Gerald Finzi By Footpath and Stile

Finzi Quartet with Marcus Farnsworth baritone Robert Plane clarinet & Ruth Bolister oboe 9 0 1 0 1 S E R By Footpath and Stile Music for string quartet by

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) 1. Romance, Op. 11 [7:13] 10. Elegy, Op. 22 [7:52] arr. for string quartet by Christian Alexander arr. for string quartet by Christian Alexander

By Footpath and Stile, Op. 2 Five Bagatelles, Op. 23 Finzi Quartet for baritone and string quartet arr. for clarinet and string quartet by Christian Alexander 2. Paying calls [4:13] 11. Prelude: Allegro deciso [3:27] Sara Wolstenholme violin 1 3. Where the picnic was [4:27] 12. Romance: Andante tranquillo [5:03] Natalie Klouda violin 2 4. The Oxen [3:11] 13. Carol: Andante semplice [1:51] Ruth Gibson viola 5. The master and the leaves [3:16] 14. Forlana: Allegretto grazioso [3:00] Lydia Shelley cello 6. Voices from things growing [7:01] 15. Fughetta: Allegro vivace [2:13] with in a churchyard 7. Exeunt omnes [3:21] Total playing time [73:05] Marcus Farnsworth baritone Robert Plane clarinet 8. Prelude [5:01] Ruth Bolister oboe About the Finzi Quartet: arr. for string quartet by Christian Alexander

‘… a beautiful, clean, elegant sound’ 9. Interlude, Op. 21 [11:47] www.bachtrack.com for oboe and string quartet

‘… quite exceptional ... they chose to play with a real sweetness’ Mundo Classico

About Marcus Farnsworth:

