Gerald Finzi By Footpath and Stile Finzi Quartet Marcus Farnsworth baritone Robert Plane Ruth Bolister oboe By Footpath and Stile for string quartet by 1. Romance, Op. 11 [7:13] arr. for string quartet by Christian Alexander Gerald Finzi (1901–1956) By Footpath and Stile, Op. 2 for baritone and string quartet 2. Paying calls [4:13] Finzi Quartet 3. Where the picnic was [4:27] Sara Wolstenholme violin 1 4. The Oxen [3:11] Natalie Klouda violin 2 5. The master and the leaves [3:16] Ruth Gibson viola 6. Voices from things growing Lydia Shelley cello in a churchyard [7:01] 7. Exeunt omnes [3:21]

Marcus Farnsworth baritone 8. Prelude [5:01] Robert Plane clarinet arr. for string quartet by Christian Alexander Ruth Bolister oboe 9. Interlude, Op. 21 [11:47] for oboe and string quartet

10. Elegy, Op. 22 [7:52] arr. for string quartet by Christian Alexander

Five Bagatelles, Op. 23 arr. for clarinet and string quartet by Christian Alexander 11. Prelude: Allegro deciso [3:27] 12. Romance: Andante tranquillo [5:03] 13. Carol: Andante semplice [1:51] 14. Forlana: Allegretto grazioso [3:00] 15. Fughetta: Allegro vivace [2:13]

Total playing time [73:05]

