FINZI a Young Man’S Exhortation Till Earth Outwears Oh Fair to See

570414bk EU&US 17/4/07 2:57 pm Page 16 The English Song Series • 16 DDD Also available on Naxos 8.570414 Gerald FINZI A Young Man’s Exhortation Till Earth Outwears Oh Fair To See John Mark Ainsley, Tenor Iain Burnside, Piano 8.570414 16 570414bk EU&US 17/4/07 2:57 pm Page 2 Gerald Finzi (1901-1956): A Young Man’s Exhortation, Op. 14 But, hush – Earth’s valleys sweet in leisure lie; Till Earth Outwears, Op. 19a • Oh Fair to See, Op. 13b And I among them wandering up and down Will taste their berries, like the bird or fly, Gerald Finzi studied with Ernest Farrar, Edward Unusually for Finzi, A Young Man’s Exhortation And of their gleanings make both feast and crown. Bairstow and R.O. Morris. He came to attention with (1926-9) was conceived consciously as a song-cycle The Sun’s eye laughing looks. works like the orchestral miniature A Severn Rhapsody which is divided equally into two parts, each prefaced And Earth accuses none that goes among her stooks. (1923) and a song-cycle to poems by Thomas Hardy By with a quotation from Psalm 90. Part 1: ‘Mane floreat, Footpath and Stile (1921-2). Finzi’s reputation grew et transeat’ (In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth The text of both To Joy and Harvest by Edmund during the 1930s with performances of two groups of up) deals with youth and love, whilst Part II: ‘Vespere Blunden are reproduced by permission of PFD Hardy settings, A Young Man’s Exhortation (1926-9) decidat, induret, et arescat’ (In the evening it is cut http://www.pfd.co.uk on behalf of the Estate of and Earth and Air and Rain (1928-35), and was down, and withereth) looks back on life from the Mrs. Claire Blunden consolidated with the première in 1940 of his cantata perspective of old age. Frank Drew accompanied by Dies Natalis (1925-39). During World War II Finzi Augustus Lowe, gave the first public performance of ¢ Since we loved worked at the Ministry of War Transport and founded a the work on 5th December 1933. Words by Robert Seymour Bridges (1844-1930) fine, mainly amateur orchestra, the Newbury String Finzi must have identified closely with the Players. Two of his most popular works appeared sentiments of the title song, A Young Man’s Since we loved, - (the earth that shook during the war, the Five Bagatelles for clarinet (1920s, Exhortation, since Hardy wrote the poem in his mid- As we kissed, fresh beauty took) – 1941-3), and the Shakespeare settings, Let us garlands twenties when living in London and struggling to gain Love hath been as poets paint, bring (1928-42) (Naxos 8.557644). To the post war recognition as a poet, just as Finzi was trying to do as a Life as heaven is to a saint; years belong the festival anthem Lo, the Full, Final composer in the same city at a similar age. In the final Sacrifice (1946) (Naxos 8.555792), the ceremonial ode stanza the ‘passing preciousness of dreams’ draws from All my joys my hope excel, For St Cecilia (1947) (Naxos 8.557863) and a further Finzi a melodic phrase of tender wistfulness. Ditty is a All my work hath prosper’d well, Hardy song collection Before and After Summer (1932- contented love-song basking in secure diatonic All my songs have happy been, 49), the Clarinet Concerto (1948-9) (8.553566) and harmony which is disturbed just once by a discord at the O my love, my life, my queen. Intimations of Immortality for chorus and orchestra (late word ‘smart’ as an apt musical symbol to the thought, 1936-8, 1949-50). Although the final years of his life unbearable to the poet, that chance circumstances might were lived under the shadow of an incurable illness, he never have brought him and his true love together. completed the Christmas scene In Terra Pax (1951-4) Budmouth Dears, described by Finzi as a ‘storming and the Cello Concerto (1951-5) (Naxos 8.555766). march’, has a swaggering accompaniment that Song-writing is at the heart of Finzi’s output and he brilliantly enhances the portrayal of the handsome made a significant contribution to British twentieth- huzzars eyeing up the young beauties of the town. In century music in this genre, especially the settings of Her Temple the poet imagines creating a lasting Thomas Hardy, his favourite poet, whom he set more memorial to his love. Finzi’s response is a tightly than any other. His volume of Hardy’s Collected Poems organized song bound around three motifs within the was a treasured possession; as he wrote to a friend: ‘If I piano introduction. The Comet at Yell’ham was Encke’s had to be cut off from everything that would be the one