi's most substantial choral works,

Intimations of Immortality and For St. Cecilia.101

Finzi respected various specific singers; however,

soprano Elsie Suddaby is the only female singer mentioned by

commentators. Tenors Eric Greene and Wilfred Brown and

baritones John Carol Chase and Robert Irwin were frequently

used in performance and recordings of Finzi's works, and

99. Although Banfield and McVeagh list Two Sonnets as a work for soprano or tenor, the rental score made available to this author for study purposes by Boosey and Hawkes was designated specifically for tenor. Inasmuch as this score is a copy of a manuscript in Gerald Finzi's own hand, it is apparent that his intention was for the work to be for tenor.

100. Ibid.


53

Finzi thought well of them.102 With these singers, Finzi's

noted preference for the lyric, as opposed to the dramatic,

voice type is evident.103 Although there were singers whom

he did respect, Finzi never wrote anything with a specific

singer in mind. His conception of the songs was totally

abstract.104

Transpos ition

Finzi's abstract manner of composition, perhaps, went

so far as to affect the general range of his works in many

cases. When the posthumous songs were edited for

publication, some were transposed because it was known that

Finzi would have had no objection to that. Finzi

frequently, and quite cheerfully, transposed songs himself

in order for them to fit into a particular set. Ferguson

states support for the possibility of transposition of

published sets into a low or high edition:

^ don't think he would have minded. The one practical difficulty is the tessitura of the piano part. He tended to write rather low piano parts . . . and if you start transposing them down, they sound awful. I don't think it would matter at all [to transpose some of the baritone sets up]. Well, I don't think he would have minded that in the slightest.105

102. Ferguson and C. Finzi interviews.

103. Ferguson, interview. 104. C. Finzi, loc. cit.


54

Christopher Finzi notes that the fact his father wrote more

for the baritone was simply because he possessed a baritone

range himself. Finzi, no doubt, would have been pleased

with "anything to get a good performance.1,106


CHAPTER III

OVERVIEW OF WORKS APPROPRIATE FOR MALE HIGH VOICE

Works Designated Specifically for Tenor

Two Sonnets by John Milton

Although Two Sonnets by John Milton, op. 12, is

identified by Stephen Banfield's Sensibility and the English

Song and Diana McVeagh's article in The New Grove Dictionary

of Music and Musicians as designated for tenor or soprano,

convincing contradictory evidence is available. Although

the collection is currently out of print, a copy of an

original manuscript in Finzi's own hand provided by Boosey

and Hawkes designates this work specifically for tenor.

This score clearly calls into question both Banfield's and

McVeagh's assertions that Two Sonnets was intended for tenor

or soprano.

The early set, accompanied by small orchestra, contains

the songs "When I consider" and "How soon hath Time."

Publication of the work came in 1936, with the premiere

performance by Steuart Wilson at the Mercury Theatre on

February 6 of that same year.1


55

56

The sonnets Finzi used in this vocal collection were

written by John Milton sometime in the 1640's. At that

point, Milton had first become aware of his growing

blindness; by 1651, he was to be totally blind. Milton

(1608-74) was recognized as an author of towering stature

early in his life. His reputation rests largely on the

epic, religious poem Paradise Lost, which was described by

John Dryden in 1677 as "one of the greatest, most noble and

sublime poems which either this age or nation has

produced."2 The sonnets used by Finzi are among Milton's

most notable poetry written during the twenty years prior to

the completion of Paradise Lost.3

Milton's religious, poetic texts refer to the onset of

his blindness and express his frustration at being unable to

complete all that was within him to do. "Time, the subtle

thief of youth" once again appears as a familiar theme to

Finzi himself. The Two Sonnets were composed almost

certainly in 1928, when Finzi was diagnosed as having

tuberculosis and spent some time in Midhurst Sanatorium

before being released as physically fit. Such a crisis

produced inner turmoil in Finzi, who so feared that he, too,

would be unable to complete all that was within him to do.

2. "Milton, John," The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., ed. Margaret Drabble (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 654.

3. Ibid.

57

Undoubtedly, he agreed with Milton: "That I to manhood am

arriv'd so near,/And inward ripeness doth much less

appear. . . . " Perhaps this fear could account for his

early attraction to these poems and the strong feeling of

identification that he had with them.4

In a 1936 Musical Times review of the newly published

set, Finzi was chided for adding to Milton's well-beloved

sonnets by setting them to music. The critic concluded that

Finzi was attempting a task which should never have been

done. This criticism elicited the frequently quoted remark

from Finzi in a letter to his friend Howard Ferguson

regarding being "chosen" by a text.5

The overall effect of the Two Sonnets is powerful and

sombre, yet they are criticized as weaker works of Finzi's.

C.M. Boyd remarks that the melody sounds stinted, the

texture constricted, the dissonance is exploited merely for

its own sake, and the unresting thrust of counterpoint gives

mere continuity.6 As is the case with several works by

Finzi from the 1920's, Two Sonnets is strikingly

contrapuntal. Finzi later called the Two Sonnets "rather

gnarled and uncompromising and described himself as having

4. McVeagh, record jacket notes from Let Us Garlands Bring.

5. Ferguson, "Gerald Finzi," Music and Letters. 131. For full quotation see Chapter II, page 30.

6. Boyd, op. cit.. 15.

58

been in a queer state when he composed them."7 Finzi thus

withdrew the set from publication, as he did with many other

earlier works due to his own independent critical faculty.

The set is currently out of print; however, a xeroxed

manuscript score is available on review from Boosey and

Hawkes. No piano reduction was ever made for this

composition.8

Farewell to Arms

Farewell to Arms, op. 9, for tenor and small orchestra

or strings, contains the "Introduction" and "Aria." Both

poems deal with the conversion of the weapons of war to

tools for peace and illustrate another obsessive topic for

Finzi—his abhorrence of war.9 In addition, Finzi has once

again found companion minds to reflect his continuing

concern with life's brevity and the need to use time and

talents fully before "the flower . . . fades."10

The text for the aria was taken from George Peele's

sonnet "His golden locks," published in 1590 in his

Polyhymnia. It was an occasional poem describing the tilt

tournament held before Elizabeth I, when the Queen's

champion and master of armour resigned because of increasing


8. C. Finzi, loc. cit. 9. Boyd, OP. cit.. 17.


59

age. Finzi composed the aria, then entitled "Farewell to

Arms," between 1926 and 1928; it was first performed in the

1936 recital with the Two Sonnets. However, publishers

turned it down for publication in 1941, thinking it untimely

due to the war.11

Sometime in 1943, Finzi located "The Helmet Now" by

Ralph Knevet (1600-71) and utilized it to compose the

introduction. He was delighted with the matching thought in

the two poems, even to the common image of the helmet

becoming a beehive. Thus the work was completed and

received its first performance on March 30, 1945, with tenor

Eric Greene and the BBC Northern Orchestra under Charles

Groves in Manchester. At war's end, on the day he left the

Ministry of War Transport, Finzi left a copy of Two Sonnets

on his chief's desk.12

The "Introduction" to Farewell to Arms takes the form

of a recitative, preceding the "Aria." All of Finzi's

outstanding tools of wordsetting are brought to the fore in

this complex melodic setting. Segmentation is determined by

change of thought in the text. Phrases are set in typical

fashion by following the continuation of thought rather than

stanzaic lines. In a natural Finzi manner, it contains much

of his characteristic melancholy, such as the softly rounded

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

60

phrases which ease into unemphatic cadences.13 A highly

pictorial setting underlies each textual image with dramatic

and quite varied musical reflections of the implements of

war ("the ventriloquious drum" underlaid with staccato

repeated chords; the octave drop on "sharp spikes" preceded

by the harshly dissonant opening chord figure) and the tools

of peace ("the rustic spade" set in the first sustained

appearance of major tonality).

Like the Two Sonnets, composed in the 1920's, the

Farewell to Arms "Aria" is controlled by continuous

counterpoint in the accompaniment. But here a masterful

control is present. A recurrent, flowing accompaniment over

a plucked bass appears, somewhat similar to certain chorale

preludes by Bach.14

The Bachian influence played out in this fashion is

mirrored in marked similarity in the Aria from Dies

Natalis.15 The characteristic measured bass as it is used

here tends to be a mannerism for Finzi,16 but here it is

used masterfully in expressing the inevitable march of

time.17 Above this tightly constructed accompaniment, the

13. Ibid.

14. Boyd, loc. cit.


16. Boyd, loc. cit.

17. Burn, record jacket notes from Dies Natalis.

61

freedom of the vocal line also stands in characteristic

manner. In summary, McVeagh writes:

The Aria becomes at once an illustration and a reflection of Time's inexorability, and the pull between time's actual passing and the anguished perception of its passing, in the magnificently sustained flight of lyrical counterpoint, is so intense that Finzi is driven to repeat (a rare practice with him) the opening couplet to close the work: "0 time too swift, 0 swiftness never ceasing."18

A Youna Man's Exhortation

A Young Man's Exhortation received its first

performance on December 5, 1933, by Frank Drew and Augustus

Lowe,19 in Grotrian Hall.20 Prior to this, Duncan-Rubbra

reported in 1929 the completion of "a song-cycle for tenor

and piano . . . consisting of fifteen settings of poems by

Thomas Hardy."21 By its 1933 publication date, however, A

Young Man's Exhortation had lost five songs and was grouped

in two equal parts of five songs each. Part I contained "A

Young Man's Exhortation," "Ditty," "Budmouth Dears," "Her

Temple," and "The Comet at Yell'ham." Part II included

"Shortening Days," "The Sigh," "Former Beauties,"

"Transformations," and "The Dance Continued." The omitted




21. E. Duncan-Rubbra, "Gerald Finzi," Monthly Musical Record LIX (1929), 194.

62

songs may have survived as some of the ten incomplete

manuscript sketches from the 1920's, but it is more likely

that these included "some of the songs which were eventually

published in two posthumous sets, of which *The Market-Girl'

(1927), xTwo Lips' (1928), *At a Lunar Eclipse' (1929), and

*1 Say I'll Seek Her' (1929) are known to date from this

period."22

Finzi accepted the difficulties of setting Hardy's

poems to music. Hardy (1840-1928), as a poet, endeavored to

write in a language which closely approximated that of

speech, and abhorred elaborate "jeweled lines." He

continuously experimented with rhythm, accent, and verse

form, avoiding any smooth flow.23 Hardy resorted frequently

to "anti-lyrical factors" in allowing his thoughts to avoid

endstopping lines. Often his sentences came to rest within

a line or flowed on from one line to another, in some cases

from stanza to stanza.24 "The language is by no means

always mellifluous. Lines . . . [were] . . . often

hard-packed with crusty sounds and sometimes teasing

inversion.1,25 These features caused Hardy's poetry to be


23. "Hardy, Thomas," The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 434.

24. Hold, op. cit.. 310.


63

quite difficult to set to music, yet Finzi set more poems by

Hardy than any other poet. Finzi also created more settings

by Hardy than did any other composer. At least 50 settings

appeared in three collections compiled in his lifetime and

in two of the posthumous collections. A Young Man's

Exhortation was the first of these collections that Finzi

compiled. His copy of Hardy's Collected Poems contained

those marked for future setting to music. Perhaps another

hundred were intended but never set.26

Speaking of Hardy's Collected Poems, Finzi once

commented to a friend that "if I had to be cut off from

everything, that would be the one book I should choose."

The connection between Finzi and Hardy is indicative of a

commitment closer even than Faure's with Verlaine,

Schumann's with Heine, or Wolf's with Morike.27 Recurring

themes in Hardy's writings reflected profound feelings with

which Finzi identified strongly. Among these which appeared

in the poems of A Young Man's Exhortation were the

preoccupation with time, and a focus on feelings and

emotion.28

Finzi published A Young Man's Exhortation with the two

parts given motto headings. Part I is entitled "Mane

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

64

floreat, et transeat. Ps. 89," which is translated, "In the

morning it flourisheth, and groweth up." Part II reads,

"Vespere decidat, induret, et arescat. Ps. 8 9 w h i c h is

translated as "In the evening it is cut down, and

withereth." These quotations are taken from Psalm 90 verse

six in the King James translation.29 The first part

contains poems which deal with various moods of young men

and love; the second part then deals with philosophical

retrospect under the shadow of man's age. This was the only

one of his song collections that has such a strong cyclic

connection due to the similarity of texts and progression or

unity of thought. Duncan-Rubbra reports on the unity of the

cycle which has been achieved, in spite of the diverse

character of the settings.30 However, Finzi gives freedom

to the performance of these in the index to A Young Man's

Exhortation: "although designed as a cycle, the two parts

or any of the numbers can be sung separately."31

The cycle has received criticism for certain of Finzi's

characteristic features: the lack of an overall tonal Q O ,

scheme, " little tonal cohesion within songs, and


30. Duncan-Rubbra, loc. cit.

31. Gerald Finzi, A Young Man's Exhortation (London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1933), composer's note.


65

nonpianistic writing in the accompaniments.33 Yet, its

strengths remain in the form of his other typical

procedures: strong lyrical imitation between voice and

accompaniment, exemplary word-settings, marching bass at

mention of passing of time, creative and effective

quasi-recitative portions, and striking beauty in simple

settings such as "The Sigh."34 Hardy's rather free style of

poetry, which incorporates lines of unequal length and

frequent abandonment of a clearly recognizable end rhyme, is

complimented by Finzi's varying phrase lengths and cadence

elision.35

Posthumous Works Designated for High Voice

In addition to the song collections published during

his lifetime, Finzi had planned several other volumes of

songs. There were to have been at least two more Hardy

sets, as well as groups of songs to various poets. Each of

these collections was to have been compiled, as was his

habit, from songs written throughout his life. With a

remarkable flourish of productivity during his last year,

Finzi had some two dozen songs ready for publication upon

his death. Editors Joyce Finzi, Christopher Finzi, and



35. Parker, OP. cit.. 12.

66

Howard Ferguson compiled the remaining titles into four

volumes, grouped in two sets for high voice and two for low.

Each vocal grouping contained one set of Hardy poems and one

set by miscellaneous authors. The songs were from different

time periods, containing his very last songs, as well as

pieces which had been written 30 years before.36 The

editors acknowledged that several songs were transposed in

order to compliment the set properly.37' 38 Either of the

two high voice sets would be appropriate for tenor

performance.

