While short and easily
digestible orchestral meditations have
been in the vanguard of the Finzi revival
there’s a great deal more to his music
and reputation. The present two substantial
concertos are as ikonic of Finzi as
his Intimations
of Immortality. They are both late
works: 1949, 1956 and were written during
a period when the curtains of a new
orthodoxy of dissonance were drawing
closed. He must have wondered how his
music would fare. His fears were borne
out until the 1970s.
In the clarinet work
Finzi is fully at ease in both the contemplative
and stingingly exuberant moods. He moves
between them seamlessly. The strings
in this version of the Clarinet Concerto
are marvellously airborne – floating
as they sing; singing as they float.
As for John Denman’s clarinet it sounds
out in a truly mellifluous –
the word seems custom-made for this
work – aural pantone. He makes of the
instrument’s vocal donné; something
touching on the profound. While he lacks
the wondrously grating woodiness of
Stoltzmann – who can be heard in this
work again on an ArkivCD
reissue – Denman has the full measure
Finzi’s invocational cantilena. He catches
that sense of the pastoral mystic at
prayer – ecstatic in soliloquy and in
irrepressible delight.
Yo-Yo Ma’s remains
the touchstone performance in the Cello
Concerto. This was his first commercial
recording. Regrettably he has not returned
to the work since those heady days of
1978. This work reaches
out in two directions: towards the Dvořák
on one hand and the Elgar on the other.
It is a rapturously lovely piece and
one can only wonder at its neglect.
The first movement is ambitious, churning
with dark emotions and at times a roaring
protest – at what? Interesting
to hear that brief Tallis Fantasia
recollection at 6:35 in I. Tragedy
is put to one side in the Andante
quieto with a typical sauntering
heart’s-ease pastoral melody. The finale
enters unconventionally with a spatter
of pizzicato from the soloist limning
the theme to come. When that theme comes
it is every bit as fine if not finer
that the one that sings out its confident
heart in the Clarinet Concerto finale.
It’s a gift of a melody and Finzi will
not let go of it. He finds ways of ringing
the changes, of grafting on new growth
in the same way that he worked with
his apple trees. The optimistic benediction
of the theme moves with deliberation
yet with wings. It is borne up by the
feeling of something approaching a rumba.
Time and again there are wonders to
hear. Try for example the way the oboe
entwines like ivy around the cello line;
lost in sloe-eyed praise around the
soloist’s rapturous address. Its effect
is, for all the world, like those stone
hounds seen gazing upwards in eternal
devotion at their lord’s feet in medieval
churches.
Throughout both works
Handley is attentive and offers, with
his two orchestras, the most imaginative
and well shaped support.
The composer heard
a broadcast of the Cello Concerto in
his Oxford hospital bed as he lay mortally
ill with leukaemia. Perhaps we can hope
one day for a company such as Symposium
to issue a broadcast tape of the premiere
as originally played by Christopher
Bunting.
These recordings –
sounding handsome still - derive from
two Lyrita Recorded Edition LPs issued
1976-79. The Clarinet Concerto comes
from SRCS 92 where it was alongside
the two piano-and-orchestra works already
used as fillers for SRCD
239. The Cello Concerto was issued
by itself on the LP SRCS 112.
In May 2007 the present
disc will be joined by SRCD.237 which
will allow the listener at last to hear
Lyrita’s orchestral versions of Let
us Garlands Bring; Two Milton
Sonnets; Farewell to Arms
and In terra Pax (Carol Case/Partridge/Manning/RPO/New
Philharmonia/Handley).
The CD cover of this
issue is based on the detail of the
original LP of the Cello Concerto with
Yo-Yo Ma caught in session.
Lyrita are making the
choice of Recordings of the Year
very difficult. If they keep up
their present pace we will have had
72 CDs issued by January 2008. They
have set themselves a cracking pace.
Let’s hope they have the stamina to
continue. Meantime celebrate and add
this to your collection in pride of
place alongside the versions by Tim
Hugh and Raphael Wallfisch.
Rob Barnett
Lyrita
Catalogue
for details
John Denman (clarinet) 