Comet which Hardy saw in 1858. It inspired a poem book I should choose’. He felt an empathy with Hardy’s that contrasts the brevity of human life with the aeons of bleak fatalism, his sense of transience, and his anger at the universe’s existence. Finzi mirrors this by evoking the suffering that mankind afflicts on mankind. About the vast night sky in mysterious ethereal music high in Hardy he wrote tellingly: ‘I have always loved him so the piano register with no pulse and austere harmony. much and from earliest days responded, not so much to Briefly the music becomes earthbound as the poet an influence, as to a kinship with him.’ ponders on his own short life, before it rises again to the 8.570414 2 15 8.570414 570414bk EU&US 17/4/07 2:57 pm Page 14 ) As I lay in the early sun ™ To Joy stellar heights. Shortening Days is equally evocative as ago. The Market-Girl (1927, revised 1940) was (Tempo commodo) Words by Edmund Charles Blunden (1896-1974) the dappled music of the opening matches Hardy’s intended for possible inclusion in A Young Man’s Words by Edward Shanks (1892-1953) childhood memories of autumn days. In the second Exhortation. It moves swiftly through a variety of Is not this enough for moan stanza Finzi perfectly marries the poet’s description of emotions to its joyful conclusion when love has As I lay in the early sun, To see this babe all motherless – the cider-maker’s arrival by a lumbering processional. triumphed. In I look into my Glass (1936), the poet Stretched in the grass, I thought upon A babe beloved – thrust out all alone At the heart of The Sigh is a question: did the poet’s laments that his heart has not shrunk as thin as his My true love, my dear love, Upon death’s wilderness? beloved harbour love for another man rather than ageing body. The syncopated throbbing of the opening Who has my heart forever Out tears fall, fall, fall – I would weep himself? Finzi, in the piano’s introduction, creates an piano introduction creates the mood of frustrated regret. Who is my happiness when we meet, My blood away to make her warm, equivalent musical image for the woman’s ‘sigh’, It never looks like summer here was composed on 23rd My sorrow when we sever. Who never went on earth one step, which, in varied form, sets the closing lines of each February 1956, Finzi having re-read the poem that She is all fire when I do burn, Nor heard the breath of the strom. stanza, as if analogous to the nagging question that morning decided to set it there and then. The music Gentle when I moody turn, How shall you go, my little child, haunts the man over the years. In Former Beauties the captures the laconic irony of the contrasting images of Brave when I am sad and heavy Alone on that most wintry wild. maidens of Budmouth Dears have become elderly past and present times. At a Lunar Eclipse (1929) was And all laughter when I am merry. ‘market dames’ whose memories of youth are influenced by Holst’s Egdon Heath and was initially And so I lay and dreamed and dreamed, £ Harvest poignantly recalled in a gently lilting dance. The final planned to be part of A Young Man’s Exhortation. The And so the day wheeled on, Words by Edmund Charles Blunden (1896-1974) two songs deal with death itself. Transformations refers evocation of the poet’s opening line is effortless as the While all the birds with thoughts like mine to Hardy’s philosophy that as the dead decay they music emerges in imitative entries from the penumbral Were singing to the sun. So there’s my year, the twelvemonth duly told become alive again in the plants that grow above their depths of the piano to become the crescent arch of the Since last I climbed this brow and gloated round graves. Finzi echoes this in a song of blossoming singer’s melody. It soars seemingly transcending time © Edward Shanks, reprinted by permission of Upon the lands heaped with their wheaten gold, energy within which he weaves a reference to Her and space in the matching of Hardy’s image. Mrs. Susan Bellord and Mrs. Sarah Astell And now again they spread with wealth imbrowned – Temple. In The Dance continued (‘Regret not me’), the Underlying the voice is the persistent tread of the And thriftless I meanwhile, dead man speaks from his grave. The music recalls his accompaniment that leads ineluctably to the ironic What honeycombs have I to take, what sheaves joyful recollections of a life fully lived, as well as vision of mankind at the climax of what is one of ¡ Only the wanderer to pile? resignation, but not regret, as youth gives way to age.

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