Till Earth Outwears

Till Earth Outwears, Op. 19a contains the following

songs on poems by Hardy: "Let Me Enjoy the Earth," "In

Years Defaced" (1936), "The Market-Girl" (1927), "I Look

into my Glass," "It Never Looks Like Summer" (Feb. 23,

1956), "At a Lunar Eclipse" (1929), and "Life Laughs Onward"

(March 1955).39 The set was published in 1958, and was



38. Ferguson, J. Finzi, et.al.. Editors' Note of G. Finzi's Till Earth Outwears. Editors recognizes Finzi's own indecision regarding the designation of "Life laughs onward" (one of the two songs which was transposed) as for baritone or tenor. "So the editors have felt justified in making the transpositions in order to fit the songs into the sets concerned."

39. Banfield, op. cit.. II, 446-447.

67

given its premiere performance on February 21, 1958, by

Wilfred Brown and Ferguson.40 Banfield reports that "Life

Laughs Onward" marked the beginning of Finzi's final burst

of song composition. Its even-tempered nature at the end of

the cycle provides a symmetrical compliment to the opening

"Let Me Enjoy the Earth." Banfield commends two other major

songs in the set: "In Years Defaced," where Finzi's

technique is most expressive and most typical, and "At a

Lunar Eclipse," an entirely unbarred song.41 Andrew Burn

singles out "At a Lunar Eclipse" as not only the best Hardy

song that Finzi ever set, but also as one of the greatest

English songs of the century.42 McVeagh praises "The

Market-Girl" for its exemplification of Finzi's parlando,

conversational style at its best.43 One should expect

within the collection the typical synthesis of Hardy-Finzi

associations.

Oh Fair to See

The second posthumous set appropriate for tenor is Oh

Fair to See, op. 13b, published in 1965. It contains


41. Banfield, op. cit.. I, 297-298.

42. Burn, record jacket notes from A Recital of English Songs.


68

Hardy's "I Say *I'll seek her"1 (1929), Christina Rossetti's

"Oh Fair to See" (1929), Edward Shanks' "As I Lay in the

Early Sun" (1921), Ivor Gurney's "Only the Wanderer" (1925),

Edmund Blunden's "To Joy" (1931), Blunden's "Harvest"

(1956), and Robert Bridge's "Since We Loved" (August 28,

1956).44 Ferguson states, "In spite of the very different

times at which they were written, the songs are surprisingly

consistent and show how little Gerald's style changed over

the years."45

"As I Lay in the Early Sun" is notably one of the

earliest songs written by Finzi. However, Banfield reports

that "I Say xl'll seek her'" is the earliest of the datable

songs in which "Finzi's stylistic resources are exploited to

the full; the poem gains a disturbing immediacy in the

setting, which rather overbalances the other songs in this

set."46 Banfield notes that "Harvest" is largely typical of

Finzi's vocal writing in its tendency to illuminate the mood

of the poem, rather than to depict it pictorially: "The

song is largely an internal, semi-arioso monologue

articulating its thoughts with stock rhetorical and


45. Howard Ferguson, letter to the author, February 23, 1993.


69

expressive devices."47 The last song of the set, "To Joy,"

is also the last song Finzi completed, one month before his

death.48 It has been recognized as a tribute to his dear

wife Joy49 and was the last selection performed at her

memorial service in 1991.50

47. Ibid.. I, 220.

48. Gerald Finzi, Till Earth Outwears. 22.


50. A Farewell Tribute, program from memorial service for Joy Finzi (1907-1991), St. Martin's Church, East Woodhay, England, September 14, 1991.

CHAPTER IV

STUDY OF DIES NATALIS

Many sources refer to Dies Natalis, a cantata for

soprano or tenor solo and string orchestra, as Gerald

Finzi's finest work. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and

Musicians refers to the solo cantata as a "minor masterpiece

of English music."1 Diana McVeagh evaluates the series of

five movements as satisfying as anything he ever wrote.2

C.M. Boyd commends its enduring quality: "This is music of

which successive hearings serve to increase our

admiration."3

Compositional and Performance Background

Compositional Circumstances

Finzi began initial work on Dies Natalis during the

fairly prolific London years. Three movements date from

1926: "Intrada," "Rhapsody (Recitativo stromentato) ,11 and

"The Salutation (Aria)."4 There is a striking similarity

between the Dies Natalis aria and the "Aria" of Farewell to



3. Boyd, op. cit.. 18. 4. Banfield, OP. cit.. II, 444.

70

71

Arms. Not only are they stylistically similar, but Finzi

also wrote them within a short span of time: "The

Salutation" in 1926 and Farewell to Arms "Aria" pre-1929.5

Furthermore, it is possible that there could be a direct

correlation between the strong contrapuntal nature of

Finzi's writing at this time period and the close proximity

of the period of studying counterpoint with Richard 0.

Morris in 1925.6

Thirteen years, a characteristic delay for Finzi,

passed between these initial compositional efforts and the

completion of Dies Natalis in 1939. He added the arioso

movement, "Wonder," in the 1930's. In typical fashion,

Finzi completed "The Rapture," the fast movement, last, in

1939, the same year the work was commissioned for

performance.7

Premiere Performance and Recording

With its scheduled performance at the Three Choirs

Festival at Hereford in 1939, Dies Natalis was to have

provided the general public with their first hearing of a

Finzi work at a major festival. The outbreak of World War

II, however, caused the cancellation of the festival,8 and

delayed the premiere performance of Dies Natalis until

5. Ibid. 6. McVeagh, "Gerald Finzi," Hifi, 68.

7. Ibid. 8. Banfield, op. cit.. II, 328.

72

January 26, 1940.9 Finzi thought himself fortunate to

secure a humble lunchtime performance at Wigmore Hall with

Maurice Miles conducting.10 Elsie Suddaby, the young

soprano whom he had heard as Bairstow's pupil, had been

scheduled to sing the cantata for the festival and was

secured to sing at this private concert. Suddaby was a

well known English singer who, in the words of Howard

Ferguson, "had one of those very pure, slightly boyish

voices which was absolutely ideal for Dies."11

Ferguson goes on to describe the awkward first

recording of Dies Natalis with Joan Cross and the Boyd Neel

Orchestra:

The Arts Council wanted to record it, and for some reason they didn't choose Elsie Suddaby. They got Joan Cross. Dear Joan was a marvelous opera singer but she was absolutely the wrong person for that work, and to add to the disaster, the electricity supplied during the recording failed, just konked out and they had to-begin again. In the middle of the recording the pitch changes. You know it was just one of those things when everything went wrong.12

The poor quality of the recording is unfortunate, for

it is one of the only recordings made within Finzi's

lifetime. Furthermore, due to the illness of Boyd Neel

during one portion of the recording, Finzi actually

9. Ibid.. II, 444.


11. Ferguson, interview. 12. Ibid.

73

conducted one movement.13 This makes the recording all the

more unusual as Finzi was never asked to conduct his own

works for recording.14

Historical Performance Perspective

Finzi, however, did get the opportunity to conduct Dies

Natalis in its first Three Choirs Festival performance in

1946 at Hereford and in 1947 at Gloucester. In 1946, the

solo part was taken by soprano Suddaby once again and, in

1947, by tenor Eric Greene.15 It is possible that the

latter performance by the tenor was a foreshadowing of

things to come. Later, Finzi, upon hearing an American

recording of Dies Natalis performed by William Ventura,

indicated that he preferred performance by tenor voice.16

In 1964, Christopher Finzi was asked to conduct Dies Natalis

for the first recording of any of Gerald's works after his


14. McVeagh, "A Finzi Discography," Tempo. 19.

15. Richard Birt, "Three Choirs and Traherne's love of Bells," Traherne Association Newsletter I (December, 1991), 1.

16. C. Finzi, loc. cit. Regarding Dies Natalis:

" . . . it was only later, when he heard a tenor, that he. preferred a tenor doing it. He had a great American friend, Bernard Hammond, who sent over this recording of William Ventura doing it. My father heard it and he thought he preferred it with tenor."

74

death. Wilfred Brown, a tenor who had studied the work with

Gerald and who was his choice in several performances, was

selected to do the solo.17 Many see this as the definitive

recording of Dies Natalis.ie Christopher Finzi notes the

popularity of the Wilfred Brown recording as one of the

plausible reasons for what he recognizes as an English

performing tradition of the work being sung by tenor. He

states that "it is comparatively rarely done by a soprano;

but frequently done by tenor now."19 Richard Birt of the

Traherne Association notes that it is not generally

recognized that Finzi wrote the part for either voice.20

Background=on_Text_of=Dies=J7atalis

Author Thomas Traherne

Finzi's text for Dies Natalis was drawn from his rather

extensive collection of 17th century metaphysical

literature, specifically from the writings of Thomas

Traherne (C1637-1674). Traherne, a learned Anglican priest,

"well-versed in Neoplatonic and Hermetic writings, as well

17. McVeagh, "A Finzi Discography," Tempo. 19.

18. Andrew Green, presenter, & Claire Campbell Smith, producer, "The Gift Doth Me Enflame: A Portrait of Wilfred Brown," BBC radio broadcast, 1990.


20. Birt, loc. cit.

75

as in church history and theology,"21 received multiple

degrees as an Oxford scholar.22 Two principle positions

occupied his short adult life. The first, in 1657, began

with a return to his native Herefordshire, where the young

orphan had been raised by wealthy relatives. There, at the

young age of twenty, he was appointed Rector of Credenhill,

a small rural parish five miles outside of Hereford.23

Beginning in 1669, he served as "Chaplain to the Lord

Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, who had

presided over the trial of those who condemned King Charles

to death."24 He lived there in London, combining the

chaplaincy with his ministry as Vicar of Teddington, until

his death in 1674, at the age of 37.25' 26

21. Margaret Bottrall, "Thomas Traherne: A Book from Heaven," at Symposium on Parole Biblique et Inspiration Litteraire, organized by Groupe de Recherche Litterature et Religion, Universite Paris-Nord, Chantilly, September 1988. Transcript photocopied, Traherne Association, 1.

22. Gladys Wade, Preface to The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1965), xxxix. Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, Bachelor of Divinity.

23. Margaret Bottrall, Celebrating Traherne Booklet published to mark the Herfordshire Traherne Festival, 1991 (Weobley, England: The Traherne Press, 1991), 2.

24. Bottrall, "Thomas Traherne: A Book from Heaven," 1.

25. Bottrall, Celebrating Traherne. 2.

26. Richard Birt, "New Vicar at Teddington," Traherne Association Newsletter III (October, 1992), 1. St. Mary's Church Teddington records indicate that Traherne was buried there . . . October 10, 1674.

76

Only one work was published in Traherne's lifetime; two

were published shortly after his death, the second

anonymously.27' 28 However, after two hundred years of

oblivion, Traherne's fine devotional writings were

discovered and identified, and he was recognized, at last,

as one of the finest writers of the 17th century. The

manuscripts for the Centuries of Meditation, along with

poems, were rediscovered in 1895 in a second-hand bookshop

bin. Brilliant literary detective work established

Traherne's authorship and led to the first publications in

1903 and 1908 by Bertram Dobell.29' 30 Several other works

have since been discovered, including one volume upon a

27. Wade, Preface to The Poetical Works, xlix. He published Roman Forgeries in 1673. Christian Ethicks was the first work published soon after his death.

28. Bottrall, Celebrating Traherne. 1. The Thanksgivings was published in 1699 anonymously:

"The author of the preface to the volume (himself unnamed, but clearly a personal friend of Traherne's) preserves this anonymity by remarking dismissively,*To tell thee who he was is, I think, to no purpose, and I will therefore only tell thee what he was."'

29. Farrar, introduction to Thomas Traherne's Centuries of Meditation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), ix.

30. Bottrall, Celebrating Traherne. l. One of the clues that led to the identification of the Poems and the Centuries was the fact that the sources mentioned the author's connection to the "late Lord Keeper Bridgeman" as Chaplain.

77

burning rubbish heap in 1962.31 Several volumes of his work

have yet to be published. In recent years, a gradual

reawakening of interest has led to the formation of the

Traherne Association in 1991 and the second of festivals

held in his honor.32

As a speculative and imaginative theologian, Traherne

was equally at home in his two professional positions, in

Restoration London and in the leafy surroundings of

Hereford. Such duality is reflected in his writings, which

contain a wide range of intellectual and creative content.33

Roman Forgeries, Traherne's only work published during his

lifetime, was an argumentative, arid work dealing with

forged insertions in the canons and decretals of the Roman

Catholic Church. Presumably, this was the effort that

31. Richard Birt, interview at Weobley, Herefordshire, England, September 28, 1992.

32. Richard Birt, "A Gentle Revival," The Traherne Society. Preliminary Newsletter (September, 1991), 1.

33. Donald Allchin, "Thomas Traherne - the Gift of Friendship," at the 1991 Traherne Celebration, Credenhill Church, Herefordshire, England, June 29, 1991. Transcript photocopied, Traherne Association, 2. Allchin notes the variety of themes in Traherne's writings, including those intellectual: 1.Roman Forgeries—controversial nature of debate 2.The Church's Year Book—liturgically minded, priestly 3.Commentaries of Heaven—tireless intellectual quest 4.Christian Ethicks—expounds Christian way of virtue

And including those more creative, romantic, meditative: 1.Centuries of Meditation 2.Select Meditations—written roughly same time as the Centuries, young, ardent, sometimes anxious.

78

gained him the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1669.

Christian Ethicks or the Way to Blessedness, a deliberate

work of evangelism and exposition for sophisticated readers

with whom he was associated in London, was published the

year after his death.34

Textual Sources for Dies Natalis

General Subject Matter. In contrast to the

aforementioned works are those for which Traherne is more

well-known, and those which inspired Finzi in the writing of

Dies Natalis, specifically the early twentieth century

discoveries: Poems of Felicity and Centuries of Meditation.

Herein, Traherne asserts the virtues of spiritual

enlightenment and happiness seen by evoking childhood

innocence and rapturous response to beauty in the created

world. These writings reflect the mystical experiences

which came to Traherne while living in his rural parish at

Credenhill, still considered one of the loveliest parts of

England: "When I came into the country, and being seated

among silent trees had all my time in my own hands, I

resolved to spend it all, whatever it cost me, in search of

happiness. . . ."35


35. Thomas Traherne, Centuries (Oxford: A.R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., 1975), Century 111/46, 134.