‘... a conspicuously shining star ... classic dignity and elegance’ The Telegraph Gerald Finzi (1901-1956): national boundaries, peace treaties, By Footpath and Stile reparations, The League of Nations and spiralling inflation all served to restructure In 1941 Gerald Finzi wrote, in a document the routines of daily life and define the entitled Absalom's Place – a very personal decades to come. And amidst all of this, attempt to summarise his artistic beliefs – every day, people moved forward in their ‘… some curious force compels us to preserve lives trying to deal with the ineluctable impact and project into the future the essence of of personal loss, premature deaths, and lost our individuality, and, in doing so, to project love. Whether writing music during this something of our age and civilization.’ And period was a search for catharsis, a desire as one of England’s best-loved twentieth- to construct a memorial to lost lives and century composers, Finzi’s music can seem lost times, or an attempt to cast off towards at once of its time yet also timeless. the future for Finzi the artist, we find in By Footpath and Stile, Op. 2, the seeds of Finzi’s own time started in July 1901, born into lifelong obsessions: the passing of time, comparative wealth and the comfortable mortality, the poetry of Thomas Hardy, surroundings of Hamilton Terrace in London’s and most importantly, song itself. Here too, Maida Vale; while his life ended in an Oxford in Finzi’s first published work, can be heard hospital in September 1956, during the the steering influences of composers and seventeenth year of his family’s occupancy folk song enthusiasts Ralph Vaughan Williams of Church Farm in the remote Hampshire and George Butterworth, both of whom village of Ashmansworth. The music in this had composed chamber music song cycles. recording covers most of Finzi’s life as a professional composer: from early published Departing the hilly Gloucestershire countryside successes, through increasingly self-assured for the more propitious London music scene mid-career work, to music completed nearer of the late 1920s, Finzi was still attempting to the end of his relatively curtailed life. find his voice as a composer. Looking not only to the music of Vaughan Williams, other As the shadow of the First World War began illustrious contemporaries and the English to stretch far into the future, the young folk-song heritage, but also back towards to Gerald Finzi was only beginning to find his the Baroque era, Finzi was yet to find his stride. Gerald Finzi voice as a composer. The grim reality of war The Prelude for strings from this time does (photograph courtesy of Boosey and Hawkes) ramified throughout Europe; reshaped not sing with the confidence and craftsmanship of his later works but, in its song-like melodies Exhortation, Op. 14, and Earth and Air and Rain, close to the end of the composer’s life, have all been arranged in recent years by the and relatively simple harmonies, the young Op. 15 (Finzi’s first music to be taken on by resurrected and tweaked for a Newbury current writer. This version of the Five Bagatelles, composer’s desire to communicate directly a mainstream music publisher – what is now String Players concert. It does not aspire commissioned for David Campbell and the and with explicit clarity is easily apparent. Boosey & Hawkes and still Finzi’s publisher), to the emotional gravitas, the Sibelius-like Endellion Quartet was first performed on the both settings of poetry by Thomas Hardy, architectural strength, or the harmonic centenary of Gerald Finzi’s birth, while the Living in London for eight years, very much the hand of a considerably more confident intensity of the Cello Concerto (a work which arrangements of Romance, Elegy and Prelude part of the contemporary English musical and increasingly skilled composer is clearly dominated the composer’s final year and were all commissioned more recently by landscape, teaching at the Royal Academy at work. The rather drawn out gestation of was first broadcast the evening before his the Finzi Quartet. of Music, and starting what would become his stunning Dies natalis, Op. 8, what was death); but as is the case with much of Finzi’s ongoing dialogues with other prominent eventually a five-movement cantata for output, it is a musical gem. Small-scale and Making arrangements of another composer’s musicians (most notably Howard Ferguson), high voice and strings, also took place intimate, song-like in its flow, it is instantly music can be an onerous business, which Finzi began to grow in assuredness as a throughout this period. And it was at this recognisable as the musical voice of Gerald carries with it a tremendous weight of composer. In 1933 he married the artist time Finzi composed his Romance for string Finzi. This music speaks with unpretentious responsibility, every bit as taxing and absorbing and poet Joyce Black (Joy Finzi’s life was to orchestra, Op. 11 and Interlude for oboe directness and emotional openness; it is as composing one’s own music, maybe even stretch decades beyond that of her husband and string quartet, Op. 21. Ever modest packed with an enviable degree of melodic more so. Finzi was a painstaking, meticulous Gerald's), and together they became a and self-effacing, Finzi told his friend invention and a consistent sense of the composer who paid scrupulous attention to remarkable and at times progressive force Howard Ferguson ‘There’s some decent composer’s own harmonic language. As he every detail of his music (and indeed his for cultural good, encouraging other artists music in the Oboe Interlude and a certain moved into the last phase of his working life, settings of words); as an arranger, I saw my and musicians, and inspiring those around amount of rant, which I had to stick in to Finzi must surely have felt more confident task as being to protect and maintain this their open and friendly household. Although fill things up when I got rather rushed about his place and future in English music. integrity, whilst also trying to provide the Gerald was by nature anxious, fragile and towards the end’. Ferguson replied that music with a different lease of life in a new prone to worrying, Joy was to provide the the ‘rant’ could well be turn out to be the Finzi’s most accomplished music was written format. This does take a modicum of courage: strength and no doubt optimism too in the best of it – maybe for most artists, and I in his forties and early fifties, whilst living at the arranger needs to think of the music to Finzi family’s life. In 1933 they moved to imagine in all likelihood for Finzi, learning Church Farm in Hampshire; it was during this some degree as his own, ignoring the many Aldbourne, Wiltshire, where their two sons to trust one's own instinct does not come period that he completed the Five Bagatelles pretentious and presumptuous implications Christopher (Kiffer) and Nigel were born. easily. (although this was composed over at least of this approach. Having said that, arranging Here, and later on in Ashmansworth, Finzi four years and utilised sketches that stemmed the Five Bagatelles was a relatively found the space to indulge his passion for Although the Romance was composed in back many years more), and composed his straightforward task: the original piano part collecting books and conserving rare varieties 1928 and is now arguably one of Finzi’s most Elegy for violin and piano, Op. 22. seemed to me very much like chamber music of apple trees, while beginning to flourish treasured instrumental works (alongside transcribed for piano, as if the composer had as a composer. the Cello Concerto, Op. 40, the Clarinet Two of the pieces on this recording are in imagined the music first for a small orchestra Concerto, Op. 31, and the Five Bagatelles, their original versions: By Footpath and Stile or chamber group, but for practical reasons In song collections such as A Young Man's Op. 23), it did not see the light of day until and Interlude; the four remaining pieces written it for piano. The Prelude also seemed to lend itself easily to an arrangement for can only be regarded as fragments of a building.’ string quartet, once I had made the decision Gerald Finzi did not have a long life, but it was to shift the music’s key upwards enabling me richly productive. In his ‘fragments of a building’ to preserve the original musical counterpoint can be glimpsed something truly beautiful; intact using only the four instruments of the and perhaps my contribution might have quartet. provided a few more bricks, and that I have in some small way reached back in time The same cannot be said of Romance and to ‘shake hands with a good friend’. Elegy however; these presented more difficulties – and the Finzi Quartet themselves © 2012 Christian Alexander offered much invaluable advice concerning these two arrangements. In Elegy, the original solo violin part is largely retained intact as the quartet’s first violin part; which left the problem of representing the sometimes rich piano writing on a mere three string instruments. And in Romance, with its rich, frequently sub-divided string orchestration, the challenges were obvious, but no less difficult to resolve. My sincere hope for all of these arrangements is simply that they still appear to sound like the music of Gerald Finzi, a wonderful English composer.

