Finzi, Gerald (1901 - 1956)

[Leinster Lass]

Now who's being gnomic (sorry if you have to look that up!)?
I've just had to Duckduckgo (having changed my search engine) 'Finzi Cello concerto' to find out what happened.
But I won't tell, as that would spoil the fun, and we can all search the web, can't we?

You'll won't like, you know, be getting no mickey taking from me where Finzi's concerned. Just my Baldrickian attempt to lure people into discovering more about one of my favourite composers.

[Pulcinella]

You'll won't like, you know, be getting no mickey taking from me where Finzi's concerned. Just my Baldrickian attempt to lure people into discovering more about one of my favourite composers.

Oops!
I deleted my post, in case any offence was taken (though none was intended!), but too late, as you've quoted it!

PS: Sympathies to ahinton, if Dies Natalis doesn't hit the spot for him.

[Edgy 2]

Can't identify with his work in general although his final piece, the cello concerto, seems to stand head and shoulders above all that went before it...

It's a fine work indeed, I think I posted some time ago, can't remember where or when, that I rate it higher than the Elgar and I don't recall getting pelters https://www.collinsdictionary.com/di...nglish/pelters

[antongould]

On Essential Classics on Tuesday the wonderfully seasonal The Fall of the leaf - elegy in D minor Op.20 ….. very acceptable IMVVHO ….

[Serial_Apologist]

On Essential Classics on Tuesday the wonderfully seasonal The Fall of the leaf - elegy in D minor Op.20 ….. very acceptable IMVVHO ….

Catch it if you can!

[cloughie]

Catch it if you can!

Of red and gould!

[Serial_Apologist]

Of red and gould!

And just in Tyne!

[antongould]

On New Years Day the much debated Ms Alker played New Years Music ….. shamefully I had never heard it … I think it will be become an annual listen for me ……

[Simon Biazeck]

Courtesy of the blogger, CLASSICAL ICONOCLAST.

"On New Year's Eve, 1925, Gerald Finzi went to a party in a cottage on Chosen Hill, above the hamlet of Churchdown in Gloucestershire. The cottage still stands, half-hidden in a hollow. At midnight, Finzi and his friends came outside, into sharp frost, the night sky filled with stars, and "heard bells ringing across Gloucestershire from beside the Severn to the hill villages of the Cotswolds". Stephen Banfield, Finzi's biographer, calls this the "hilltop epiphany", for it released in Finzi a surge of original music. This was the inspiration for Nocturne op 7, whose sub-title is in fact New Year's Music, and later for In Terra Pax, filled with bells and joy. Finzi needed an impetus to find himself and something happened that night under the stars. "I love New Year's Eve," he told a friend later, "Though it's the saddest time of the year..... a time of silence and quiet". And soon after asked himself "must knowledge come to me, if it comes at all, by some awkward experiment of intuition, and no longer by the familiar process (of reading other's work)?" ie Finzi was learning to trust his own artistic instincts."

[antongould]

Courtesy of the blogger, CLASSICAL ICONOCLAST.

"On New Year's Eve, 1925, Gerald Finzi went to a party in a cottage on Chosen Hill, above the hamlet of Churchdown in Gloucestershire. The cottage still stands, half-hidden in a hollow. At midnight, Finzi and his friends came outside, into sharp frost, the night sky filled with stars, and "heard bells ringing across Gloucestershire from beside the Severn to the hill villages of the Cotswolds". Stephen Banfield, Finzi's biographer, calls this the "hilltop epiphany", for it released in Finzi a surge of original music. This was the inspiration for Nocturne op 7, whose sub-title is in fact New Year's Music, and later for In Terra Pax, filled with bells and joy. Finzi needed an impetus to find himself and something happened that night under the stars. "I love New Year's Eve," he told a friend later, "Though it's the saddest time of the year..... a time of silence and quiet". And soon after asked himself "must knowledge come to me, if it comes at all, by some awkward experiment of intuition, and no longer by the familiar process (of reading other's work)?" ie Finzi was learning to trust his own artistic instincts."

Thank you very much Simon ….. Ms Alker had some of that …. but far from all ……

[oddoneout]

We also had Dies Natalis (the Wilfred Brown recording) on 28th thanks to Tom McKinney.
Chosen Hill was a favourite family walk and picnic spot when I was a small child. According to Wiki that cottage was (partly) the unwitting cause of Finzi's death on a later visit.

[Simon Biazeck]

Thank you very much Simon ….. Ms Alker had some of that …. but far from all ……

You are most welcome. I listen to it every year - a listening pilgrimage.

SBz.

[Piazolla]

That cello concerto, what a masterpiece! It should be performed as much as the Elgar.

[Historian]

On New Years Day the much debated Ms Alker played New Years Music ….. shamefully I had never heard it … I think it will be become an annual listen for me ……

First Finzi piece I ever heard, on Radio Three over forty years ago. I remember listening rapt and wondering who had written such music. Not so easy to find out about composers in those days but searched out as much as I could and have never been disappointed. Had the great pleasure of hearing the Cello concerto in concert a couple of years ago. For me his work is utterly distinctive.

Glad Anton and Simon feel similarly about this piece. Thanks to you both.

[Barbirollians]

First Finzi piece I ever heard, on Radio Three over forty years ago. I remember listening rapt and wondering who had written such music. Not so easy to find out about composers in those days but searched out as much as I could and have never been disappointed. Had the great pleasure of hearing the Cello concerto in concert a couple of years ago. For me his work is utterly distinctive.

Glad Anton and Simon feel similarly about this piece. Thanks to you both.

I like the Finzi Cello Concerto but the equal of the Elgar it ain’t !

I see Raphael Wallfisch thinks it is better than the Elgar . I have both his and Tim Hugh’s versions and they don’t make me feel that way - perhaps I need to get the Yo Yo Ma?