79

Writings of this latter variety gained for Traherne

. . . a great reputation among spiritually-minded people, as a mystic with a lyrical imagination, who was a master of eloquent rhapsodic prose. His poems attracted considerable attention too. . . . Anthologists like Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy and Victor Gollancz in A Year of Grace and From Darkness to Light made available to quite a wide public passages from Traherne which glorify the natural world, and exalt the innocent eye of childhood, and celebrate mankind's insatiable desire for felicity. Such passages are indeed unmistakably characteristic of Traherne, and they establish his spiritual kinship with Blake and Wordsworth. . . . Their very beauty, and the strength of their appeal to readers not normally drawn to devotional writings, have surrounded Traherne with an aura of Romanticism. . . ,36

Poems of Felicity. Along with the plaudits it has

received for content and ideas, Traherne's poetry has been

criticized for technical weaknesses of structure. Margaret

Bottrall states that the best of them are less arresting

than the prose and tend to be diffuse and repetitive,

expressing "versifications of the same ideas . . . he

expresses more memorably elsewhere.1,37 However, Gladys Wade

remarks that regardless of these failings, no poet has "more

of the impetuous rush of a mind lifted into ecstasy beyond

itself than Traherne. No poet writes with more absolute

spontaneity than he."38


37. Ibid.

38. Wade, Preface to The Poetical Works, lxv.

80

Bertram Dobell's publication of 1903, The Poetical

Works of Thomas Traherne was produced from an original

manuscript by Traherne. Additional editings were indicated

on this manuscript in an unknown handwriting. This

handwriting was later discovered to be that of Traherne's

brother, Phillip, who was attempting to address technical

weaknesses. Phillip made these technical corrections and

prepared for publication some of Thomas' poems, entitled

Poems of Felicity, Vol. I, Containing Divine Reflections on

the Native Objects of an Infant-Ey. These poems were not

printed, for some reason, and survived only in a manuscript,

which appeared in the B.M. Burney Manuscript #392. They

were first published in 1910, and edited by Dr. H.I. Bell.

Phillip Traherne's corrections and mutations abound in 23 of

the 59 poems in the set edited by Bell. These corrections

considerably improved the technique but diminished some of

the beauty of the originals. A duller orthodoxy was

substituted for Thomas' radiant spirituality, possibly due

to a lesser spiritual understanding.39

Both editions contain the three poems used as text

sources for the last three movements of Dies Natalis, "The

Rapture," "Wonder," and "The Salutation." A comparison of

39. Ibid., vii. The 23 poems contain 1287 lines in the original versions by Thomas Traherne where the Burney Manuscript shows 452 lines which were altered or deleted. 35% of the poems were adjusted.

81

both editions shows word and punctuation changes were made

by phillip in all three poems. Furthermore, in the latter

poem, Phillip deleted the sixth of seven stanzas.40 (See

Appendix C.)

Finzi's published score of Dies Natalis prints the

texts of the songs separately with the following credit:

"The words of this Cantata are reprinted from *The Poetical

Works of Thomas Traherne' and xCenturies of Meditations' by

Thomas Traherne by kind permission of the publishers,

Messrs. P.J. & A.E. Dobell. . . ."41 Gerald Finzi had

copies of the 1906 Dobell 2nd edition of Traherne's original

poems, the 1910 Bell edition of Phillip Traherne's

"corrected versions," and a 1932 publication The Poetical

Works of Thomas Traherne edited by Wade, published by P.J.

and A.E. Dobell.42 It is obvious that Finzi's credit for

the Dies Natalis text is given to this Wade edition of 1932,

which faithfully reprinted both the original Dobell and Bell

editions.43 A comparison of Finzi's songs to both editions

40. Ibid. Wade's book contains both Bell and Dobell manuscripts.

41. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis Winthrop Rogers Edition (London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1939).

42. Pauline Dingley. The Finzi Book Room at the University of Reading; A Catalogue (Reading, England: The Library of the University of Reading, 1981), 35.

43. The 1965 Wade ed. published by Cooper Square Publ. is apparently a third edition of the 1932 Dobell Publ. book by the same editor. Contents of the two are the same.

82

of the poetry establishes that Finzi's source for Dies

Natalis was not the original poetry of Traherne edited by

Dobell, but Phillip Traherne's versions of the Bell edition.

(See Appendix C.) Except for certain omitted stanzas,

Finzi's settings are identical to those found in that

edition.44 This finding has not been previously reported.

(See Fig. 1.)

Figure 1. A textual comparison of versions of Traherne's poetry

with Finzi's Dies Natalis adaptations.

Dobell edition: Thomas Traherne's Original Versions

Bell edition: Phillip Traherne's Altered Versions

Finzi's Adaptations for Dies Natalis

"The Rapture" Poem #8

4 stanzas

"The Rapture" Poem #10

Makes slight word & punctuation changes

"The Rapture" Movement III

Text is identical to Bell ed.

"Wonder" Poem #2

8 stanzas

"Wonder" Poem #2

Makes slight word & punctuation changes

"Wonder" Movement IV -

Text identical to Bell ed. but uses only stanzas #1-3

"The Salutation" Poem #1 7 stanzas

"The Salutation" Poem #1

Omits stanza #6 + Makes many word & punctuation changes

"The Salutation" Movement V

Text identical to Bell ed.but omits

stanzas #3-4

44. G. Finzi, Dies Natalis.

83

Centuries of Meditation. Traherne's Centuries was

Finzi's source of text for movement II of Dies Natalis.

This body of prose has gained a great deal of admiration.

C.S. Lewis refers to Traherne's Centuries as "the most

beautiful thing in English literature,1,45 and Bottrall

refers to his prose as "powerful, unlaboured, sometimes

brilliantly memorable."46

In the Centuries, Traherne was writing primarily for

the benefit of a friend who had provided him a blank

manuscript book.47 Segments of text are numbered

consecutively, with each one hundred segments forming a

"century." The fifth Century was left unfinished, with only

ten segments completed.48 His intention was to share and

expound his own experienced path to happiness or felicity

with a special woman friend. Although nothing can be

45. Richard Birt, "C.S. Lewis and Traherne," Traherne Association Newsletter III, l. Lewis made the following recommendation: "For meditative and devotional reading (a little bit at a time, more like sucking a lozenge than eating a slice of bread) I suggest . . . Traherne's Centuries (joyous)."



48. Farrar, op. cit. . ix.

84

proved, much conjecture has been associated with the

identity of this friend.49' 50

Contemporary scholars believe that the Centuries were

written during Traherne's time at Credenhill:

The peace and quiet of Credenhill provided just the conditions that Traherne needed when he set about his systematic search for felicity. Intellectually stimulated by Oxford, he could now sort out his thoughts and intuitions about the right relationship of the human spirit to the worlds of nature and grace. The Centuries are the fruit of his hours of meditating.51

Finzi adapted his text for "Rhapsody" from the third of

these Centuries, segments 1-3. Within the third Century,

Traherne traced his spiritual growth from an idealized

infancy through a time of confusion to the achievement of

inner felicity.52 Finzi made great reductions and altered

the order of the original text. (See Appendix C.)

Traherne7s philosophy of finding happiness in simple

innocence is a recurrent theme in the Centuries as in many

49. Allchin, op. cit.. 3. Earlier commentators assumed that SH, referred to in Traherne's manuscript, was Susanna Hopton, but there is no certain proof of this.

50. Bottrall, Celebrating Traherne. 3. Bottrall speculates concerning Hopton: "Traherne writes as a mentor, an expert expounding his doctrine of felicity to a novice." Hopton was no spiritual infant. She was 10 years older . . . and his social superior."

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

85

of his works. "He clearly thinks that life is a constant

process of being overlaid with things that distort from the

true vision."53 Graham Dowell explains:

How is the poor Christian to find the greenest of greens we call happiness or fulfillment, and which Traherne calls Felicity? His answer is simple - perhaps too simple. He says there was a time when we got it right, in childhood before all the complications and distractions of sin - the "cumber and lumber" of it all - entered in and took over. He recalls the vision of the "innocent eye. . . . I was an Adam there, a little Adam in a sphere of joys. . . . I must become a child again."54

Traherne sees the childhood element as both a symbolic

innocence and a reference to the Christian experience of new

birth. This new birth is like a peeling away of the outer

layers to rediscover purity. Other themes connect:

gratitude for redemption and embracing the world, "the

Creation he calls *the beautiful frontispiece of

Eternity,'"55 as a gift from God for our enjoyment.

Although Traherne7s original intent was profoundly

Christian and highly biblical, experts note that these

aspects tend to be de-emphasized in favor of a more

53. Birt, interview.

54. Graham Dowell, "The Green Traherne," at the 1991 Traherne Celebration, Weobley Church, Herefordshire, England, June 30, 1991, Transcript photocopied, Traherne Association, 4.

55. Ibid.

86

universal, Romantic appeal.56' 57 Finzi's deletions of text

from the Centuries have been recognized as strictly

artistic,58 yet it is possible that such choices support the

de-emphasis of the Christian undertones of Traherne's

writing and highlight the Romantic interpretation. What

prevails in Finzi's setting is a "single-minded expression

of joy and wonder for consciousness and existence," detailed

from the innocent perspective of a child.59 The Dies

Natalis, translated as day of birth, "is the reaction,

imaginary reaction, of a newborn child seeing the world for

the first time with eyes that are completely innocent and

simply amazed at the beauty of the world."60

56. Bottrall, "Thomas Traherne: A Book from Heaven," 2. Bottrall sees the previously mentioned "aura of Romanticism" as perhaps distorting "his historic actuality." Priestly aspects are often neglected, and "insufficient attention is paid to the biblical material and the many fervent prayers that are woven into Centuries of Meditation."

57. Birt, interview. Birt referred to a Penguin publication of all the poems, which also includes part of the Centuries, but leaves out the parts on the cross . . . which he feels is quite a blunder. This tends to leave the image that Traherne is a romantic/philosophic figure.

58. C. Finzi, loc. cit. Christopher downplays the role of his father's agnosticism.

59. R.A. Hall, '"Minor' Masterpiece," Fanfare III/2 (March-April 1980), 86.

60. Diana McVeagh, from "The Gift Doth Me Enflame BBC radio broadcast.

9 II

87

Finzi and Traherne

It is significant fact that Bertram Dobell, who

rediscovered Traherne at the turn of the century, was

himself an agnostic. However, he believed that those of

many different creeds, or none, could profit from studying

Traherne's writings.61 Dobell states in his "Preface":

Much as I dissent from his opinions, and much as my point of view as regards the meaning and purpose of life differs from his, I have yet found it easy to appreciate the fineness of his character, and the charm of his writings. It is not necessary that we should believe as Traherne believed in order to derive benefit from his work. Men of all faiths may study them with profit, and derive from them a new impulse towards that "plain living and high thinking," by which alone happiness can be reached and peace of mind assured.62

As Finzi himself was an agnostic, perhaps these thoughts

could have been his own.

Although the disparateness of their beliefs might have

made Traherne an odd choice for the fascination of Finzi, a

strong connection was nonetheless evident. A brief study of

these connections can provide plausible reasons for Finzi's

selection.

Finzi was a fierce champion of the "choice" and

neglected,63 as has been previously revealed by his

61. Birt, "A Gentle Revival" The Traherne Society, l.

62. Bertram Dobell quoted in preface by Gladys Wade to Traherne's The Poetical Works, lxxxv.


88

editorial and publication efforts with composers like Hubert

Parry and Ivor Gurney. Such patronage extended into all

facets of his life, to include his important literary

collection of many rare volumes,64 and even the large apple

orchard surrounding Church Farm, in which he saved many rare

varieties from extinction.65 The choice of Traherne is

telling, therefore, for Finzi came to know Traherne's

writings when his rediscovery was relatively fresh and the

writer still little-known.66

It is obvious that Finzi was strongly attracted to the

thematic material and not just the writer himself, for

similar material appears in yet another major work, a choral

setting based on a William Wordsworth text, The Intimations

of Immortality. At the early discovery of Traherne's

writings, commentators noted remarkably similar themes

between portions of Traherne's third Century and the

Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early

Childhood, by Wordsworth.67 Comparisons of the two show

both dealing with the glory of childhood innocence and its

perspective of the world. It is a striking coincidence that

64. Dingley, loc. cit.


66. McVeagh, from "The Gift Doth Me Enflame . BBC radio broadcast.

/ II

67. Dobell quoted in preface by Gladys Wade to Traherne's The Poetical Works, lxxix.

89

Wordsworth was a frequent sojourner to a small church in the

beautiful Herefordshire countryside, barely five miles from

Traherne's own Credenhill.68 Despite slight variations in

their portrayal of the theme,69' 70 Finzi was evidently

drawn to the singular inspiration of both poets, who, though

unknown to each other, produced works which are virtually

identical in substance and spirit.71

What about this singular material was so strongly

attractive to Finzi? Throughout his life, Finzi was

preoccupied with the themes of life's brevity and of

experience tarnishing the innocent state of childhood.72

Perhaps the psychiatric studies of Traherne's work by Andrew

Brink and Anthony Storr can shed some light. They see

Traherne's philosophy at some level as a kind of

compensation for the early loss of his parents, a reaching

68. Russell, "Gerald Finzi - An English Composer," Tempo XXX, 12. Both Wordsworth and Traherne deal with the glory of childhood innocence. In Traherne this glory merges into a sustained wonder that one is alive to enjoy living; while in Wordsworth, it fades into the light of common day. Innocence merges into experience.

69. Long, OP. cit.. 8. "Where Wordsworth discusses, Traherne meditates in a mood of mystic joy upon the divine intimations of the child's first ecstatic entry into the world."

70. Birt, interview.

71. Dobell, loc. cit.


90

out for a happiness which he never had.73 Banfield states

directly that Finzi's "need to express Wordsworth's and

Traherne's sense of childhood ecstasy was a sublimation of

what had been denied him in his youth."74 Finzi's own

skeptical view of his childhood is revealed in a quotation

from just before his marriage in 1933, when he refers to the

Wordsworth text:

For the first time in my life, or since my infancy (for I suppose that there was a time when xevery common sight to me did seem appareled in celestial light' - though I can't remember it) things have appeared rather more happy and clearly.75

Regardless of the causes, Finzi, as an adult, "like

Traherne, valued a child's vision of life, something pure,

strange, beautiful, and unsmirched by the sort of constraint

that we grow into as we become more adult and

experienced.1176 He saw without illusion that perceptiveness

can be diminished by worldly responsibilities and rewards.

He cherished aspects of freshness, intuitiveness, and the

73. Richard Birt, "Traherne analyzed." Traherne Association Newsletter III (October 1992), 2. Birt presents some contradiction to the ideas presented in the Storr and Brink studies.



