Gerald Finzi
Gerald Raphael Finzi (born July 14, 1901 in London , † September 27, 1956 in Oxford ) was an English composer .
Life
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Finzi was born in London as the youngest of five children to an Italian Jewish father and a German Jewish mother. Although he professed to be an agnostic , he wrote some inspired and impressive Christian choral works.
1901–1918: childhood and youth
Finzi lost his father, who was a successful shipbroker, at the age of seven and was raised by his mother. A little later three of his brothers died. During the First World War the family settled in Harrogate . Here Finzi was taught composition by Ernest Farrar . His death on the western front hit Finzi hard.
These adversities contributed to Finzi's gloomy outlook on life, which he found again in the texts of Thomas Traherne and Thomas Hardy . He set their poems to music, together with those of Christina Rossetti . In the poetry of Hardy, Traherne, and later William Wordsworth , Finzi was particularly drawn to the recurring motif of childlike innocence tainted by adult experience. From the beginning his works had an elegiac tone.
1918–1933: studies and early compositions
After Farrar's death, Finzi received five years of private lessons from the organist and choirmaster Edward Bairstow , a very strict teacher compared to Farrar, at York Minster . In 1922 Finzi moved to Painswick, Gloucestershire , where he devoted himself seriously to composing. His first Hardy settings and the orchestral piece A Severn Rhapsody were soon performed in London and received positive reviews.
In 1925, at the suggestion of Adrian Boult , Finzi took counterpoint lessons from the then famous RO Morris . He later moved to London, where he became friends with Howard Ferguson and Edmund Rubbra and met Gustav Holst , Arthur Bliss and Ralph Vaughan Williams . The latter gave him a position as a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music , which he held from 1930 to 1933.
1933–1939: development and maturity
Finzi married the artist Joyce Black and settled with her in Aldbourne, Berkshire . Here he devoted himself to composition, as well as growing apples, which saved some rare English apple varieties from extinction. He also assembled a valuable library of some three thousand volumes of English poetry, philosophy and literature, which are now in the possession of Reading University .
In the 1930s Finzi composed very little. But it is these works, especially the cantata Dies natalis (1939) on texts by Traherne, in which his style reaches full maturity. Commissioned by the poet and composer Ivor Gurney, he cataloged and edited his works for publication. He also studied and published English folk music and works by old English composers such as William Boyce , Capel Bond , John Garth, Richard Mudge , John Stanley and Charles Wesley .
In 1939 the Finzis moved to Ashmansworth, near Newbury . Here Finzi founded the Newbury String Players, a chamber orchestra made up of amateurs, which he directed until his death. The orchestra brought string music from the 18th century to life and gave premieres of contemporary works. It also gave talented young musicians such as Julian Bream and Kenneth Leighton performance opportunities.
1939–1956: Growing reputation
Due to the outbreak of the Second World War , the planned premiere of the Dies Natalis was canceled. This could have established Finzi's reputation as a great composer. Finzi had to start his service in the Ministry for War Transport and brought German and Czech refugees into his house. After the war he became more productive again. He wrote several choral works and the Clarinet Concerto (1949), perhaps his most popular work.
Meanwhile, Finzi's works have often been performed at the Three Choirs Festival and elsewhere. But this happiness was short-lived. In 1951, Finzi learned that he was suffering from the incurable Hodgkin disease and had a maximum of ten years to live. Some of his feelings after this unveiling is probably reflected in the tortured first movement of his poignant Cello Concerto (1955), his last great work. The second movement, originally designed as a musical portrait of his wife, is characterized by cheerful serenity.
On a trip near Gloucester with Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1956, Finzi contracted chickenpox, which in his debilitated state led to meningitis. He was rushed to Oxford hospital on September 25, where his wife made sure he could hear the premiere of his cello concerto on the radio. Gerald Finzi died the next day.
Works
Finzi's work comprises nine song cycles, six of which are based on poems by Thomas Hardy. The first of these, By Footpath and Stile (1922), is for voice and string quartet, and the others, including A Young Man's Exhortation and Earth and Air and Rain , are for voice and piano. Of his other songs, the Shakespeare scorings of Let Us Garlands Bring (1942) are best known. Finzi also wrote incidental music for Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost (1946). For voice and orchestra he wrote the aforementioned Dies natalis , a deeply mystical piece, and the pacifist Farewell to Arms (1944).
Finzi's choral music includes the popular hymns Lo, the full, final sacrifice and God is gone up , as well as several unaccompanied polyphonic songs. Finzi also wrote larger choral works such as For St. Cecilia (text by Edmund Blunden ), Intimations of Immortality ( William Wordsworth ) and the Christmas scene In terra pax (texts by Robert Bridges and from the Gospel of Luke ), all in the last ten years of his life originated.
The number of his instrumental works is comparatively small, although Finzi made great efforts on them at the beginning of his career. He started a piano concerto that was never completed. Parts of it were used in the Eclogue for piano and strings and in the Grand Fantasia and Toccata for piano and orchestra. The latter testifies to Finzi's admiration for Johann Sebastian Bach . He also wrote a violin concerto which was performed in London under Vaughan Williams. Later he was no longer satisfied with the two outer sentences and rejected them. The remaining sentence is now titled Introit .
Of Finzi's few chamber music works, only the Five Bagatelles for clarinet and piano remain in the repertoire.
style
Influenced by Farrar and Vaughan Williams, Finzi was firmly in the tradition of Edward Elgar , Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford , which is why his music seemed out of date during his lifetime. But he developed a very personal tone, which is most clearly recognizable in his sensitive songs and choral works, where the music is in harmony with every word of the lyricist, based on his thorough knowledge of English literature. In this respect he is similar to other English composers of the early 20th century, such as Roger Quilter . But works like the Cello Concerto and the Intimations of Immortality show that he was more than a composer of miniatures.
Finzi's son, Christopher Finzi (* 1934) also became the conductor and lawyer for his father's music. Thanks to him and other lovers, Finzi's music experienced a renaissance in the late 20th century.
literature
- Heldt, Guido: Finzi, Gerald (Raphael) . In: Music in the past and present . Person part Eames - Franco. Edited by Ludwig Finscher. 2nd edition, 6th volume. Kassel / Stuttgart: Barenreiter Verlag / Jakob Metzler Verlag, 2001, pp. 1206-1210.
- Banfield, Stephen: Gerald Finzi. To English Composer. London: Faber and Faber, 1998.
- Long, NG: The Songs of Gerald Finzi. In: Tempo (New Series) 3 (December 1946) issue 2, pp. 7-11.
- Russell, John: Gerald Finzi. In: The Musical Times 97 (December 1956) He ?? 1366, pp. 630-631.
Web links
- http://www.geraldfinzi.com/ [ Gerald Finzi , composer's official website]
- Sheet music and audio files by Gerald Finzi in the International Music Score Library Project
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Finzi, Gerald |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Finzi, Gerald Raphael (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 14, 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 27, 1956 |
| Place of death | Oxford |