Gerald Finzi (1901–1956): voice as a composer. The grim reality of war By Footpath and Stile ramified throughout Europe; reshaped national boundaries, peace treaties, In 1941 Gerald Finzi wrote, in a document reparations, The League of Nations and entitled Absalom’s Place – a very personal spiralling inflation all served to restructure attempt to summarise his artistic beliefs – the routines of daily life and define the ‘[…] some curious force compels us to decades to come. And amidst all of this, preserve and project into the future the every day, people moved forward in their essence of our individuality, and, in doing lives trying to deal with the ineluctable so, to project something of our age and impact of personal loss, premature deaths, civilization.’ And as one of England’s and lost love. Whether writing music best-loved twentieth-century composers, during this period was a search for catharsis, Finzi’s music can seem at once of its time a desire to construct a memorial to lost yet also timeless. lives and lost times, or an attempt to cast off towards the future for Finzi the artist, Finzi’s own time started in July 1901, born we find in By Footpath and Stile, Op. 2, into comparative wealth and the the seeds of lifelong obsessions: the comfortable surroundings of Hamilton passing of time, mortality, the poetry of Terrace in ’s Maida Vale; while his Thomas Hardy, and most importantly, life ended in an Oxford hospital in song itself. Here too, in Finzi’s first September 1956, during the seventeenth published work, can be heard the steering year of his family’s occupancy of Church influences of composers and folk song Farm in the remote Hampshire village of enthusiasts Ralph Vaughan Williams Ashmansworth. The music in this recording and George Butterworth, both of whom covers most of Finzi’s life as a professional had composed chamber music song cycles. composer: from early published successes, through increasingly self-assured mid-career Departing the hilly Gloucestershire work, to music completed nearer the end countryside for the more propitious London of his relatively curtailed life. music scene of the late 1920s, Finzi was still attempting to find his voice as a As the shadow of the First World War began composer. Looking not only to the music of Gerald Finzi to stretch far into the future, the young Vaughan Williams, other illustrious (photograph courtesy of Boosey and Hawkes) Gerald Finzi was only beginning to find his contemporaries and the English folk-song heritage, but also back towards to the found the space to indulge his passion for Although the Romance was composed in the Five Bagatelles (although this was Baroque era, Finzi was yet to find his stride. collecting books and conserving rare varieties 1928 and is now arguably one of Finzi’s composed over at least four years and The Prelude for strings from this time of apple trees, while beginning to flourish most treasured instrumental works utilised sketches that stemmed back many does not sing with the confidence and as a composer. (alongside the Cello Concerto, Op. 40, years more), and composed his Elegy for craftsmanship of his later works but, in its the Clarinet Concerto, Op. 31, and the violin and piano, Op. 22. song-like melodies and relatively simple In song collections such as A Young Man’s Five Bagatelles, Op. 23), it did not see the harmonies, the young composer’s desire Exhortation, Op. 14, and Earth and Air and light of day until close to the end of the Two of the pieces on this recording are in to communicate directly and with explicit Rain, Op. 15 (Finzi’s first music to be taken composer’s life, resurrected and tweaked their original versions: By Footpath and Stile clarity is easily apparent. on by a mainstream music publisher – what for a Newbury String Players concert. It and Interlude; the four remaining pieces is now Boosey & Hawkes and still Finzi’s does not aspire to the emotional gravitas, have all been arranged in recent years by Living in London for eight years, very much publisher), both settings of poetry by the Sibelius-like architectural strength, or the current writer. This version of the part of the contemporary English musical Thomas Hardy, the hand of a considerably the harmonic intensity of the Cello Five Bagatelles, commissioned for David landscape, teaching at the Royal Academy more confident and increasingly skilled Concerto (a work which dominated the Campbell and the Endellion Quartet was of Music, and starting what would become composer is clearly at work. The rather composer’s final year and was first first performed on the centenary of ongoing dialogues with other prominent drawn out gestation of his stunning Dies broadcast the evening before his death); Gerald Finzi’s birth, while the arrangements musicians (most notably Howard Ferguson), natalis, Op. 8, what was eventually a but as is the case with much of Finzi’s of Romance, Elegy and Prelude were all Finzi began to grow in assuredness as a five-movement cantata for high voice output, it is a musical gem. Small-scale and commissioned more recently by composer. In 