76. McVeagh, from "The Gift Doth Me Enflame . . . ," BBC radio broadcast.

91

ability to bear tension and excitement.77 With Finzi, the

freedom or ability to respond emotionally was the essential

element in keeping the childhood core intact. Christopher

Finzi acknowledges this emotional response as his father's

essential link with Traherne and Wordsworth as well as with

Hardy, overshadowing any difference of creed or viewpoint.78

Overview of Dies Natalis

For the musical setting of his collection of Traherne

texts, Finzi chose another reflection of times past: the

solo cantata, echoing in overall form that of a Bach solo

cantata. Five movements are given titles not only

indicative of the textual setting but also reflective of the

style of the movement itself:

I. "Intrada" (Strings only)

II. "Rhapsody" (Recitativo Stromentato)

III. "The Rapture" (Danza)

IV. "Wonder" (Arioso)

V. "The Salutation" (Aria)

In the work as a whole, multiple key areas are explored

in Finzi's traditional fashion. With occasional modal use,

the tonality can be ambiguous at crucial times. As

previously noted, Finzi did not feel obligated to end a



92

piece in the same key in which he began, and the first four

movements of the cantata bear this out. An overview of the

cantata, however, does appear to reveal a predominant G key

center. If Finzi's compositional practices were followed

characteristically, it is doubtful that this was an

intentional organizational attempt.

Unlike the majority of Finzi's song collections, Dies

Natalis does contain unifying textual material. Finzi's

assigning the work the descriptive Latin title is unusual

for him, due to its summarizing and descriptive function.

However, as is the case in all of his other collections,

there is no real evidence of cyclic treatment between songs,

except between movements I and II. The other movements

appear to have no obvious motivic interconnection. (As will

be discussed later, however, there is some controversy

regarding this issue.) It is possible that one could

perceive some similarity between the theme of III, at

measures 49-52, with the opening motive of IV, at measures

1-2. Finzi's consistent stylistic practice does not support

such perception, however.

With regard to performance applications, Christopher

Finzi, the composer's son who studied this work with his

father and conducted the exemplary recording with Wilfred

Brown, gives valid generalizations. Finzi's interpretative

indications on the whole tend to be overdone. It must be

clear that Finzi looked to the interpreter for an

93

intelligent and sensitive performance. Special concerns

exist with regard to tempo indications:

On the whole, he had problems with metronome marks. He worked very carefully at them. But again, when you do metronome marks in theory, you know, you set there and you tend to make them too fast, because your mind doesn't encounter the actual problems with the sound.79

One must take into account that, although the metronome

markings are Finzi's original indications, they were

conceived of theoretically. Christopher also remarks that,

in general, his father would have originally written Dies

Natalis as a piano score and then orchestrated it, as was

consistent with his practice. Piano performance is an

acceptable alternative, if necessary. However, it is very

difficult to do well at the piano, especially in the case of

movement III.80

McVeagh refers to Dies Natalis as "quintessential

Finzi."81 Not only is the work seen as a masterpiece, but

it is also recognized as characteristic of all his vocal

writing. Individual song analyses reveal many

representative elements. Christopher Finzi's valuable

insights into specific problematic segments of Dies Natalis

may provide excellent information for appropriate

interpretation of his father's vocal works in general.

79. Ibid! 80. Ibid. ~ ~

81. McVeagh, "Gerald Finzi," Hifi. 68.

94

Sona-bv-Sonq Analysis and Performance Application

"Intrada"

The "Intrada" serves as an instrumental overture, of

five minutes duration. Its basic form is ternary, A B A'.82

Section A unfolds without rest for 36 measures in

essentially a four-part, highly contrapuntal texture, with

much imitation between individual lines, a signature feature

of Finzi's writing. An arching scalar motive in simple

compound meter, identical to that used at the opening of

movement II, dominates both A sections. This motive is set

in various forms, briefly in G mixolydian and A minor, then

for extended portions in D minor and G minor. Section B,

measures 37-120, set in simple duple meter, contains motivic

themes which are repeated in the fourth segment of movement

II (measures 93-151). Finzi's characteristic Elgarian

pizzicato bass, with a lyrical two-part texture, merges into

a more chordal, dramatic portion, largely based on rising

motivic sequences which climax the movement. Section B

predominantly explores Eb major, G minor, and C minor key

areas. The return to A' at measure 121, progressively

reduces speed until its close at measure 144. D minor is

82. Edward Allen Pierce, A Video Cassette Analysis and Performance of Song Cycles bv Ralph Vauahan Williams. Gerald Finzi. and Ivor Gurney with Short Commentary on Each. D.M.A. dissertation (The University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 1975: University Microfilms, 536687), 55.

95

largely favored in the section, with a long pedal point on

the dominant A coming to rest with a half cadence. An

optional final cadence is given with the direction from

Finzi that these last two bars are to be played only when

the "Intrada" is to be performed separately.83

Previous research presents conflicting views as to the

thematic material present in this initial movement. Edward

Allen Pierce states that the "Intrada" contains motives from

every section of the cantata but fails to support this with

adequate illustration.84 Christopher Finzi states that, of

the first set of works written, the "Intrada" was written

after the songs and that it was basically composed of all

the themes from the rest.85 Such a statement when combined

with knowledge of Finzi's order of completion could only

support thematic connection between the "Intrada" and

movements II and V. This could possibly be supported by

considering the B section of the "Intrada", with its

pizzicato bass texture as being similar to the same texture

which is present in movement V. However, Finzi's general

compositional practice does not support the use of cyclic

development of motives. In N.G. Long's view, the "Intrada"

presents thematic material which is continued in the second

movement only.86

83. G. Finzi, Dies Natalis. 10. 84. Pierce, loc. cit.

85. C. Finzi, loc. cit. 86. Long, OP. cit.. 8.

96

"Rhapsody"

"Rhapsody" is the longest of the song movements (see

Fig. 2) and is based on the longest text.

Figure 2. Generalities of length in the songs of Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis

Song Meter Tempo Total measures Duration

II. 6/8 dotted quarter =c72

161 6.33

III. 2/2 half =Cl04

147 3.53

IV. 6/4-3/2 varies

quarter =c66

51 4.17

V. 4/4 quarter =C69

58 4.33

Finzi's choice of recitativo stromentato is appropriate

considering the lengthy prose text. Furthermore,

considering the choice of recitative, the movement is, not

surprisingly, through-composed. Finzi's altered order

extractions from Traherne's Centuries of Meditation, 3rd

Century, segments 1-3, provide the textual source.

Distinct musical sections correspond to the groups of

thoughts presented by Finzi's textual arrangement. The

first musical segment, approximately measures 1-33,

corresponds to the introductory thoughts summed up by "I was

a stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted

and surrounded with innumerable joys." The second segment,

97

measures 34-62a, presents textual comparisons between the

child in his surroundings and Adam in Paradise. Both have

perceptions of the world imbued with newness and purity.

The third segment, measures 62b-92, frames the child's

ecstatic response to specific aspects of nature. The fourth

segment, measures 93-151, sets to music the child's

descriptions of humanity and the innocence of its own

existence. The coda, measures 152-161, presents the final

sentence: "Everything was at rest, free and immortal."

These sections are defined musically by changes of

key, texture, and unique thematic material. Most segments

unfold melodically without repetition apparently as

effortless outgrowths of the text. Finzi uses repeated

motivic material from another section in only one place.

The fourth segment, measures 131-134, in the orchestra part,

contains a transposed version of motives derived from

segment 1, measures 5-8. Only the fourth segment contains

motivic repetition in the vocal line. This occurs in

measures 116-131 and musically draws more attention to the

textual listing of aspects of the child's innocence. The

effective use of appoggiaturas and other accented non-chord

tones herein is a characteristic tool utilized by Finzi to

transmit the mood of the text. Here, the phrases beginning

with "I knew not . . . " almost present a subtext of sadness,

to indicate the unfortunate presence of these things now in

adulthood. (See Example 1.)

98

Example 1. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, II. "Rhapsody", measures 113-129.

J

knew not., that they were bora or should die: but all things a

i 1

- bid - ed 0 • tor -

(I-1 3 ^ ^ 9

I -t r r ^

r 5

I

; — - _ 2 1

knew not...L that there were

*• ^ =

n J LJ 1 1 1 -—J i r 1 If J jjr' :::

«ns or. corn-plaints or dreamd not

99

The orchestral accompaniment is basically chordal,

except for points of vocal rests at phrase endings.

Typically at these points, the orchestra is given polyphonic

statements of imitative motives based on those just stated

in the vocal lines. (See Examples 1 & 2.) This is

characteristic of Finzi's treatment of interludes and is a

technique in use throughout the entire song. Of a similar

nature are the points, such as measure 116, (Example 1) in

which the orchestra anticipates the vocal motive with a

partial statement overlapping with the vocal entrance in

stretto fashion. These interlude points with worked out

motivic treatment possibly could be examples of Finzi's "art

concealing art," providing joints for his separately

inspired vocal fragments.

The tempo marking, andante con moto, with a 6/8 meter

throughout, gives a sort of meandering quality. Many brief

changes in tempo generally coincide with vocal cadences,

climaxes, and sectional changes. The winding nature

continues as a wide variety of keys and tonal centers are

explored, some of them quite distant in relationship,

progressing from D mixolydian, to G major, E major, F minor,

G-sharp minor, E-flat major, C minor, B-flat major, C major,

and finally A minor.

100

Example 2. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, II. measures 137-145.

"Rhapsody",

gy cresc

saw all

m the peace of E - den

F Ritard

Although overtly pictorial realism is not a typical

trait of Finzi's, a few examples of word painting can be

perceived. Finzi places a grace note on the word "sing" in

measure 37, not as an imitation of the sound of the word, as

is his typical case, but evidently to depict a singing

101

quality. The presentation of "everything was at rest" in

the coda is accompanied by instructions for "semplice" and

less motion. The texture of the accompaniment anticipates

this with the preceding cadence which ends on open octaves

and then continues with the extremely simple, sparse texture

of measures 152-161. In the fourth segment, the plucked

walking bass line anticipates the "venerable creatures"

spoken of in the following narrative. This figure continues

under the appearance of the textual reference to these aged

ones. (See Example 3.)


0 what

m r r-pma sonoro

W

IP f * ^ r w (pizz.) i r 1 p i

\ * • 1 •

ve - ne - ra- ble crea-tures did the a - ged seeml... f p i lm - mor - tal

(arco)

102

Finzi's striking use of complex rhythms and pitch

inflection to match the nuance of speech is admirably

exemplified in "Rhapsody." The rhythms throughout this song

are indeed exceptional in their reproduction of the natural

rhythms of speech. No finer combinations of metric accent,

durational accent, and rhythm could be used better to set

the English language than Finzi's recitative-like sections.

Of note also is the use of pitch to approximate the natural

inflection of speech, admirably demonstrated in Example 4:


The green trees, when I saw them first, trans-port-ed and ra-yishd me, their

* i IF

¥

$ Tf J

p Animate

sweet-ness and on - u-sual beau-ty made my heart to leap, and ai-most mad._

103

Combining pitch and durational accent, Finzi brings

emotional impact to climactic words and phrases, within a

vocal range of d to a-sharp'. Furthermore, the work never

suffers from boredom due to the varying of the more lyrical

segments with the "patter" [secco] style recitative over

sustained chords (Example 5).


Tenuto - (ItberamenU)

The corn was a- ri-ent and tm

- mor - tai wheat, which ne-vershould be reap'd nor was e-ver sown.

I thought it had stood from e - ver last - ing to e- ver-last - ing.

104

In many other places in Dies Natalis Finzi uses these

characteristic touches with word-setting, but perhaps no

other musical setting of the English language could be any

more idiomatically appropriate than this.

In terms of performance application, Christopher Finzi

extends two statements of caution, both regarding matters of

tempo. First, he notes that the segue between the "Intrada"

and "Rhapsody" is done typically with entirely too much

ritard. This should actually be quite small. Secondly he

comments on segment three, at the "colla voce" marking. It

is the general tendency for singers to execute that area

much too slowly. What Finzi intended was more of a natural

conversational speed: "just very, very spoken."87

"The Rapture"

Textually, "The Rapture" marks Finzi's exit from

Traherne's prose setting to the poetry. As previously

stated, "The Rapture" is taken from the 1910 Bell edition of

Phillip Traherne's version of Thomas' poem. Finzi's setting

is identical to that of the same title, listed as #10 in the

Poems of Felicity. The fourth stanza's summing up is given

climactic emphasis by slowing to half-tempo and presenting


105

the text in a maestoso setting. Herein Traherne makes what

is perhaps his most significant philosophic statement:88

how divinely blessed he is to be the recipient of "all this

sacred Wealth."

No great change in the mood of the words has occurred

from the second movement, but musical variety is needed.89

In achieving this, Finzi creates a setting of joyous

exhilaration in which to interpret the text. Andrew Burn

notes two inspirations for "The Rapture": "the carved

angels of March Church in Cambridgeshire and the Botticelli

Nativity in the National Gallery."90 Finzi called the

movement "Danza," marked Allegro vivace e giojoso. The

lively dance, present in the orchestral ritornello, is

almost complete in itself with two clearly defined sections.

In structure, this movement receives sectional

treatment somewhat like a rondo. The following chart

illustrates these organizational features and their

coordination with the text. (See Fig. 3.)

88. Pierce, OP. cit.. 69.

89. Long, loc. cit.


106

Figure 3. Structural Development of Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis Movement III: "The Rapture"

Section Measures Text Musical Description

A 1-18

(1-6) (7-11)

(12-17)

Tempo: Allegro vivace e giojoso Instrumental introduction based on the following recurring ideas: al=Opening trill figure a2=Sweeping, conjunct melody in

uppermost voice; over dis-jointed pizzicato chords

a3=Rhythmic/ often syncopated, chordal alternations

A' 18-49 Stanza one

Vocal Segment + Interlude al repeated intact a2 extended and varied somewhat a3 varied, with new concluding

material and cadence.

B 50-63 Stanza two lines 1-3

Interlude + Vocal segment Tempo: Piu tranquillo New material, lyrical quality {Segues w/out cadence @ m.64}

A'' 64-74 lines 4-5

Vocal segment + Interlude Tempo I returns with material based on a2 and a3

C 75-90 Stanza three lines 1-3

Interlude + Vocal segment Tempo: PiCt tranquillo New material, 2nd lyrical theme, over repeating chordal figures

A''' 91-114 lines 4-5

Interlude,Vocal segment,Interlude Tempo I returns with material based on a2 and a3

D 115-135 Stanza four

Vocal segment Tempo: Meno mosso New material, majestic and sustained in nature.