I hope also that these four arrangements will help to encourage the listener to seek out Gerald Finzi’s relatively modest, but Finzi Quartet deeply impressive musical output. Finzi also wrote in Absalom’s Place, ‘It must be clear, particularly in the case of a slow worker, that only a long life can see the rounding-off and completion of this projection. Consequently, those few works of mine fit for publication By Footpath and Stile Text by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) II. Where the picnic was III. The Oxen IV. The master and the leaves . I. Paying calls Where we made the fire, Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. We are budding, Master, budding, In the summer time, ‘Now they are all on their knees,’ We of your favourite tree; I went by footpath and by stile Of branch and briar An elder said as we sat in a flock March drought and April flooding Beyond where bustle ends, On the hill to the sea By the embers in hearthside ease. Arouse us merrily, Strayed here a mile and there a mile I slowly climb Our stemlets newly studding; And called upon some friends. Through winter mire, We pictured the meek mild creatures where And yet you do not see! And scan and trace They dwelt in their strawy pen, On certain ones I had not seen The forsaken place Nor did it occur to one of us there We are fully woven for summer For years past did I call, Quite readily. To doubt they were kneeling then. In stuff of limpest green, And then on others who had been The twitterer and the hummer The oldest friends of all. Now a cold wind blows, So fair a fancy few would weave Here rest of nights, unseen, And the grass is gray, In these years! Yet, I feel, While like a long-roll drummer It was the time of midsummer But the spot still shows If someone said on Christmas Eve, The nightjar thrills the treen. When they had used to roam; As a burnt circle - aye, ‘Come; see the oxen kneel, But now, though tempting was the air, And stick-ends, charred, We are turning yellow, Master, I found them all at home. Still strew the sward ‘In the lonely barton by yonder coomb And next we are turning red, Whereon I stand, Our childhood used to know,’ And faster then and faster I spoke to one and other of them Last relic of the band I should go with him in the gloom, Shall seek our rooty bed, By mound and stone and tree Who came that day! Hoping it might be so. All wasted in disaster! Of things we had done ere days were dim, But you lift not your head. But they spoke not to me. Yes, I am here ‘The Oxen’ (pub. 1919) Just as last year, – ‘I mark your early going, ‘Paying Calls’ from Moments of Vision and And the sea breathes brine And that you'll soon be clay, Miscellaneous Verses (pub. 1917) From its strange straight line I have seen your summer showing Up hither, the same As in my youthful day; As when we four came. But why I seem unknowing Is too sunk in to say!’ – But two have wandered far From this grassy rise ‘The master and the leaves’ from Owl Into urban roar (pub. 1919, rev. 1922) Where no picnics are, And one - has shut her eyes For evermore.