1933 he married the artist and strings, also took place throughout intimate, song-like in its flow, it is instantly the Finzi Quartet. and poet Joyce Black (Joy Finzi’s life was this period. And it was at this time Finzi recognisable as the musical voice of Gerald to stretch decades beyond that of her composed his Romance for string Finzi. This music speaks with unpretentious Making arrangements of another composer’s husband Gerald’s), and together they , Op. 11 and Interlude for oboe directness and emotional openness; it is music can be an onerous business, which became a remarkable and at times and string quartet, Op. 21. Ever modest packed with an enviable degree of melodic carries with it a tremendous weight of progressive force for cultural good, and self-effacing, Finzi told his friend invention and a consistent sense of the responsibility, every bit as taxing and encouraging other artists and musicians, Howard Ferguson ‘There’s some decent composer’s own harmonic language. As absorbing as composing one’s own music, and inspiring those around their open and music in the Oboe Interlude and a certain he moved into the last phase of his maybe even more so. Finzi was a painstaking, friendly household. Although Gerald was amount of rant, which I had to stick in to working life, Finzi must surely have felt meticulous composer who paid scrupulous by nature anxious, fragile and prone to fill things up when I got rather rushed more confident about his place and future attention to every detail of his music (and worrying, Joy was to provide the strength towards the end’. Ferguson replied that in English music. indeed his settings of words); as an and no doubt optimism too in the Finzi the ‘rant’ could well be turn out to be the arranger, I saw my task as being to protect family’s life. In 1933 they moved to best of it – maybe for most artists, and I Finzi’s most accomplished music was and maintain this integrity, whilst also trying Aldbourne, Wiltshire, where their two sons imagine in all likelihood for Finzi, learning written in his forties and early fifties, to provide the music with a different lease Christopher (Kiffer) and Nigel were born. to trust one’s own instinct does not come whilst living at Church Farm in Hampshire; of life in a new format. This does take a Here, and later on in Ashmansworth, Finzi easily. it was during this period that he completed modicum of courage: the arranger needs to think of the music to some degree as all of these arrangements is simply By Footpath and Stile But the spot still shows his own, ignoring the many pretentious that they still appear to sound like the Text by Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) As a burnt circle - aye, and presumptuous implications of this music of Gerald Finzi, a wonderful English And stick-ends, charred, Still strew the sward approach. Having said that, arranging composer. I. Paying calls I went by footpath and by stile Whereon I stand, the Five Bagatelles was a relatively Beyond where bustle ends, Last relic of the band straightforward task: the original piano I hope also that these four arrangements Strayed here a mile and there a mile Who came that day! part seemed to me very much like will help to encourage the listener to seek And called upon some friends. chamber music transcribed for piano, as out Gerald Finzi’s relatively modest, but Yes, I am here if the composer had imagined the music deeply impressive musical output. Finzi also On certain ones I had not seen Just as last year, And the sea breathes brine first for a small orchestra or chamber wrote in Absalom’s Place, ‘It must be clear, For years past did I call, And then on others who had been From its strange straight line group, but for practical reasons written particularly in the case of a slow worker, The oldest friends of all. Up hither, the same it for piano. The Prelude also seemed that only a long life can see the rounding- As when we four came. to lend itself easily to an arrangement off and completion of this projection. It was the time of midsummer for string quartet, once I had made Consequently, those few works of mine When they had used to roam; – But two have wandered far the decision to shift the music’s key fit for publication can only be regarded But now, though tempting was the air, From this grassy rise I found them all at home. Into urban roar upwards enabling me to preserve the as fragments of a building.’ Where no picnics are, original musical counterpoint intact using I spoke to one and other of them And one - has shut her eyes only the four instruments of the quartet. Gerald Finzi did not have a long life, but it By mound and stone and tree For evermore. was richly productive. In his ‘fragments of Of things we had done ere days were dim, The same cannot be said of Romance and a building’ can be glimpsed something But they spoke not to me. ‘Where the picnic was’ from Satires of Elegy however; these presented more truly beautiful; and perhaps my contribution Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces (pub. 1914) difficulties – and the Finzi Quartet might have provided a few more bricks, ‘Paying Calls’ from Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (pub. 1917) themselves offered much invaluable and that I have in some small way reached III. The Oxen advice concerning these two arrangements. back in time to ‘shake hands with a good II. Where the picnic was Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. In Elegy, the original solo violin part is friend’. Where we made the fire, ‘Now they are all on their knees,’ largely retained intact as the quartet’s In the summer time, An elder said as we sat in a flock first violin part; which left the problem © 2012 Christian Alexander Of branch and briar By the embers in hearthside ease. of representing the sometimes rich piano On the hill to the sea I slowly climb We pictured the meek mild creatures where writing on a mere three string instruments. Through winter mire, They dwelt in their strawy pen, And in Romance, with its rich, frequently And scan and trace Nor did it occur to one of us there sub-divided string orchestration, the The forsaken place To doubt they were kneeling then. challenges were obvious, but no less Quite readily. difficult to resolve. My sincere hope for Now a cold wind blows, So fair a fancy few would weave And the grass is gray, In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, V. Voices from things growing in a churchyard I, who as innocent withwind climb, There is an air of blankness ‘Come; see the oxen kneel, These flowers are I, poor Fanny Hurd, Sir or Madam. In the street and the littered spaces; Sir or Madam, Am one Eve Greensleeves, in olden time Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway ‘In the lonely barton by yonder coomb A little girl here sepultured. Kissed by men from many a clime, Wizen themselves to lankness; Our childhood used to know,’ Once I flit-fluttered like a bird Beneath sun, stars, in blaze, in breeze, Kennels dribble dankness. I should go with him in the gloom, Above the grass, as now I wave As now by glowworms and by bees, Hoping it might be so. In daisy shapes above my grave, All day cheerily, Folk all fade. And whither, All day cheerily, All night eerily! As I wait alone where the fair was? ‘The Oxen’ (pub. 1919) All night eerily! Into the clammy and numbing night-fog I’m old Squire Audeley Grey, who grew, Whence they entered hither. IV. The master and the leaves I am one Bachelor Bowring, “Gent,” Sir or Madam, Soon do I follow thither! We are budding, Master, budding, Sir or Madam; Aweary of life, and in scorn withdrew; We of your favourite tree; In shingled oak my bones were pent; Till anon I clambered up anew ‘Exeunt omnes’ from Satires of Circumstance, March drought and April flooding Hence more than a hundred years I spent As ivy-green, when my ache was stayed, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces Arouse us merrily, In my feat of change from a coffin-thrall And in that attire I have longtime gayed (pub. 1914) Our stemlets newly studding; To a dancer in green as leaves on a wall. All day cheerily, And yet you do not see! All day cheerily, All night eerily! All night eerily! We are fully woven for summer And so they breathe, these masks, to each In stuff of limpest green, I, these berries of juice and gloss, Sir or Madam The twitterer and the hummer Sir or Madam, Who lingers there, and their lively speech Here rest of nights, unseen, Am clean forgotten as Thomas Voss; Affords an interpreter much to teach, While like a long-roll drummer Thin-urned, I have burrowed away from the moss As their murmurous accents seem to come The nightjar thrills the treen. That covers my sod, and have entered this yew, Thence hitheraround in a radiant hum, And turned to clusters ruddy of view, All day cheerily, We are turning yellow, Master, All day cheerily, All night eerily! And next we are turning red, All night eerily! And faster then and faster ‘Voices from things growing in a churchyard’ first Shall seek our rooty bed, The Lady Gertrude, proud, high-bred, published in London Mercury (1921, rev. 1922) All wasted in disaster! Sir or Madam, But you lift not your head. Am I – this laurel that shades your head; VI. Exeunt omnes Into its veins I have stilly sped, – ‘I mark your early going, And made them of me; and my leaves now shine, Everybody else, then, going, And that you'll soon be clay, As did my satins superfine, And I still left where the fair was?... I have seen your summer showing All day cheerily, Much have I seen of neighbour loungers As in my youthful day; All night eerily! Making a lusty showing, But why I seem unknowing Each now past all knowing. Is too sunk in to say!’ The Finzi Quartet ‘The master and the leaves’ from Owl (pub. 1919) Finzi Quartet his studies at the in Festival. Other concert appearances have Prize winners in the 2010 Royal Over Seas 2011, where roles included Guglielmo included the St John Passion with the Gabrieli League Competition and the 5th Trondheim (Così fan tutte); Sid (Albert Herring); Oreste Consort in Berlin. International String Quartet Competition (Cavalli’s Giasone) and Meredith in Peter