A " " 136-147 Instrumental Postlude Tempo I (w/largamente portion) Material based on al and a2 with unexpected shift to C major

107

Perhaps the most outstanding feature of this movement

is the much-needed contrast it brings to the cantata as a

whole. Not only does Finzi use a faster tempo here, but he

also abandons his characteristic speech-like word setting

for a more highly dramatic, sustained melody. As the most

vocally demanding piece of Dies Natalis, "The Rapture"

maintains overall a high dynamic level and a high, sustained

tessitura, near f'. The vocal range extends from d to

b-flat'. The frequently long-breathed phrases and held

notes contrast with the rapid movement of the accompaniment,

in the manner of ripples beneath a smooth, calm surface.91

(See Example 6.)

Christopher Finzi presents detailed concerns about the

frequent misconceptions in interpretation of tempo and mood

of this song in particular, in accordance with a general

tendency to overdramatize Finzi's settings:

The important thing is not the actual tempo, but the feeling of springing ecstasy. If you do it too fast, it becomes sort of like a jet airplane, like a swarm of bees stinging. If you do it too slowly, it tends to get rather heavy and warlike . . . Africans dancing around with their shields. It's getting the right sort of thing in the middle . . . to make it trip as though your heart was missing a beat.

It's got to sound light. It tends to sound more like a war dance, and it's really meant to be — not one of ferocity at all — it's one of springing young lambs . . . ecstasy. 2

91. C. Finzi, loc. cit. 92. Ibid.

Example 6. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, III, measures 20-29.

108

"The Rapture",

Hea - ven-iyBlrel Street In- - fan-cy!

J J I i ,

»/ T

cred Light!.

m mf, • 0 j jl h ==wz

J ' ' ' J ' p (pi**-)

Christopher notes specific points of caution for the

accompaniment to maintain this lightness of interpretation:

What always tends to happen is this syncopation [at measure 12 and following] becomes much too ferocious. It has got to be lighter and more legato in a sense. These . . . [eighth note figures at measure 28] are sort of like ripples. They sort of tend to get punched out and it loses its flow.'3

93. Ibid.

109

Matters of dynamic are also essential, as the tendency to

overdo must be avoided continually:

Forte is not particularly loud. I should think that three fortes is your top point. Forte is just over the middle range. To Father, forte was certainly not — to let it rip.94

Christopher enumerates places in the score where the dynamic

indication must be followed in proper coordination with

tempo adjustments. It is essential at measures 48 and 49 to

achieve a proper fading away of dynamic level to pianissimo,

for "the more you do that, the less you need to ritard."95

This sets up the "Piii tranquillo" not so much as a change of

speed but as a different mood. (See Example 7.)

Example 7. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, III. "The Rapture", measures 48-51.

Pooo ritard. Piu tranquillo

psostenuto simile

T f V f T f t

94. Ibid.

95. Ibid.

110

A similar coordinated effect must occur at measure 93 with

the diminuendo indicated along with a ritard to half-speed

by measure 96. "It actually goes down so that when you

start off again you are sort of tripping off."96 (See

Example 8.)

Example 8. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, III. "The Rapture", measures 90-96.

Molto ritard. Tempo I

The Stars

I 'py yf f f ^ j

A tempo o - -

1 r r =i do move,

f j ^ — pTpj STi / T ) — M 1 «f^——-=

p 1 I if jh U K—«3 4̂ *f h n ^ N <. r •>—

1 £ 7 i ' j.' 7 j 1 'j,T • T i T E 7 1

96. Ibid.

Ill

"Wonder"

Traherne's poem #2 from Poems of Felicity provides the

textual source for "Wonder." Finzi uses the first three of

eight stanzas which appear in Phillip Traherne's version of

the poem of the same title. The text presents a communion

with all the glorious world around. The skies, stars, and

all works are seen as entertaining Traherne and enduring for

his pleasure. This recurring Traherne theme was also summed

up in the Centuries: "Your enjoyment of the world is never

right, till every morning you awake in Heaven; see yourself

in your Father's palace; and look upon the skies, the earth

and the air as celestial joys. . . .1,97 Such outward things

bring to life the Spirit within him. His awareness

encompasses only the divine.

"Wonder" is strongly representative of Finzi's general

subjective harmonic traits. Evaluators have noted Finzi's

use of harmony in general as a tool for subjective mood

setting. The mood of awe and mystic wonderment here, as

well as in other places in the entire cantata, is portrayed

with extended use of what Parker refers to as nostalgic

harmony.98 "Passing tone figures, appoggiaturas, and

suspensions abound, dictating harmonic coloring, and

cross-relations again emphasize a bittersweet quality to add

97. Traherne, Centuries. Century 1/29, 14.

98. Parker, op. cit.. 18.

112

color."99 "Washes of modality,"100 and additional

chromaticisms blur the initial tonality, leaving the work

rather unsettled until measure 17, with the establishment of

D as the first real tonal center. Frequent use of seventh

chords gives a lush harmonic treatment. (See Example 9.)

Example 9. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, IV. "Wonder", measures 1-8.

Andante J = ma «

VOICE

PIANO (Orchestra)

Ritexmto M

a tempo

like an An - gel came X down!

ap espress^

i d j i f > I Ritesuto tempo

How bright are ail things When

r m f

99. Pierce, OP. cit.. 71.

100. Cline, op. cit.. 32.

113

Ferguson criticizes what he sees as this movement's

tendency to wander with no direction.101 This rambling

quality is prevalent in the structure. A through-composed

format presents the song in three basic segments with coda.

EJach of these is punctuated by orchestral interludes, which

occur upon completion of the vocal line. Each segment

begins with the entry of a new vocal line and roughly

corresponds to stanza settings as noted below:

Segment A - Measures 1-20 - Stanza #1

Segment B - Measures 20-35 - Stanza #2

Segment C - Measures 35-45 - Stanza #3 (lines 1-6)

Coda - Measures 46-51 - Stanza #3 (lines 7-8)

It is possible that Finzi, with his essential separation of

the third stanza into two musical segments, sets up the

treatment of lines 7-8 as a conclusive summary of Traherne's

poem: "I nothing in the World did know/But 'twas divine."

Finzi underlies this textual segment with a sort of musical

summary: the postlude material of the coda refers back to

essentially the same material as the interlude at the end of

segment A.

Melodic segments tend to meander with a more

rhythmically complex and variable type of declamation. The

frequent metrical changes demonstrate Finzi's accomplished


114

use of meter to accommodate word accent. Rhythmic and pitch

inflections, compositional traits typical of Finzi, also

abound in this setting. As the shapes of the phrases follow

the rise and fall of the inflection of the conversational

voice, the lines unfold in Finzi's characteristically

natural, unforced manner. The general effect is rather

emotionally low-pitched although there are moments of rapt

exclamation, such as measures 39-44. (See Example 10.)


Acceipoco a poco

I feit a vi - goiir in my Sense That was ail

Anixnato

Spi - rits

Rallentando

II

115

In all of the through-composed setting, only two

motivic devices can be recognized as repetitions in vocal

lines. Measures 7, 20, and 25 all contain phrases which are

initiated with an upward leap of a fourth. The initial

phrase of segment A is adapted in the first portion of

segment C, measure 36, in both vocal line and accompaniment.

(See Examples 9 and 11.)


Ritard. .Ritenuta a tempo

Na-thre Health and In- no-cence With

The range of d to a' does not, in general, maintain a high

tessitura. Although the vocal lines do contain frequent

leaps, "Wonder" is not as vocally demanding as the previous

two movements.102

102. Pierce, loc. cit.

116

Christopher Finzi's performance applications once again

suggest balance and caution against extreme:

Having the accompaniment soft enough is difficult because it is a fairly complex contrapuntal area. It tends to be too heavy. It's got to be . . . sort of ethereal.

In the meno mosso at the end, it is as much the quality of sound as the speed which is important.103

"The Salutation"

In the setting of Traherne's poem "The Salutation,"

poem #1 in Poems of Felicity, Finzi omits stanzas 3 and 4 of

the Phillip Traherne version. The focus here is upon the

body which he has been given. He welcomes and receives all

as gifts from God. The theme is very similar to a portion

of the Centuries:

What diamonds are equal to my eyes; what labyrinths to my ears; what gates of ivory, or ruby leaves to the double portal of my lips and teeth? Is not sight a jewel? Is not hearing a treasure? Is not speech a glory?104

A shift is seen, then, to recognize that he is a stranger in

this world having come from nothing, yet given everything.

103. C. Finzi, interview.

104. Traherne, Centuries. Century 1/66, 33.

117

Finzi portrays the mood of mystical contemplation in

what is perhaps one of his most masterful creations. The

contrapuntal texture throughout the movement provides

structural unity. "The accompaniment resembles the

ritornello of a Bach chorale prelude of the Sleepers Awake

type — as does the accompaniment of the equivalent movement

in Farewell to Arms — with a free voice part taking the

place of the chorale.1,105 Most of the accompaniment's

motivic material is derived from the seven-measure

introduction with its highly contrapuntal texture.

Repetition of this material occurs with each interlude in a

continuous episodic manner. Of special note is the

treatment of the bass line in the fashion of a detached,

ground bass over which the flowing counterpoint unfolds.

This plucked bass, while often noted as almost a cliche

feature of Finzi's writing, is used most effectively in this

setting. (See Example 12.)

105. Long, loc. cit.

118

Example 12. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, V. "The Salutation", measures 1-12.

PIANO 'Orchestra >

i Tempo commotio J : circa «w

v cantabile. ma semplice

el ,n~r>\ irfTTn i

f r r r r i 7 r r n 1 r

i j*i n

J js .h J 1 i iii P * P I?

These lit-tle Limbs, These Eyes and Hands which here I find, This panting m

Heart where-with... my Life be - gins; Where. .have ye been? Be -

119

Finzi exercises his conservative harmonic nature to the

fullest extent in "The Salutation" with a strongly tonal,

essentially diatonic setting in the key of G major. The

frequently compared aria of Farewell to Arms is entirely

diatonic, containing not one single accidental in its entire

65 measures. There are very few twentieth century composers

who could write in such a strongly diatonic manner without

being selfconscious. Yet this is, without question, just as

characteristically intense and spontaneous as any of Finzi's

compositional creations.106

Loosely connected stanzas constitute the essentially

free form vocal line. Finzi makes frequent use of the

falling seventh interval. All stanzas peak on sustained g',

with similar melodic development after this point. The

beginning of stanza four, at measure 45, is based very

closely upon the model of stanza one, beginning at measure

7. (See Examples 12 & 13.)

106. McVeagh, Gerald Finzi. Publicity Catalogue.

120

Example 13. Gerald Finzi, Dies Natalis, V. "The Salutation", measures 44-49.

Ritard a

A Stranger here Strange things doth meet strange

r i iLir t i

p Uftr

Glo-ry see, Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World ap - pear, Strange.,

1 Tf2 7 ^ ' f ¥f§1VV f

Frequent use of high tessitura at an overall softer

dynamic requires a singer's excellent control in executing

this song with a range of d - g'. Christopher Finzi remarks

121

about possible vocal problems in this regard due to the

compositional process:

. . . when my father was writing it, and he would be singing through the part to himself, he wouldn't have any problems of voice production or anything. He wouldn't be humming it you know. When he conceived it, he conceived it without the problems of voice production . . . like high tessitura . . . which accounts for some of the problems.107

Regarding the singer's breathing on this movement and Dies

Natalis as a whole, Gerald Finzi was open-minded, once again

leaving a certain amount of freedom to the performer for a

good interpretation. Christopher reports: "He said a good

singer could breathe where he wants and you don't notice

it."108

Christopher Finzi relates to the need to maintain the

flowing, almost floating nature of the movement with balance

and restraint:

The last movement is frequently played much too . . . thickly. It needs a longer bow, almost like it is hummed. It certainly shouldn't stick.

The semiquavers [sixteenth notes] tend to get hurried. They always have two words on them, so that actually spreads them very slightly. . . . On the whole, string players tend to rush through them instead of taking more time with them, making it spread evenly forward. . . . The long notes should almost be not drawn out as long, because of the very fact that they are the long notes they stand out anyway.109

107. C. Finzi, loc. cit. 108. Ibid. 109. Ibid.

122

In "The Salutation," Finzi has suggested a mood of

strangeness and mystery, which gives way to "the never

ending pulse of life."110 Finzi's only moments of breaking

the flow of the movement are to state Traherne's awareness

of his humble beginning from nothing. With "The

Salutation," Dies Natalis is brought to a subtle, yet

climactic closure with the continuous flowing counterpoint,

over the characteristic pulsing bass, to the end. It is as

though the mystical contemplation of one's essence has found

resolution in the full realization of human existence

progressing onward.111

110. Pierce, op. cit.. 71.

111. Ibid.

CHAPTER V

SUMMARY

Gerald Finzi's solo vocal music offers a significant

contribution to the general repertoire of twentieth century

English solo literature and to the specific repertoire of

the high male voice. Finzi combines a profound

understanding and love of English literature and of the

sounds of the English language itself with an awareness of

the expressive potential of the musical elements of solo art

song in a consummate fashion. Neither his medium nor his

materials were novel. His primary concern was the integrity

of expression, not the innovation thereof. His art appears

as a culminating expression with the simple objective of

capturing in music "the essence of poetry that moved him,

and, in his own way, to embellish, underscore, and reflect

the poetry so that it would touch the heart and soul of the

listener.1,1

Finzi's "musical language is significant in that it

stands apart from that of many of his contemporaries.1,2 His

melodic lyricism, textual imagery, and essentially tonal

harmonic idiom place him firmly in a strong affinity with

1. McCoy, OP. cit.. 191. 2. Ibid.. 193.

123

124

the Romantic method of expression. Such rootedness was

evident early on and remained so without clearly delineated

periods of creative change throughout his life.

Finzi valued the retained ability to react emotionally

to life, much as a child reacts or should have the freedom

to react. He was thus motivated to set poetry that moved

him in this respect, frequently settling upon that in which

the past was more intense than the present. He hated the

idea of things passing. Thus, with a sense of subtle

melancholy, he perpetuated many of the techniques and tools

of the Romantic era not only in his solo music, but also in

his choice of texts. Through John Milton, Thomas Hardy,

Thomas Traherne, William Wordsworth, and other writers, he

found his freedom to respond.

