Gerald Finzi

[knight66]

This (Dies Natalis) if Finzi's masterpiece and this version (Wilfrid Brown) is the best ever. I first heard this music (in this performance) on the radio one morning whilst on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales c 1974, it was one of those occasions when music and landscape merged into one (pseuds corner, I know) and, when I got back to London I rushed out to buy the EMI LP (coupled with the Holst).

After some time and prompted by having today ordered a new version of this piece with Susan Gritton, I listened to the Wilfred Brown version. It has long been regarded as the definitive version. It is very beautiful and the composer's son, who conducts, captures the rhapsodic impulse perfectly. It was written over a period exceeding 10 years, but sounds all of a piece.

Brown's diction is perfect.......but it is from another age. The recording was in 1963, but this is BBC, Queen's English, Received Pronunciation from 1933. Surely it was recorded in tweed jacket and cravat! Now, I find the style gets in the way of the music. I know that it is utterly authentic, a HIP performance in its own way, but I was listening as much to the locution as to the piece.

I wonder to what extent the new version will remove for me this barrier and will it erect any new ones?

Mike

[Guido]

After some time and prompted by having today ordered a new version of this piece with Susan Gritton, I listened to the Wilfred Brown version. It has long been regarded as the definitive version. It is very beautiful and the composer's son, who conducts, captures the rhapsodic impulse perfectly. It was written over a period exceeding 10 years, but sounds all of a piece.

Brown's diction is perfect.......but it is from another age. The recording was in 1963, but this is BBC, Queen's English, Received Pronunciation from 1933. Surely it was recorded in tweed jacket and cravat! Now, I find the style gets in the way of the music. I know that it is utterly authentic, a HIP performance in its own way, but I was listening as much to the locution as to the piece.

I wonder to what extent the new version will remove for me this barrier and will it erect any new ones?

Mike

What new version? As I've said above and elsewhere on this forum, my favourite recording is still Philip Langridge's with the LSO strings - one of the best things he ever did, and one of my all time favourite recordings of anything. As a Finzi fanatic this is heretical to say, but I'm not so keen on the Wilfred Brown recording. I also can't stand it with Soprano even although that is usually my favourite voice type and it was first almost exclusively performed by sopranos.

[knight66]

Well you won't like the new one, it is with a soprano. Here it is

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Susan-Gritton-Britten-Chansons-Natalis/dp/B0039OR6UG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1275377739&sr=1-2

It looks like a very good programme. I doubt anyone can supass Heather Harper in the Britten, but having never heard a soprano in the Finzi I thought I would like to give it a chance. I tend to have a deaf ear for Langridge, it is normally an uningratiating voice. Ease and sweetness of tone is vital in the Finzi. Perhaps he was caught on an especially good day if you so enjoy his performance.

Mike

[Guido]

Well you won't like the new one, it is with a soprano. Here it is

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Susan-Gritton-Britten-Chansons-Natalis/dp/B0039OR6UG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1275377739&sr=1-2

It looks like a very good programme. I doubt anyone can supass Heather Harper in the Britten, but having never heard a soprano in the Finzi I thought I would like to give it a chance. I tend to have a deaf ear for Langridge, it is normally an uningratiating voice. Ease and sweetness of tone is vital in the Finzi. Perhaps he was caught on an especially good day if you so enjoy his performance.

Mike

Maybe I should try another soprano in this piece... who knows, I may kike it! - Philip Langridge is in ravishingly good voice in his recording - very sweet, and every phrase beautifully and lovingly shaped.

[drogulus]

   The Naxos recording of Intimations of Immortality didn't do much for me, so I went looking for something better, which turned out to be the Lyrita recording with Ian Partridge and the Guildford Philharmonic Ch. & O. conducted by Vernon Handley. I haven't seen any reviews but this surely seems like a first choice.

[71 dB]

The Naxos recording of Intimations of Immortality didn't do much for me.

What's wrong with it? I have that disc. I have never felt it should/could do more than it does for me...

[Guido]

   The Naxos recording of Intimations of Immortality didn't do much for me, so I went looking for something better, which turned out to be the Lyrita recording with Ian Partridge and the Guildford Philharmonic Ch. & O. conducted by Vernon Handley. I haven't seen any reviews but this surely seems like a first choice.

I really liked the Naxos. The one I'm not so keen on is Langridge with the LPO. Haven't yet heard the Partridge one - maybe I should invest...