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in Norway, the Finzi Quartet gave recitals and Maxwell Davies’s Kommilitonen! eg Robert Plane (clarinet)

made numerous festival appearances at alov Robert Plane has long championed the major venues throughout the UK and Recent and future opera plans include Eddy music of British composers, past and present, Europe, including London’s Wigmore Hall, in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek for Music both in the concert hall and in the recording Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Het Theatre Wales; Novice’s Friend in a new studio. His disc of Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto

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Concertgebouw in Amsterdam production of Britten’s Billy Budd for English aph won Classic CD magazine’s ‘Concerto and the Auditorio Sony in Madrid. National Opera; the title role in Britten’s Recording of the Year’ award and

Owen Wingrave as part of the International Photogr his disc of Sonatas by Arnold Bax was The Quartet enjoyed regular collaborations Chamber Music Festival in Nuremberg, and, Marcus Farnsworth shortlisted for a Gramophone Award. with several international guest artists and in concert, Kilian in Der Freischütz with the was fortunate to have worked with many London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Bernard He has given the premieres of concertos by inspirational musicians including, Hatto Davis; Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas) for the Labardie; St Matthew Passion (Christ and arias) Diana Burrell, Nicola LeFanu, Piers Hellawell Beyerle, Valentin Erben, Andras Keller, Early Opera Company and Christian Curnyn in Lausanne, Switzerland and Wroclaw, Poland and Simon Holt and he made his solo debut Johannes Meissl, Heime Muller, Gabor at the Wigmore Hall and a recording of with the Gabrieli Consort and Paul McCreesh; at the BBC Proms in 2011 in Holt’s double Takacs-Nagy, Christoph Richter, and Mozart’s Apollo and Hyacinth with the Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad concerto Centauromachy. Robert has Thomas Riebl. Classical Opera Company. King with the Wermlands Opera Orchestra, performed concertos with the Bournemouth Karlstad, Sweden and a return to the Newbury Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, As selected artists the Quartet benefited Future recitals include Schubert’s Die Schöne Spring Festival in May 2012 to sing Vaughan Scottish Ensemble, City of London Sinfonia, from the support of the Tillett Trust, Park Müllerin for the Oxford Lieder Festival and at Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem. Marcus will also Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Dortmund Lane Group, the Tunnell Trust, the Kirckman St John’s, Smith Square, London; a Schubertiade make appearances with the BBC Symphony Philharmonic and RTÉ National Symphony Concerts Society, the Swiss Global with The Prince Consort in Perth and Britten’s Orchestra in the coming seasons. Orchestra, in prestigious halls across Europe Artistic Foundation and the Hattori Tit for Tat with Malcolm Martineau and from Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional de Musica Foundation. the Canticles with Julius Drake and Mark Marcus has recently performed Bach’s and the Zurich Tonhalle to London's Barbican Padmore, as part of the Wigmore Hall’s Britten Cantata No. 82 Ich habe Genug and Zelenka’s and Royal Albert Hall. Marcus Farnsworth (baritone) Festival in 2012. The Lamentations of Jeremiah with the Marcus Farnsworth was awarded first prize Academy of Ancient Music in the UK and in A guest of string quartets such as the Maggini, in the 2009 Wigmore Hall International Song On the concert platform plans include Nielsen’s France with whom he has also sung Bach’s St Dante, Brodsky, Carducci, Tippett, Auer and Competition, and the Song Prize at the 2011 Symphony No. 3 with the LSO and Sir Colin John Passion in London and Cambridge and Mandelring, he also enjoys a close relationship Kathleen Ferrier Competition. He completed Davis; Haydn’s Paukenmesse with the BBC Charpentier’s Te Deum at the Three Choirs with the Gould Piano Trio. Together they direct

More titles from Resonus Classics woodwind final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition before winning first Through a Glass: Songs by Martin Bussey prize in the Isle of Wight International Oboe Marcus Farnsworth (baritone); Thomas Kemp Competition in 1993, which led to her Wigmore (conductor) & James Bailieu (piano) Hall debut. She has also appeared as a soloist RES10137 at the Wigmore Hall as part of the Tillett ‘Educationist and musician Martin Bussey (b. 1958) Trust’s Young Artists’ Platform and in the is a chameleon composer, able effortlessly to adapt fiftieth anniversary celebrations for the his style to the contours of his chosen poetry’ oboe manufacturers T.W. Howarth and The Obeserver Company.

Robert Plane Ruth released a recording of English Oboe Fauré, Chausson & Satie: Piano Trios Concertos with the Elgar Chamber Orchestra Fidelio Trio the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival in for the ASV label in 2003 to much critical RES10232 Northumberland. Their recording of acclaim, and in 2004 she was a soloist on Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time was BBC Radio 2’s ‘Friday Night is Music Night’. ‘Delicacy and flow are the watchwords described by BBC Music Magazine as the Ruth is Principal Oboe of English National across the album’ ‘best modern account’ of this monumental Opera, a position she has held since 1997. Gramophone work. She also regularly works as guest principal oboe with other chamber and symphony Chamber music tours have taken Robert to in London. the USA, China, South America and New Zealand. Alongside his solo career Robert © 2019 Resonus Limited è 2012 Resonus Limited has held the principal clarinet positions of Recorded in All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, London on 5–7 February 2012 the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Producer, Engineer and Editor: Adam Binks Northern Sinfonia and the BBC National Recorded at 24-bit / 96kHz resolution Orchestra of Wales. Cover image: Rapeseed Fields by Tilgnerpictures (pixabay.com) All works published by Boosey and Hawkes

Ruth Bolister (oboe) With thanks to the Finzi Trust for their support in making this recording. Ruth Bolister studied at Clare College, Cambridge, The Royal Academy of Music in RESONUS LIMITED – UK London and the Karlsruhe Hochschule [email protected] für Musik. In 1990 she was runner-up in the Ruth Bolister www.resonusclassics.com RES10109