Music and Vinyl: Finzi - Clarinet Concerto

Gerald Finzi

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) was an English composer most known for his choral and vocal compositions. He composed nine song cycles, numerous partsongs, the cantata Dies Natalis, and the setting of William Wordsworth's ode Intimations Of Immortality. But he didn't neglect concertos.

A piano concerto was begun but not finished - and the surviving movements were published after his death as the Eclogue and Grand Fantasia and Toccata (and recorded on this Lyrita LP). It is his concertos for Cello, and Clarinet, however that are the more well known and frequently performed pieces.

The Clarinet Concerto was written for the 1949 Hereford Three Choirs Festival, and performed then with soloist Frederick Thurston and Finzi conducting, The official Gerald Finzi website describes the concerto thus:

"The Clarinet Concerto, Finzi’s most widely performed and recorded orchestral work, shows his particular empathy for this solo instrument. Here the clarinet’s equal facility for sustained legato melody and rapid virtuosic figuration is supported by and interacts with his ever-imaginative writing for strings. The concerto breathes an air of fresh spontaneity, moving through baroque-inflected pastoralism, aching Elgarian echoes and lively folk-inspired melody."

Click on the sleevenote scan below for detailed information about the music. On this Lyrita recording the soloist is John Denman.