[drogulus]

What's wrong with it? I have that disc. I have never felt it should/could do more than it does for me...

    I don't care for the singer. The Lyrita is available as mp3s on Amazon (U.S.) so you can hear it for yourself.

[knight66]

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,555.new.html#new

I have reviewed the disc with Susan Griton, which contains Dies Natalis.

Mike

[mjwal]

I bought the Collins Martyn Hill/Hickox disc back in the late 80s and have never felt the need to acquire another. This CD also includes the Farewell to Arms and the clarinet concerto played by a brilliant Michael Collins. But my favourite work by Finzi remains Let Us Garlands Bring in Terfel's recording. I believe there is an orchestrated version - is that worth getting?

[Mirror Image]

I don't own that much of Finzi's music:

-Clarinet Concerto w/ other orchestral works, Howard Griffiths, Northern Sinfonia, Naxos
-Cello Concerto w/ other orchestral works, Howard Griffiths, Northern Sinfonia, Naxos
-Centenary Collection (includes Clarinet Concerto), William Boughton, English String Orch., Nimbus
-Orchestral Music, Sir Adrian Boult, Vernon Handley, London Philharmonic, New Philharmonia Orch., Lyrita
-Violin Concerto, Cello Concerto, Richard Hickox, Vernon Handley, City of London Sinfonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Chandos
-Love's Labour's Lost, Vernon Handley, Royal Philharmonic, New Philharmonia, Lyrita

[71 dB]

I don't own that much of Finzi's music:

Well, Finzi didn't even compose that much, did he?

[snyprrr]

Why not?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2KdW0VeHJk

[knight66]

Lovely piece, thanks for drawing it to my attention. It sounds like a beautifully idiomatic performance. I have now starred the piece on Spotify so that I don't forget it. It has all Finzi's hallmark pastoral lyricism stitched through it.

Mike

[snyprrr]

Lovely piece, thanks for drawing it to my attention. It sounds like a beautifully idiomatic performance. I have now starred the piece on Spotify so that I don't forget it. It has all Finzi's hallmark pastoral lyricism stitched through it.

Mike

Wonderful!!

[snyprrr]

Finzi love!

[Winky Willy]

I also love Finzi. He is one of the best representatives of the English pastoral tradition in music.

[calyptorhynchus]

Hi everyone

I've been posting mainly over at the Havergal Brian  and Robert Simpson threads, but Finzi is also a great favourite of mine. I know almost all his works and have many recordings.

As to his vocal music, he is one of my favourite vocal composers and I think his vocal writing is so grateful for the voice and so sensitive to the words that any singer who is moderately competent can do well in Finzi. I don't have too many problems with any recordings that I know.

There's just one little problem I have, which applies to several recent recordings in English of vocal music, which is the glottal stop. I grew up in Britain in the 60s and 70s in an RP speaking family, and heard singing in English in that accent. I moved to Australia in 1991 (and I now sound like Crocodile Dundee), but when I listen to modern English English speakers all I hear are glottal stops. This applies also to singing. So in one recording I have of In Terra Pax an otherwise rather posh soprano sings "for un'oo you in the ci'y of David", which kind of ruins the effect.

[Tsaraslondon]

There's just one little problem I have, which applies to several recent recordings in English of vocal music, which is the glottal stop. I grew up in Britain in the 60s and 70s in an RP speaking family, and heard singing in English in that accent. I moved to Australia in 1991 (and I now sound like Crocodile Dundee), but when I listen to modern English English speakers all I hear are glottal stops. This applies also to singing. So in one recording I have of In Terra Pax an otherwise rather posh soprano sings "for un'oo you in the ci'y of David", which kind of ruins the effect.

It's a sad fact, that many modern singers have no idea how to sing English. Quite often they are almost unintelligible. You only have to listen to Kathleen Ferrier and Peter Pears to hear how natural sung English can sound. In more recent times, the American David Daniels also sings perfectly pronounced, intelligible English. Honestly, I don't understand why so many singers mangle our language so much. I hear they now have surtitles at the English National Opera, which rather removes the company's entire raison d'etre. I thought that the whole premise behind opera in the vernacular was so that it could be understood by an indigenous population. If the audience needs surtitles to help it make out what the singers are singing, then why bother doing it in English at all?

[knight66]

Recently at a highly praised run of ROsenkavalier at ENO, I found most of the words unintelligable. John Tomlinson projected them well. At the other extreme Amanda Roocroft's words were mostly mush.

Mike