Possibly Finzi will be remembered for the linear

contrapuntal texture of his accompaniments, so masterfully

exemplified in the works discussed in this document. The

consistent quality of accessibility and pleasantness, both

to the performer and the listener, found in his songs will

probably remain as a memorable feature. Other traits of his

style and compositional practices, as featured in the

compositions for high male voice, have also received

attention. Perhaps in the long term, it will be the

immaculately sensitive word-settings of such creations as

Dies Natalis that will mark him for perpetuation.

Commentators have remarked that no other composer predated

125

him with such articulate, idiomatic settings of the English

language to his degree. Whether the setting was of a simple

metrical poem, a literary work considered too complete in

itself for music, or a complex unsettable text, the wedding

of his music to the mood of the text creates a synthesis

which is truly remarkable.

For the high male voice specifically, the twentieth

century English repertoire will probably never again claim

as significant a body of work as that composed by Benjamin

Britten for Peter Pears. Although Finzi's collections do

not comprise such a quantitative body of work for tenor,

they are nonetheless substantial. This study has shown

fourteen songs in three sets written specifically for tenor

(Farewell to Arms, Two Sonnets by John Milton, and A Young

Man's Exhortation), and four songs of Dies Natalis written

for soprano or tenor. Of the two posthumous collections for

high voice, Oh Fair to See and Till Earth Outwears,

containing fourteen songs, many could be seen as textually

more suitable for male voice. It should be recognized that

these works are representative of compositional efforts

throughout Finzi's life.

A secondary focus of this document was to investigate

any possible substantiation for a predilection for male solo

voice in the writings of Finzi. Such a predilection would

provide more support for the appropriateness of performance

of these works specifically by high male voice. The

126

following data does appear to support such a penchant for

the male solo voice in general:

(1) Both Howard Ferguson and Christopher Finzi

commented in personal interviews that Gerald Finzi did

indeed appear to prefer the male solo voice.

(2) Solo vocal collections compiled by Gerald Finzi in

his lifetime are designated predominantly for male voice.

Seven of nine collections are indicated to be exclusively

for male voice, three for tenor and four for baritone. Of

the remaining two collections, none are indicated to be

exclusively for female voice. All the generic, high/low

voice collections were posthumously compiled and published

from individual songs which remained unpublished at his

death. Editor's notes in these editions contain Finzi's

remarks which could support his intention to set at least

some of these songs for male voice.

(3) Only Dies Natalis specifies the option of female

voice; yet it has been reported that Finzi himself indicated

his preference for its performance by tenor.

Given this data, Finzi's predilection for male solo

voice seems apparent, and this should affirm the

appropriateness of a designated body of material specific to

the repertoire of the high male voice. This body of

material includes a total of 32 solo songs in six

collections, including the two posthumous collections for

high voice. In the case of Dies Natalis, further data from

127

live performances and recordings support a tendency for

performance by tenor. In the years since Finzi's death,

some commentators report a tradition in England of the

performance of Dies Natalis by tenor. All recordings of

Dies Natalis since the first one have been done by tenors.

Specific compositional practices of Gerald Finzi

possibly could support an even greater body of literature

appropriate for the tenor voice:

(1) Finzi's mode of composition was an abstract one, in

which no specific singer was ever in mind.

(2) On the testimony of Christopher Finzi, the large

number of baritone writings occurred, not because he

preferred such a voice type, but because he essentially had

a baritone range himself.

(3) It has been documented that Finzi did not compose

works with an organizational key scheme, indicating no

particular series of key relationships which should be

maintained between songs.

(4) Finzi frequently transposed songs in order to

compile appropriate collections, indicating that no specific

pitch range or color was set in his mind in association with

a particular song. The editors of the posthumous

collections saw the transposition of songs as completely

acceptable and in keeping with Finzi's own practice.

(5) Ferguson reported in a personal interview that

transposition of his published works would have been

128

perfectly acceptable to Finzi. However, due to a tendency

for low piano writing, it would be most appropriate to

transpose the works written for low voice up for a higher

range.

Thus, it could be possible that many or all of the

works for low male voice could be effectively transposed

into high editions, appropriate then for performance by high

male voice. Such a possibility would lend further support

to the general philosophy of Gerald Finzi: "anything to get

a good performance."

Finzi's commitment to literature and its expression

through song was lasting. His desire to reach out beyond

his own time was more than just a backward look to the music

and texts of times past:

As usually happens, it is likely that new ideas, new fashions and the pressing forward of new generations,-will soon obliterate my small contribution. Yet I like to think that in each generation may be a few responsive minds, and for them I should still like the work to be available. To shake hands with a good friend over the centuries is a pleasant thing, and the affection which an individual may retain after his departure is perhaps the only thing which guarantees an ultimate life to his work.3

3. Vogel, op. cit.. 10-11. Quoting Finzi from his own catalogue of works, which he called "Absalom's Place."

129

With his continuing focus on inexorable time, Finzi

buried under the porch of his home at Ashmansworth one of

his song settings. The setting is on a text by James Elroy

Flecker, "To a poet a thousand years hence":

I who am dead a thousand years, And wrote this sweet archaic song, Send you my words for messengers The way I shall not pass along.

0 friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, Read out my words at night, alone: 1 was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face, And never shake you by the hand, I send my soul through time and space To greet you. You will understand.4

4. Gerald Finzi, "To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence," from A Heritage of 20th Century British Sona. 2 vols. (London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1977), II, 94-99.

APPENDIX A

COMPREHENSIVE FINZI SONG LIST

130

131

APPENDIX A

COMPREHENSIVE FINZI SONG LIST

Banfield, Stephen. Sensibility and the English Song: Critical Studies of the Early 20th Century. 2 volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, 444-447.

Sources: Gerald Finzi, 1941, 1951; Diana McVeagh, 1975-81

Key:

Song #/Title/(Author)/(G.F.'s Comp. Date) indicates Vocal Collection/op. //voicing/(publ. date)/premier performance data

1 The twilit waters (Fiona Macleod) (13.IX.1919) 2 The reed player with orchestra (Fiona Macleod)

(27.IX.1919) 3 A cradle song (Padraic Column) (3.XI.1919) 4 The terrible robber man (Padraic Column) (25.IV.1920,

rev. 17.X.1920) 5 Tall nettles (Edward Thomas) (V.1920) 6 0 dear me! (*Here are crocuses'), duet for two sopranos

(de la Mare) (VI.1920) 7 Rondel (*Your eyen two') (Chaucer) (X.1920) 8 The battle (W.H. Davies) (1921)

The Mound with string quartet (Hardy) (1921) 9 The night of the dance (fragment) 10 The subalterns (fragment) 11 The mound (xMy spirit will not haunt the mound')

(sketch) By Footpath and Stile, op. 2, for baritone and string quartet (Hardy) (1921-2, 1925); perf. Sumner Austin and Charles Woodhouse String Quartet, Contemporary Music Centre, 24.X.1923

12 Paying calls (xl went by footpath and by stile')(rev. 1941)

13 Where the picnic was; MS GB-Lcm 14 The oxen (rev. 1941) 15 The master and the leaves 16 Voices from things growing in a churchyard 17 Exeunt omnes 18 The cupboard (Robert Graves) (III.1922, 1923) 19 English hills (John Freeman) (1922-cal925 as no. 1 of

Two Songs (no. 2 was no. 44 below))

132

20 Only a man harrowing clods (In time of xthe breaking of nations') for baritone and small orchestra, from Requiem da Camera (1924, ded. Ernest Farrar) (Hardy) (1923)

21 Days too short (W.H. Davies) (1925) Dies Natalis, op. 8, cantata for soprano or tenor and

strings (Traherne) (1939); perf. Elsie Suddaby, cond. Maurice Miles, Wigmore Hall, 26.1.1940

22 Intrada (strings only) (1926) 23 Rhapsody (Recitativo stromentato) (1926) 24 Air: The world (discarded fragment) (cal926) 25 The rapture (Danza) 26 Wonder (Arioso) 27 The salutation (Aria) (1926) 28 An empty book is like an infant's soul (fragment)

(Traherne) (cal926) 29 The preparative (fragment) (Traherne) (cal926) 30 The temporary the all (sketch) (Hardy) (1927, rev.

1950) Farewell to Arms, op. 9, for tenor and small orchestra

or strings (1945); perf. Eric Greene, BBC Northern SO, cond. Charles Groves, 30.III.1945

31 Introduction (Ralph Knevet) (cal943) 32 Aria (George Peele) (pre-1929)

Two Sonnets by John Milton, op. 12, for tenor or soprano and small orchestra (1928, 1936); perf. Steuart Wilson, Mercury Theatre, 6.II.1936

33 When I consider 34 How soon hath Time

To a Poet, op. post. (op. 13a), for low voice (1965) 35 To a poet a thousand years hence (Flecker) (?1920s,

rev. cal940) 36 On parent knees (Sanskrit, trans. William Jones)

(1935) 37 Intrada (Traherne) (different from no. 22) 38 The birthnight (de la Mare) (1956) 39 June on Castle Hill (F.L. Lucas) (1940) 40 Ode on the rejection of St Cecilia (George Barker)

(1948) Oh Fair to See, op. post. (op. 13b), for high voice

(1965) 41 I say *1*11 seek her* (Hardy) (1929) 42 Oh fair to see (C. Rossetti) (1929) 43 As I lay in the early sun (Shanks) (1921) 44 Only the wanderer (Gurney) (1925 as no. 2 of Two

Songs (no. 1 was no. 19 above)) 45 To joy (Blunden) (1931) 46 Harvest (Blunden) (1956) 47 Since we loved (Bridges) (28.VIII.1956)

133

A Young Man's Exhortation, op. 14, for tenor (Hardy) (cal926-9, 1933); perf. Grotrian Hall, 5.XII.1933 Part I: *Mane floreat, et transeat'

48 A young man's exhortation 49 Ditty 50 Budmouth dears 51 Her temple 52 The comet at Yell'ham

Part II: xVespere decidat, induret et arescat* 53 Shortening days 54 The sigh 55 Former beauties 56 Transformations 57 The dance continued 58 Plans for Noah Hill (fragment) (Barnes) (1920s) 59 Oh, sweet content (fragment) (W.H. Davies) (1920s) 60 Prayer (fragment) (Flecker) (1920s) 61 A frosty night (fragment) (Robert Graves) (1920s as no.

2 of Three Ballads; nos. 1 and 3 are not known) 62 At news of a woman's death (Thoughts of Phena)

(fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 63 Great things (fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 64 I found her out there (fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 65 June leaves and autumn (fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 66 On a discovered curl of hair (fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 67 So various (fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 68 To meet, or otherwise (fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 69 Weathers (fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 70 Yell'ham-Wood's story (fragment) (Hardy) (1920s) 71 The dead athlete (fragment) (Housman) (1920s) 72 In my own shire (fragment) (Housman) (1920s) 73 In the morning (fragment) (Housman) (1920s) 74 The lads in their hundreds (fragment) (Housman) (1920s) 75 Look not in my eyes (fragment) (Housman) (1920s) 76 The street sounds to the soldiers' tread (fragment)

(Housman) (1920s) 77 There pass the careless people (fragment) (Housman)

(1920s) 78 Twice a week (fragment) (Housman) (1920s) 79 We'll to the woods no more (fragment) (Housman) (1920s) 80 The old familiar faces (fragment) (Charles Lamb)

(1920s) 81 Dirge in woods (fragment) (Meredith) (1920s) 82 Love in the valley (fragment) (Meredith) (1920s) 83 Who is the happy man (fragment) (Frank Prewett) (1920s) 84 It is the season (fragment) (Stevenson) (1920s) 85 Journey's end (fragment) (Humbert Wolfe) (1920s)

Earth and Air and Rain, op. 15, for baritone (Hardy) (1936)

86 Summer schemes 87 When I set out for Lyonnesse; MS GB-Lbl (Add. 54481)

134

88 waiting both 89 The phantom 90 So have I fared (After reading Psalms XXXIX, XL,

etc.) 91 Rollicum-rorum 92 To Lizbie Browne 93 The clock of the years 94 In a churchyard (Song of the yew tree) 95 Proud songsters 96 The pig's tail (fragment) (Norman Ault) (1930s) 97 The child's grave (fragment) (Blunden) (1930s) 98 The shadow (fragment) (Blunden) (1930s) 99 The time is gone (fragment) (Blunden) (1930s) 100 Water moment (fragment) (Blunden) (1930s) 101 The birds that sing on autumn eves (fragment, possibly

of a partsong) (Bridges) (1930s) 102 The babe and the corpse (fragment) (Gerald Gould)

(1930s) 103 Afterwards (fragment) (Hardy) (1930s) 104 The end of the episode (fragment) (Hardy) (1930s) 105 I am the one (fragment) (Hardy) (1930s) 106 A merrymaking in question (fragment) (Hardy) (1930s) 107 Middle-age enthusiasms (fragment) (Hardy) (1930s) 108 Timing her (fragment) (Hardy) (1930s) 109 Bright star (fragment) (Keats) (1930s) 110 Close now thine eyes (fragment) (Francis Quarles)

(1930s) 111 Come hither (fragment of a projected bestiary) (Thomas

Sackville) (1930s) 112 Midnight was come (fragment) (Thomas Sackville) (1930s) 113 Blow, blow thou winter wind (fragment) (Shakespeare)

(1930s) 114 Invocation to Bacchus (fragment) (Shakespeare) (1930s) 115 Shall I compare thee (fragment) (Shakespeare) (1930s)

Before and After Summer, op. 16, for baritone (Hardy) (1949); perf. Robert Irwin

116 Childhood among the ferns 117 Before and after summer 118 The self-unseeing 119 Overlooking the river 120 Channel firing (IX.1940) 121 In the mind's eye 122 The too short time 123 Epeisodia 124 Amabel 125 He abjures love

Let Ds Garlands Bring, op. 18, for baritone and piano or strings (Shakespeare) (1942, ded. Vaughan Williams on his 70th birthday); perf. Robert Irwin and Howard Ferguson, National Gallery, 12.X.1942; string version perf. cond. Clarence Raybould, BBC Radio, 18.X.1942

