If the unassuming, quintessentially English
composer - despite Italian-Jewish genes! - Gerald Finzi had
an obsession, it was with the poetry of Thomas Hardy. Hardy
for him was, he once said, “…what the Bible must have been
to Bunyan”, and he claimed to have felt a kinship with him
from his earliest days. He never met the writer, but when
Hardy died, there was a sale in Dorchester of his books and
memorabilia. Finzi went down in hope, but most things were
snapped up by dealers at prices the composer could not possibly
match. However, he did come away with Hardy’s walking stick,
something he treasured for the rest of his life.
This wonderful CD the fifteenth volume
in the Naxos English Song series is another important step
in the process of establishing Finzi in his rightful place
as one of the most important 20th century composers
for the voice. There is here at least one great cycle (a
term not to be used lightly) in Earth and Air and Rain,
his op.15. This was first performed complete in 1943 at a
National Gallery concert, sung by the baritone Robert Irwin,
with Finzi’s friend the composer Howard Ferguson at the piano.
To a Poet was not published as a song cycle
during Finzi’s lifetime, but was assembled after his death from
unpublished settings of various poets, a labour of love carried
out by the composer’s widow and son, with the help of Howard
Ferguson. It works as a cycle, and contains at least one
magnificent song, the first of the group. By Footpath
and by Stile, on the other hand, is the earliest of Finzi’s
Hardy collections, and was completed in 1922. Unusually,
the accompaniment is for string quartet rather than piano,
maybe inspired by Vaughan Williams’ On Wenlock Edge of
a decade or so earlier.
I enjoyed very much the young baritone
Roderick Williams’ previous Naxos CD, also of Finzi, which
included two more splendid Hardy cycles, I said to Love,
op.19b and Before and After Summer op.16. Williams
has a fine, true voice, and sings with understanding but
without mannerism, straightforwardly yet never missing a
musical or verbal point of expression. His unaffected approach
is matched and supported by the excellence of Iain Burnside
at the keyboard. He is such a sensitive accompanist, yet
makes a massive positive contribution, clearly relishing
the beauty of many of Finzi’s piano parts.
Earth and Air and Rain is a fascinating and, in many
ways, devastating piece. It begins with a blithe evocation
of early summer and its birdsong, Summer Schemes.
Then we have the resolve of When I set out for Lyonesse,
with its march-like tread and triumphant ending. Waiting
both is Hardy’s dialogue with a star - interesting to
compare this with Vaughan Williams’ The infinite shining
heavens in his Songs of Travel - and its mystery
is captured perfectly in this performance, with a wonderful
vocal colouring at the word ‘change’ – ‘Till my change
come’.
The pivotal song in the cycle, coming after
the exuberant satire of Rollicum-Rorum, is To Lizbie
Browne. This is also one of the most beautiful love-songs
in the English repertoire. It begins as simple reminiscence – ‘Dear
Lizbie Browne, where are you now?’ – but gradually and
subtly changes to a tragic sense of a missed opportunity –
‘
Touched never your lip with lip of
mine.
Lost Lizbie Browne’.
The single hanging note in the piano at
the end says everything.
From there on, the cycle darkens perceptibly,
moving through the horror of The Clock of the Years -
an English Doppelgänger if ever there was one! - and
the weird vision of In a churchyard, to the pensive
autumnal mood of Proud Songsters, which reminds us
that these birds singing so proudly were just a year ago
nothing more than ‘…particles of grain, And earth, and
air, and rain.’
Williams and Burnside bring the same authority
to To a Poet, and the first song, setting James Elroy
Flecker’s To a poet a thousand years hence brings
a very fine performance from the duo, rising to a great climax
at the words of the final stanza, ‘I send my soul through
time and space to greet you. You will understand’. This
is a most moving poem, and again, Finzi rises to its expressive
challenge magnificently. Of the remaining songs, June
on Castle Hill is perhaps the most atmospheric, with
a particularly evocative piano part for ‘The sky throbs
angrily As the laden bee Sails by…’
By Footpath and Stile, never recorded before,
is early Finzi, composed when he was just twenty years old.
Though
immature in some respects, it still shows great assurance,
as well as a powerful imaginative response to Hardy’s verse.
The writing for the string quartet that supports the voice
is always sympathetic, and sometimes quite daring, as in
the spare lines of Where the picnic was, or the impressionistic
opening of Voices from things growing in a churchyard.
The best-known poem set in this group is The
Oxen, which recounts the folk-legend that farm animals
can be found kneeling on Christmas Eve. This is particularly
interesting in that Vaughan Williams set this same poem
in his Christmas cantata Hodie of 1953. Though VW
had available the colours of a full orchestra, and uses
his woodwind beautifully, the young Finzi rises to the
challenge, capturing strongly the aching nostalgia of the
final lines.
Roderick Williams’ voice is perfect for
this music. It is a classic English baritone, with a firm
lower register and a bright, clear top. Sometimes, I could
wish he would ‘let rip’ a little more – perhaps the climax
of The Clock of the Years could be more shattering.
Yet he uses this fine, supple instrument with striking musical
intelligence. If I still narrowly prefer Stephen Varcoe in
the more reflective of these songs, it is only because he
has an almost unnaturally beautiful voice, which can do things
that most baritones can only dream of; his Lizbie Browne is
incomparable, for example. Varcoe’s Hyperion recordings made
in 1984 are classics (CDA66161/2). Williams and Burnside
however offer a splendid and completely acceptable alternative.
More
please!
Gwyn Parry-Jones
see also review by Anne Ozorio
Roderick Williams
(baritone); Iain Burnside (piano); Sacconi Quartet 