‘Where the picnic was’ from Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces (pub. 1914) V. Voices from things growing in a churchyard V. (continued) VI. Exeunt omnes

These flowers are I, poor Fanny Hurd, - I, who as innocent withwind climb, Everybody else, then, going, Sir or Madam, Sir or Madam. And I still left where the fair was? . . . A little girl here sepultured. Am one Eve Greensleeves, in olden time Much have I seen of neighbour loungers Once I flit-fluttered like a bird Kissed by men from many a clime, Making a lusty showing, Above the grass, as now I wave Beneath sun, stars, in blaze, in breeze, Each now past all knowing. In daisy shapes above my grave, As now by glowworms and by bees, All day cheerily, All day cheerily, There is an air of blankness All night eerily! All night eerily! In the street and the littered spaces; Thoroughfare, steeple, bridge and highway - I am one Bachelor Bowring, "Gent," - I'm old Squire Audeley Grey, who grew, Wizen themselves to lankness; Sir or Madam; Sir or Madam, Kennels dribble dankness. In shingled oak my bones were pent; Aweary of life, and in scorn withdrew; Hence more than a hundred years I spent Till anon I clambered up anew Folk all fade. And whither, In my feat of change from a coffin-thrall As ivy-green, when my ache was stayed, As I wait alone where the fair was? To a dancer in green as leaves on a wall. And in that attire I have longtime gayed Into the clammy and numbing night-fog All day cheerily, All day cheerily, Whence they entered hither. All night eerily! All night eerily! Soon do I follow thither!

- I, these berries of juice and gloss, - And so they breathe, these masks, to each ‘Exeunt omnes’ from Satires of Circumstance, Sir or Madam, Sir or Madam Lyrics and Reveries with Miscellaneous Pieces Am clean forgotten as Thomas Voss; Who lingers there, and their lively speech (pub. 1914) Thin-urned, I have burrowed away from the moss Affords an interpreter much to teach, That covers my sod, and have entered this yew, As their murmurous accents seem to come And turned to clusters ruddy of view, Thence hitheraround in a radiant hum, All day cheerily, All day cheerily, All night eerily! All night eerily!

- The Lady Gertrude, proud, high-bred, ‘Voices from things growing in a churchyard’ first Sir or Madam, published in London Mercury 1921, rev. 1922 Am I--this laurel that shades your head; Into its veins I have stilly sped, And made them of me; and my leaves now shine, As did my satins superfine, All day cheerily, All night eerily! Finzi Quartet collaboration with Northern Irish composer Prize winners in the 2010 Royal Over Seas Deirdre Gribbin through its recital series at League Competition and the 5th Trondheim St Anne and St Agnes Lutheran Church in the International String Quartet Competition in City of London. Major festival engagements Norway, the Finzi Quartet has given recitals and during 2011 included the Brighton, Salisbury made numerous festival appearances at major and Edinburgh Festivals and, following the venues throughout the UK and Europe, including success of their Tunnell Trust Young Artist London’s Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Tour of Scotland, the Quartet will make Purcell Room, Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam several return tours in 2012 and 2013 in and the Auditorio Sony in Madrid. association with Enterprise Music Scotland.