135

126 Come away, death (1938) 127 Who is Silvia? 128 Fear no more the heat o' the sun (1929) 129 o mistress mine (1942) 130 It was a lover and his lass (1940, this date

cancelled in MS) Till Earth Outwears, op. post. (op. 19a), for high

voice (Hardy) (1958) 131 Let me enjoy the earth 132 In years defaced (IV. 1936) 133 The market-girl (1927); MS GB-Lbl (Add. 59811) 134 I look into my glass 135 It never looks like summer (23.11.1956) 136 At a lunar eclipse (1929) 137 Life laughs onward (III.1955)

I said to Love, op. post. (op. 19b), for low voice (Hardy) (1958)

138 I need not go 139 At middle-field gate in February (11.1956) 140 Two lips (1928) 141 In five-score summers (1.1956) 142 For Life I had never cared greatly 143 I said to Love (12.VII.1956)

Songs from Shakespeare's 'Love's Labours Lost* , op. 28a, for voice and small orchestra (1948) ; perf. BBC Radio, 16.XII.1946

Songs of Hiems and Ver, Op. 28a no. 1 144 Song of Hiems 145 Song of Ver

Songs for Moth, op. 28a no. 2 146 Riddle song 147 False Concolinel 148 Dance now and sing (fragment of a projected cycle)

(Campion) (1940s) 149 England (fragment) (de la Mare) (1940s) 150 Birds at winter nightfall (fragment) (Hardy) (1940s) 151 By the earth's corpse (fragment) (Hardy) (1940s) 152 The faithful swallow (fragment) (Hardy) (1940s) 153 I saw the ramparts of my native land (fragment)

(Masefield) (1940s) Dark Sentences (fragments) (1940s)

154 The quick and the dead (Laurence Whistler) 155 I saw a holly sprig (?Richard Verstegen) 156 Piers Prodigal (A conversation of prayers) (A dialogue)

(fragment) (Ian Davie) (1950s) 157 During wind and rain (fragment) (Hardy) (1950s) 158 He fears his good fortune (fragment) (Hardy) (1950s) 159 God-forgotten (fragment) (Hardy) (1950s) 160 News for her mother (fragment) (Hardy) (1950s)

APPENDIX B

LISTING OF GERALD FINZI'S SOLO VOCAL COLLECTIONS

BY VOICE DESIGNATION

136

137

APPENDIX B

LISTING OF GERALD FINZI'S SOLO VOCAL COLLECTIONS

BY VOICE DESIGNATION

A. SPECIFICALLY FOR BARITONE: (4 collections containing 27 songs)

1. By Footpath and Stile, op. 2 a. Poet: Thomas Hardy b. Date of publication: 1925 (1941 revision) c. Accompaniment: String quartet

(Available with piano reduction) d. Number of songs: 2 (1941 revision)

2. Earth and Air and Rain, op. 15 a. Poet: Thomas Hardy b. Date of publication: 1936 c. Accompaniment: Piano d. Number of songs: 10

3. Before and After Summer, op. 16 a. Poet: Thomas Hardy b. Date of publication: 1949 c. Accompaniment: Piano d. Number of songs: 10

4. Let Us Garlands Bring, op. 18 a. Poet: William Shakespeare b. Date of publication: 1942 c. Accompaniment: Piano or strings d. Number of songs: 5

B. SPECIFICALLY FOR TENOR: (3 collections containing 14 songs)

1. Two Sonnets by John Milton, op. 12 a. Poet: John Milton b. Date of publication: 1936 (currently out of print) c. Accompaniment: Small orchestra d. Number of songs: 2

138

2. Farewell to Arms, op. 9 a. Poet: Ralph Knevet and George Peele b. Date of publication: 1945 c. Accompaniment: Small orchestra or strings d. Number of songs: 2

3. A Young Man's Exhortation, op. 14 a. Poet: Thomas Hardy b. Date of publication: 1933 c. Accompaniment: Piano d. Number of songs: 10

FOR TENOR OR SOPRANO: (1 collection containing 4 songs)

1. Dies Natalis, op. 8 a. Poet: Thomas Traherne

(w/poetry editing by Phillip Traherne) b. Date of publication: 1939 c. Accompaniment: String orchestra

(Available with piano reduction) d. Number of songs: 4

WITHOUT DESIGNATION: (1 collection containing 4 songs)

1. Songs from "Love's Labours Lost", op. 28a a. Poet: William Shakespeare and anon. b. Date of publication: 1948 c. Accompaniment: Small orchestra d. Number of songs: 4

E. WORKS FOR LOW VOICE: (2 collections containing 12 songs)

1. To a Poet, op. 13a a. Miscellaneous Poets: Flecker, Sanskirt, Traherne,

de la Mare, Lucas, Barker b. Date of publication: 1965 c. Accompaniment: Piano d. Number of songs: 6

2. I said to Love, op. 19b a. Poet: Thomas Hardy b. Date of publication: 1958 c. Accompaniment: Piano d. Number of songs: 6

139

F. WORKS FOR HIGH VOICE: (2 collections containing 14 songs)

1. Oh Fair to See, op. 13b a. Miscellaneous Poets: Hardy, Rossetti, Shanks,

Gurney, Blunden (2 songs), Bridges b. Date of publication: 1965 c. Accompaniment: Piano d. Number of songs: 7

2. Till Earth Outwears, op. 19a a. Poet: Thomas Hardy b. Date of publication: 1958 c. Accompaniment: Piano d. Number of songs: 7

Boosey and Hawkes Music Publishers Limited is the sole publisher of Gerald Finzi's music.

APPENDIX C

DIES NATALIS TEXTS AND THEIR SOURCES

140

141

APPENDIX C

DIES NATALIS TEXTS AND THEIR SOURCES

Appendix C presents the texts of Finzi's Dies Natalis

with the original sources by Thomas Traherne. The original

prose by Thomas Traherne, taken from Centuries of

Meditation, is provided for comparison to Finzi's adaptation

in Movement II. Two versions of Traherne1s poetry, Thomas'

originals edited by Dobell and Phillip's versions edited by

Bell, are provided for comparison to each other and to

Finzi's adaptations in Movements III-V.

The following reference materials provided examples for

this Appendix:

1. Traherne, Thomas. Centuries. Preface by H.M. Margolioth. Introduction by Hilda Vaughan. Oxford: A.R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd., 1975. 103-110.

2. Traherne, Thomas. The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne. Preface & Notes by Gladys I. Wade. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1965. 3-5, 17, 97-101, 110-112.

3. Finzi, Gerald. Dies Natalis. Winthrop Rogers Edition. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1939. Composer's Notes.

142

Movement II.

Thomas Traherne. Centuries Third Century, Meditations 1-2. Underlined portions were rearranged and used by Finzi. Bracketed portions were omitted.

WILL you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial great-ness? [Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had from the womb, and that divine light wherewith I was born are the best unto this day, wherein I can see the Universe. By the Gift of God they attended me into the world, and by His special favour I remember them till now. Verily they seem the greatest gifts His wisdom could bestow, for without them all other gifts had been dead and vain. They are unattainable by book, and there-fore I will teach them by experience. Pray for them earnestly: for they will make you angelical, and wholly celestial] Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than I jwhen I was a chilcTJ

All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was affittleTstranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumer-able joys. My knowledge was Divine. fT knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason. My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the Estate of Innocence] All things were spotless and pure and glorious :fyea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious? I knew not that there were (anj3 gjq;s, fflpnplajntS py laws. I dreamed not of poverties, contentions or vices. All tears and quarrels were hidden from mine eyes. Everything was at rest, free and immortal. IFknew nothing of sickness or death or rents or exaction, either for tribute or bread. In the absence of these! I was entertained like an Angel with the works of God in their splendour and glory. I saw all in the peace of Eden: Heaven and Earth did sing my Creator's praises, and could not make more melody to Adam, than to me.fAll Time was Eternity, and a perpetual Sabbath. Is it not strange, that an infant should be heir of the whole World, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold??

143

Movement II. "Rhapsody"

Thomas Traherne. Centuries Third Century, Meditation 3 Underlined portions were rearranged and used by Finzi. Bracketed portions were omitted.

3 The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from ever-lasting to everlasting. fThe dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world] The green trees when I saw them firstlthrough one of the gates) transported and ravished me. their sweetness and unusual beauty made mv heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things. I^fiie MetiT] O what vener-able and reverend creatures did the aged seem 1 Immortal Oherubims 1 And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! fEoys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels! I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally las they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared: which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The city seemed to stand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven. The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and silver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins and ruddy faces. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the World was mine; and I the only spectator and I enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties, nor bounds, nor divisions: but all proprieties * and divisions were mine: all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world. Which now I unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of God}

144

Movement II. "Rhapsody"

Finzi's Adaptation for Dies Natalis

2.

RHAPSODY

(Recitativo Stromentato)

Will you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial greatness ? I was a stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys ; my knowledge was Divine. I was entertain!d like an Angel with the works of God in their splendour and glory. Heaven and Earth did sing my Creator's praises, and could not make more melody to Adam than to me. Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world than I. All appear'd new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. All things were spotless and pure and glorious. The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reap d nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The green trees, when I saw them first, transported and ravished me, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things. O what venerable creatures did the aged seem ! Immortal Cherubims ! And the young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty ! 1 knew not that they were born or should die ; but all things abided eternally. I knew not that there were sins or complaints or laws. I dream'd not of poverties, contentions or vices. All tears and quarrels were hidden from mine eyes. I saw all in the peace of Eden. Everything was at rest, free and immortal.

145

Movement III. "The Rapture"

Dobell Edition of Thomas Traherne Original

Bell Edition of Phillip Traherne Version

Sweet Infancy! 0 fire of Heaven ! 0 Sacred Light!

How Fair and Bright! How Great am I,

Whom all the World doth magnifie !

Sweet Infancy! 0 Hevenly Fire I O sacred Light!

How fair and bright! How Great am I

Whom the whol World doth magnify

O Heavenly Joy! O Great and Sacred Blessedness,

Which I possess! So great a Joy

Who did into my Armes convey!

0 hevenly Joy! O Great and Sacred Blessedness

Which I possess! So great a Joy

Who did into my Arms convey ?

From GOD abov Being sent, the Heavens me enflame,

To prais his Name. The Stars do move !

The Burning Sun doth shew his Love.

From God abov Being sent, the Gift doth me enflame

To prais his Name; The Stars do mov,

The Sun doth shine, to shew his Lov.

0 how Divine Am I ! To all this Sacred Wealth,

This Life and Health, Who raisd i Who mine

Did make the same ? What Hand Divine

O how Divine Am I ! To all this Sacred Wealth,

This Life and Health, Who rais'd ? Who

Did make the same ! What hand divine !

146

Movement III. "The Rapture"


3-

THE RAPTURE

(Danza)

Sweet Infancy ! 0 Hevenly Fire ! O Sacred Light !

How Fair and bright! How Great am I

Whom the whol World doth magnify !

0 hevenly Joy ! O Great and Sacred Blessedness

Which I possess ! So great a Joy

Who did into my Arms convey ?

From God abov Being sent, the Gift doth me enflame

To prais his Name ; The Stars do mov,

The Sun doth shine, to shew his Lov.

O how Divine Am I ! To all this Sacred Wealth,

This Life and Health, Who rais'd ? Who mine

Did make the same I What hand divine I

147

Movement IV. "Wonder"



How tike an Angel came I down ! How Bright are ait Thing* here!

When first among hit Works I did appear 0 how their GLORY me did vrown ?

The World resembled his Eurnitie, In which my Soul did Walk;

And evry Thing that 1 did see, Did with me talk.

The Skies in their Magnificence, The Lively, LOTCIJT Air;

Oh how Divine, how Soft, now Sweet, how fair 1 The Stars did entertain my Sence,

And all the Works of GOD so Bright and pure, So Rich and Great did seem,

As if thev ever must endure, in ray Esteem.

A Native Health and Innocence Within my Bones did grow,

And while my GOD did all his Glories shew, 1 felt a Vigour in mr Sence

That wis all SrIRIT. I within did How With Seas of Life, tike Wine;

I nothing in the World did know, But 'twas Divine.

Harsh ragged Objects were conceald, Oppressions Tears and Cries,

Sins, Griefs, Complaints, Dissentions, Weeping Eys, Were hid: and only Things rereald,

Which Heav'nlv Spirits, and the Angels prise. The State of Innocence

And Bliss, not Trade* and Poverties, Did fill mf Sence.

The Streets were pavd with Golden Stones, The Bop and Girles were mine,

Oh how did all their Lovly faces shine I The Sons of Men were Holy Ones.

In Joy, and Beauty, then appeared to me, And evry Thing which here I found,

While like an Angel I did See, Adornd the Ground.

Rich Diamond and Pearl and Gold In evry Place was seen;

Rare Splendors, Yellow, Blew,Red, White andGreen, Mine Eyt did eviy where behold.

Great Wonaers clotha with Glory did appear, Amazement was my Bliss.

That and my Wealth was evry where: No Joy to this I

Cursd and Devtsd Proprieties, With Envy, Avarice

And Fraud, those Feinds that Spoyl even Paradice, Fled from the Splendor of mine Eyt.

And so did Hedges, Ditches, Limits, Bounds, I dreamd not ought of those,

But wanderd over all mens Grounds, And found Repose.

Proprieties themselvs were mine, And Hedges Ornaments;

Walls, Boxes, Coffers, and their rich Contents Did not Divide my Joys, hut all combine.

Clothes, Rtbbans, Jewels, Laces, I esteemd My Joyi or others worn;

For me tney all to wear them seemd WTien i was born.

How like an Angel came I down ! How bright are all things here!

When first among his Works I did appear 0 how their Glory did me crown !

The World resembled his ETERNITY, In which my Soul did walk;

And evry thing that I did see Did with me talk.

The Skies in their Magnificence, The lovly lively Air,

Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair J The Stars did entertain my Sense;

And all the Works of God so bright and pure, So rich and great, did seem,

As if they ever must endure In my Esteem.

A Nativ Health and Innocence Within my Bones did grow,

And while my God did all his Glories show 1 felt a vigor in my Sense

That was all SPIRIT: I within did flow With Seas of Life like Wine;

I nothing in the World did know But 'twas Divine.

Harsh rugged Objects were conceaTd, Oppressions, Tears, and Cries,

Sins, Griefs, Complaints, Dissentions, weeping Eyt, Were hid : And only things reveai'd

Which hevenly Spirits and the Angels prize: The State of Innocence

And Bliss, not Trades and Poverties, Did fill my Sense.

