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Classical Music
- Gerald Finzi
“If appreciation were a measure of merit
and cause for self-esteem, it would long ago have been time
for me to shut up shop, class myself as a failure, and turn
to something of what the world is pleased to call a more ‘useful’
nature.” So wrote the composer Gerald Finzi in 1941,
aged 40, when his promising career looked like it had come
off the tracks. The London-born composer had come close to
the recognition he deserved when his song cycle Dies Natalis,
13 years in the writing, was chosen to be performed in the
prestigious Three Choirs Festival in 1939. But the war started,
the festival was cancelled, and it took more than another
decade for the composer to achieve recognition. Nowadays his
reputation is still growing: Dies Natalis is the first work
performed tonight by the Musicians of All Saints in Lewes.
It is a piece which showcases Finzi’s talent: in it
he sets texts by the 17th century poet Thomas Traherne to
music.
Soprano Linda Houghton sings Finzi’s work tonight, one
of three pieces performed by Lewes' fine Musicians of All
Saints, the others being Haydn’s Symphony no.9 in C
major and a work by contemporary composer Ric Graebner. The
eclectic mix of choices is typical of the MAS, directed by
Andrew Sherwood, who like to mix well-loved classics with
more demanding and less famous works. Gerald Finzi, by the
way, died in 1956, his reputation assured. AG |