The Quartet enjoys regular collaborations Future projects include performances of with several international guest artists and Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet and is fortunate to have worked with many Virgil Thomson’s Stabat Mater with soprano inspirational musicians including, Hatto Sarah Gabriel, Schubert’s C major Quintet Beyerle, Valentin Erben, Andras Keller, with cellists Christoph Richter and Gary Johannes Meissl, Heime Muller, Gabor Takacs- Hoffman and concerts in Menorca for the Nagy, Christoph Richter, and Thomas Riebl. Fundcacion Fidah. The Quartet will also feature in the Harrogate and Cheltenham As selected artists the Quartet has also Festivals, and will give a series of concerts benefited from the support of the Tillett Trust, in France as part of their ongoing collaboration Park Lane Group, the Tunnell Trust, the with ProQuartet. Kirckman Concerts Society, the Swiss Global Artistic Foundation and the Hattori Foundation. The Quartet is actively involved in education and outreach projects, working regularly with Among the highlights of 2010 were appearances Live Music Now and the CAVATINA Chamber on BBC Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’ and on Viennese Music Trust. Following its appointment as Radio as winners of the Austrian ‘Wiener Bulldog Junior Fellows at Trinity College of Klassik Prize’ for their interpretation of Music for 2009/2010, the Quartet currently Finzi Quartet quartets by Joseph Haydn, a second Aldeburgh holds a Leverhulme Fellowship at the Royal Residency and a recording of Sir John Northern College of Music. Tavener’s Towards Silence for Signum Records. The Quartet also enjoys a continuing www.finziquartet.com Marcus Farnsworth (baritone) Robert Plane (clarinet) Marcus Farnsworth Müllerin for the Oxford Lieder Festival and at Robert Plane has Dante, Brodsky, Carducci, Tippett, Auer and was awarded first St John’s, Smith Square, London; a Schubertiade long championed Mandelring, he also enjoys a close relationship prize in the 2009 with The Prince Consort in Perth and Britten’s the music of with the Gould Piano Trio. Together they direct Wigmore Hall Tit for Tat with Malcolm Martineau and British composers, the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival in past and present, a International Song the Canticles with Julius Drake and Mark Northumberland. Their recording of

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www.marcusfarnsworth.com More Chamber Music from Resonus Classics Ruth Bolister (oboe) Ruth Bolister studied Mendelssohn: Octet Op. 20 at Clare College, World premiere recording of the original 1825 version Cambridge, The Royal Eroica Quartet and Friends Academy of Music in RES10101 London and the Karlsruhe Hochschule BBC Music Magazine, Chamber disc of the month fur Musik. ‘The label's first disc is a remarkable coup’ International Record Review In 1990 she was runner-up in the woodwind final of the BBC Young Musician of Debussy and Ravel: String Quartets the Year Competition before winning first prize The first modern recording on gut strings in the Isle of Wight International Oboe The Eroica Quartet Competition in 1993, which led to her Wigmore RES10107 Hall debut. She has also appeared as a soloist at the Wigmore Hall as part of the Tillett Trust’s Young Artists’ Platform and in the fiftieth anniversary celebrations for the oboe manufacturers T.W. Howarth and Company.

Ruth released a recording of English Oboe © 2012 Resonus Limited Concertos with the Elgar Chamber Orchestra è 2012 Resonus Limited for the ASV label in 2003 to much critical Recorded in All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, London on 5-7 February 2012 acclaim, and in 2004 she was a soloist on Producer, Engineer and Editor: Adam Binks Recorded at 24-bit / 96kHz resolution BBC Radio 2’s ‘Friday Night is Music Night’. Cover image: Spring in England (Flickr.com/Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel, Creative Commons Licence) Ruth is Principal Oboe of English National All works published by Boosey and Hawkes

Opera, a position she has held since 1997. With thanks to the Finzi Trust for their support in making this recording. She also regularly works as guest principal oboe with other chamber and symphony DDD – MCPS orchestras in London. RESONUS LIMITED – LONDON – UK www.ruthbolister.co.uk [email protected] www.resonusclassics.com RES10109