The Streets seem'd pared with golden Stones, The Boys and Girls all mine;

To me how did their lovly faces shine 1 The Sons of men all Holy ones

In Joy and Beauty, then appeared to me; And evry Thing I found

(While like an Angel I did see) Adorn'd the Ground.

Rich Diamonds, and Pearl, and Gold Might evry where be seen;

Rare Colors, yellow, blew, red, white, and green Mine Eys on evry side behold:

All that I saw, a Wonder did appear; Amazement was my Bliss:

H u t and my Wealth met evry where. No Joy to this 1

Curs'd, Ql-devis'd Proprieties With Envy, Avarice,

And Fraud, (those Fiends that spoil ev*n Paradise) Were not the Object of mine Eys;

Nor Hedges, Ditches, Limits, narrow Bounds: I dreamt not ought of those,

But in surveying all mens Grounds I found Repose.

For Property its self was mine, And Hedges, Ornaments:

Walls, Houses, Coffers, and their rich Contents, To make me Rich combine.

Goaths, costly Jewels, Laces, I esteem'd My Wealth by others worn,

For me they all to wear them seem'd, When I was born.

148

Movement IV. "Wonder"


4-

WONDER

(Arioso)

H,ow like an Angel came I down ! How bright are all things here !

When first among his Works I did appear 0 how their Glory did me crown !

The World resembled his ETERNITY, In which my Soul did walk ;

And evvy thing that I did see Did with me talk.

The Skies in their Magnificence, The lovly lively Air,

Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair ! The Stars did entertain my Sense ;

And all the Works of God so bright and pure, So rich and great, did seem,

As if they ever must endure In my Esteem.

A Nativ Health and Innocence Within my Bones did grow,

And while my God did all his Glories show 1 felt a vigor in my Sense

That was all SPIRIT : I within did flow With Seas of Life like Wine ;

I nothing in the World did know But 'twas Divine.

149

Movement V, "The Salutation11



These little Limznes, These Eys and Hands which here I find,

These rosie Cheeks wherwith my Life begins, Where have ye been ? Behind

What Curtain were je from me hid so long! Where was I in what Abyss, my Speaking Tongue ?

When silent I, So many thousand thousand yeers,

Beneath the Dust did in a Chaos lie, How could I Smiles or Tears,

Or Lips or Hands or Eys or Ears perceiv ? Welcom ye Treasures which I now receiv.

I that so long Was Nothing from Eternitie,

Did little think such Joys as Ear or Tongue To Celebrat or See : '

Such Sounds to hear, such Hands to feel, such Feet, Beneath the Skies, on such a Ground to meet. '

New Burnisht Joys! Which yellow Gold and Pearl excell!

Such Sacred Treasures are the Lims in Boys, In which a Soul doth Dwell;

Their Organized Joynts, and Azure Veins More Wealth include, then all the World contains.

From Dust I rise, And out of Nothing now awake,

These Brighter Regions which salute mine Eys, A Gift from GOD I take.

The Earth, the Seas, the Light, the Day, the Skies, The Sun and Stars are mine; if those I prize.

Long time before I in my Mother's Womb was born,

A GOD preparing did this Glorious Store, The World for me adoroe.

Into this Eden so Divine and fair, So Wide and Bright, I com his Son and Heir.

A Stranger here Strange Things doth meet, Strange Glories See;

Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World appear, Strange all, and New to me.

But that they mine should be, who nothing was, That Strangest is of all, yet brought to pass.

These little Limbs, These Eys and Hands which here I find,

This panting Heart wherwith my Life begins; Where have ye been ? Behind

What Curtain were ye from me hid so long! Where was, in what Abyss, ray new-made Tongue ?

When silent I So many thousand thousand Yean

Beneath the Dust did in a Chaos 1 y, How could I SmiUs, or Ttarsy

Or Lips, or Hands, or Eys, or Ears perceiv ? Welcom ye Treasures which I now receiv.

I that so long Was Nothing from Eternity,

Did little think such Joys as Ear and Tongue To celebrat or see:

Such Sounds to hear, such Hands to feel, such Feet, Such Eys and Objects, on the Ground to meet.

New burnisht Joy* I Which finest Gold and Pearl eacell!

Such sacred Treasures are the Limbs of Bop In which a Soul doth dwell:

Their organized Joints and azure Veins More Wealth include than the dead World conteins.

From Dust I rise And out of Nothing now awake;

These brighter Regions which salute mine Eys A Gift from God I take :

The Earth, the Seas, the Light, the lofty Sides, The Sun and Stars are mine; if these I prize.

A Stranger here, Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see,

Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World appear, Strange all and New to me:

But that they mine should be who Nothing was, That Strangest is of all; yet brought to pass.

150

Movement V. "The Salutation"


5-

THE SALUTATION

(Aria)

These little Limbs, These Eys and Hands which here I find,

This panting Heart wherwith my Life begins ; Where have ye been ? Behind

What Curtain were ye from me hid so long ! Where was, in what Abyss, my new-made Tongue ?

When silent I So many thousand thousand Years

Beneath the Dust did in a Chaos ly, How could I Smiles, or Tears,

Or Lips, or Hands, or Eys, or Ears perceiv ? Welcom ye Treasures which I now receiv.

From Dust I rise And out of Nothing now awake ;

These brighter Regions which salute mine Eys A Gift from God I take :

The Earth, the Seas, the Light, the lofty Skies, The Sun and Stars are mine ; if these I prize.

A Stranger here Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see,

Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World appear, Strange all and New to me :

But that they mine should be who Nothing was, That Strangest is of all; yet brought to pass.

REFERENCE WORKS

A. Books

Banfield, Stephen. Sensibility and the English Song: Critical Studies of the Earlv 20th Century. 2 volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Dingley, Pauline. The Finzi Book Room at the University of Reading; A Catalogue. Introduction by Adrian Caesar. Reading, England: The Library of the University of Reading, 1981.

Hurd, M. The Ordeal of Ivor Gurnev. London: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Ivey, Donald. Song. Anatomy. Imagery, and Styles. London: The Free Collier Press, MacMillan, Ltd., 1970.

Moore, Douglas. From Madrigal to Modern Music. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1942.

Traherne, Thomas. Centuries of Meditation. Introduction by John Farrar. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960.

Traherne, Thomas. Centuries. Preface by H.M. Margolioth. Introduction by Hilda Vaughan. Oxford: A.R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd., 1975.

Traherne, Thomas. The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne. Preface & Notes by Gladys I. Wade. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1965.

B. Articles

Banfield, Stephen. "The Immortality Odes of Finzi and Somervell," Musical Times CXVI (June 1975), 527-531.

Birt, Richard. "A Gentle Revival," The Traherne Society. Preliminary Newsletter (September 1991), 1.

. "C.S. Lewis and Traherne," Traherne Association Newsletter III (October 1992), 1.

151

152

"New Vicar at Teddington,11 Traherne Association Newsletter III (October 1992), 1.

. "Three Choirs and Traherne's Love of Bells," Traherne Association Newsletter I (December 1991), 1.

. "Traherne analysed," Traherne Association Newsletter III (October 1992), 2-3.

Bliss, Arthur. "Gerald Finzi - An Appreciation," Tempo XLII (Winter 1956-1957), 5-6.

Boyd, C.M. "Gerald Finzi and the Solo Song," Tempo XXX (Autumn 1954), 15-18.

Butt, Richard. "Reports: Radley," Musical Times CXXVIII (October 1987), 581-582.

Cobbe, Hugh. '•The Correspondence of Gerald Finzi and Ralph Vaughan Williams," Finzi Trust Friends Tenth Anniversary Newsletter X/l (Summer 1992), 8-14.

Donnville, E. "A Time There Was," Fucrue III (July-August 1979), 47.

Duncan-Rubbra, E. "Gerald Finzi," Monthly Musical Record LIX (1929), 194.

Ferguson, Howard. "Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)," Music and Letters XXXVIII (1957), 130-135.

Hall, R.A. '"Minor' Masterpiece," Fanfare III/2 (March-April 1980), 86-87.

"Hardy, Thomas", "Milton, John." The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, 433-434, 652-654.

Hold, T. "xCheckless Griff' or Thomas Hardy and the Songwriters," Musical Times CXXXI (June 1990), 309-310.

Kitching, R.B. "Midlands Branch Reports, Gerald Finzi," Delius XCVII (Summer 1988), 23.

Long, N.G. "The Songs of Gerald Finzi," Tempo I (September 1946), 7-10.

McVeagh, Diana. "A Finzi Discography," Tempo CXXXVI (March 1981), 19-22.

153

"Finzi, Gerald (Raphael)," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 20 vols., ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1980, VI, 594-596.

. "Gerald Finzi," Records and Recording XXIII/4 (1980), 30.

"Gerald Finzi: 1901-1956," Hifi News and Record Review (October 1980), 67-69.

_. "London Music: Gerald Finzi," Musical Tiroes CVII (November 1966), 975.

"Record Reviews: Finzi," Musical Times CX (February 1969), 164.

"Milton, John." See "Hardy, Thomas."

Parker, Burton. "Textual-Musical Relationships in Selected Songs of Gerald Finzi," The NATS Journal XXX (May-June 1974), 10-19.

Porter, Andrew. "Editor's Notes," Musical Times XCVII (November 1956), 571.

Raynor, Henry. "Influence and Achievement: Some Thoughts on Twentieth-Century English Song," The Chesterian XXX (Winter 1956), 66-75.

Russell, John. "Gerald Finzi," Musical Times CXVII (December 1956), 630-631.

"Gerald Finzi - An English Composer," Tempo XXX (Autumn 1954), 9-15.

Walker, A. "Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)," Tempo LII (1959), 6 - 8 .

C. Media Items

Burn, Andrew. Record jacket notes from A Recital of English Songs, performed by Anne Dawson soprano, and Roderick Barrand piano (Hyperion Records Ltd. A66103, 1983).

154

Record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Dies Natalis. Clarinet Concerto, and Farewell to Arms, performed by Martyn Hill tenor, Michael Collins clarinet, and the City of London Sinfonia, conducted by Richard Hickox (Virgin Classics Ltd. VC 7 90718-1, 1988).

McVeagh, Diana. Record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Concerto for Clarinet and Strings. Grand Fantasia and Toccata for Piano & Orchestra. Ecologue for Piano & String Orchestra, performed by John Denman, Peter Katin, and the New Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vernon Handley (Lyrita HNH 4031, 1977).

. Record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Earth and Air and Rain, performed by Martyn Hill tenor, Stephen Varcoe baritone, and Clifford Benson piano (Hyperion Records Ltd. A66161/2, 1984).

. Record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Interlude for Oboe and String Quartet. OP. 21. performed by Keith Marshall, oboe and the Amphion String Quartet (Hyperion Records Ltd. A66109, 1983).

. Record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Intimations of Immortality, performed by Ian Partridge, Guildford Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Vernon Handley (Lyrita SRCS.75, 1975).

. Record jacket notes from Gerald Finzi's Let Us Garlands Bring. Two Milton Sonnets. Farewell to Arms. In Terra Pax, performed by Ian Partridge tenor, John Alldis Choir, et al. conducted by Vernon Handley (Lyrita SRCS.93, 1979).

Parker, Bill. Record jacket notes for Gerald Finzi's In Terra Pax, performed by the Plymouth Festival Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Phillip Brunelle (Proarte Digital 152, 1983).

D. Editions of Music

A Heritage of 20th Century British Song. 2 volumes. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1977.

Finzi, Gerald R. A Young Man's Exhortation. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1933.

155

Dies Natalis. Winthrop Rogers Edition. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1939.

Farewell to Arms. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1945.

Oh Fair to See, ed. by Howard Ferguson, Joyce Finzi, and Christopher Finzi. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1965.

. Till Earth Outwears, ed. by Howard Ferguson, Joyce Finzi, and Christopher Finzi. London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1958.

E. Speeches

Allchin, Donald. "Thomas Traherne - the Gift of Friendship," 1991 Traherne Celebration, Credenhill Church, Herefordshire, England, June 29, 1991. Transcript photocopied, Traherne Association.

Birt, Richard. "Opening Compline Address," 1991 Traherne Celebration, Weobley Church, Herefordshire, England, June 28, 1991. Transcript photocopied, Traherne Association.

Bottrall, Margaret. "Thomas Traherne: A Book from Heaven," at Symposium on Parole Biblique et Inspiration Litteraire, organized by Groupe de Recherche Litterature et Religion, Universite Paris-Nord. Chantilly, September 1988. Transcript photocopied, Traherne Association.

De Waal, Victor. "Eucharist Sermon," 1991 Traherne Celebration, Weobley Church, Herefordshire, England, June 30, 1991. Transcript photocopied, Traherne Association.

Dowell, Graham. "The Green Traherne," 1991 Traherne Celebration, Norton Canon Church, Herefordshire, England, June 29, 1991. Transcript photocopied, Traherne Association.

Finzi, Gerald. "The Composer's Use of Words," three lectures at Royal College of Music, London, May 6, 13, and 20, 1955. Transcript photocopied, The Britten-Pears Library, Aldeburgh, England.

156

Finzi, Joyce. "Gerald Finzi, 1901-1956," speech at the opening of the Finzi Book Room, University of Reading, Reading, England, December 9, 1974. Transcript photocopied, University of Reading.

Interviews

Birt, Richard. Interview at Weobley, Herefordshire, England, September 28, 1992.

Ferguson, Howard. Interview at Cambridge, England, September 30, 1992.

Finzi, Christopher. Interview at Church Farm, Ashmansworth, Berkshire, England, September 27, 1992.

G. Other Sources

A Farewell Tribute. Program from memorial service for Joy Finzi (1907-1991), St. Martin's Church, East Woodhay, England, September 14, 1991.

A Window to English Music. Pamphlet providing background on Laurence Whistler engraved window "A Celebration of English Music," found in entranceway to St. James Church, Ashmansworth, Berkshire, England.

Bottrall, Margaret. Celebrating Traherne. Booklet published to mark the Herefordshire Traherne Festival 1991. Weobley, England: The Traherne Press, 1991.

Cline, Edward DeWitt. The Language and Music of Finzi. Faure and Schubert adopting "The Composer's use of Words" bv Gerald Finzi as a Guide. M.M.A. thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 1988.

Ferguson, Howard. Letters to the author, September 18, 1992; February 23, 1993.

Green, Andrew, presenter, and Smith, Claire Campbell, producer. "The Gift Doth Me Enflame: A Portrait of Wilfred Brown," BBC radio broadcast.

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