I have been rather stuck already over what to do next.  There is plenty of material but avoiding Vienna takes out a fairly sizeable chunk.

Thank-you for all your replies.  I have enjoyed finding out things about what you do which I would never otherwise have known including published authors, artists and experiences of playing Schumann symphonies with your school orchestra.  I have tried to reply to everyone and hope I haven’t missed anyone out.  I won’t quite be able to keep this up when life returns to normal, but I’m ‘feeling the lerve’.

I have decided to go off-piste a bit, and serve up something less intellectually intense, so this week’s choice is Dies Natalis by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956).  It will be known by some, but I rather suspect only a few.   I really urge you to play it a few times, and I’m sure it will grow on you.   My selected recording has a particular association as its performer, Wilfred Brown, was, for a very brief time, my singing teacher at university.  He was an eminent tenor in his day, especially revered for the role of Evangelist in the Bach Passions.  I am not certain of all the detail but I believe he had many (?6) adopted children, some disabled, and he was one of the humblest people I have ever met.  Sadly, he developed a brain tumour in his mid-forties which ended his career. He died in 1971, aged 49.  He arrived at Cambridge on a day I was due to have a singing lesson, but soon realised he was unable to continue and went back home having said what turned out to be a heartfelt and final farewell to his friend David Willcocks.

Wilfred Brown was a close friend of Finzi, and the outstanding recording I am recommending was conducted by his son, Christopher Finzi.  (Christopher was married to the famous cellist Jacqueline du Pré’s sister.  For the benefit of those younger members who read this who may well not know the history, Jacqueline du Pré’s own career was cut tragically short at the age of 28, due to Multiple Sclerosis).  Wilfred Brown had a beautiful lyrical voice, with somewhat idiosyncratic vowels which one smiles at rather than thinks of as wrong in any way.  We used to enjoy imitating them.  You can also hear that he sang with an open throat, rarely ‘covering’, and also open nostrils….‘O how their Glory did me crown!’

Dies Natalis for tenor and string orchestra has five movements.  There are tinges of Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst and their contemporaries, and elements of modal harmony and ‘false relations’ (see later), all harking back to 16th century music of composers such as Thomas Tallis and earlier.  It is set to a text by Thomas Traherne (?1636-1674), who was one of the last of the ‘Metaphysical’ poets (Donne, Herbert, Marvel etc.).  I am not in any way tempted or qualified to say more, but one of the great features of our time is that you can read all about them online, in self-isolation!  You should also read about Finzi’s life….not easy.

1st Movement 
Orchestral only and very much linked to the music of the second movement.  The second theme changes to 2/4, the first section having been in 6/8.

2nd Movement: ‘Rhapsody’
Here the tenor solo begins and the style of much of the first section is rather like accompanied recitative, such as you find in Bach, Haydn, Mendelssohn (Elijah, St. Paul).  The second section is more flowing…..and how in days past we liked to imitate Wilfred Brown singing ‘I dream’d not of poverties, contentions or vices’.  A very touching ending: ‘Everything was at rest, free and immortal’.

3rd Movement: The Rapture
Finzi describes this as a dance.  Yes, and quite a vigorous one is all I would say, and it is the fast movement.  It reminds me of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro (wonderful piece and worth getting to know if you don’t already – only about 14 minutes).  The second tune is more rapturous.  There are lots of rising fourths and fifths bursting out through the long vocal lines which are quite tricky to count….er hem, Wilfred.  The string writing is intense, full and demanding, and could only have been written by someone with a sound understanding of playing string instruments.

4th Movement: Wonder
This seems to me to be the centre of gravity of the entire work, profoundly lyrical and heartfelt, with some Nimrod-ish moments, especially the phrase ‘And everything that I did see did with me talk’.  The end builds up as he felt a (religious) vigour, which is then suddenly arrested, preparing for a touching final phrase ‘I nothing in the world did know but ‘twas Divine’.  (Note the ‘false relation’ clash of E natural (violins) and E flat sung on the 2nd word ‘like’ at the beginning.  Very Tallis etc.)

I will interrupt here to suggest that after this you listen to Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op.6 No.12, third section larghetto e piano.  Not that small a whiff of Elgar’s Nimrod or this 4th movement of Dies Natalis.  Handel made his mark.

5th Movement: The Salutation
Listen to Bach’s Chorale Prelude Wachet auf,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvweJ1lLcZc

and you can get an idea of where Finzi was coming from in this movement.  He used much the same idea in the aria of his shorter and less-well-known Farewell to Arms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSRQOFRSd6c  

Name-drop alert…..Peter Pears introduced me to that piece when I conducted it with him in Cambridge in 1973, alongside Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. End (sorry).

The 5th is a ‘coming home’ movement, (more Nimrod bits) restful and reflective, and it leaves one with a calm feeling of satisfaction that you have just listened to a rather understated but deeply satisfying, and sometimes moving piece of music after a good glass or two of Claret.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4ynchW7SW7Fg2B0MtK9tin?si=ZSf0LpVrRbuQRApD6bViUQ

https://open.spotify.com/track/4hailmZXxLbQGkQJ8i4py8?si=lP2l5DQzRZydqmHLExMiyA

https://open.spotify.com/track/6dWJ03O6cl5k4h9dVnEEc2?si=lgHF0aywTzCrv4sgsXhLaw

https://open.spotify.com/track/1qQ3ZtWmXcHR4oQ9D41QAB?si=UqGBs-noT5u0lGN8G4SAFA

https://open.spotify.com/track/109r8pbbiYtRSPyYQJxzob?si=nL4GaPcQTMe9_KqAkGWpJA

Texts are here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dies_Natalis_(cantata)#Texts_of_sung_movements

This has been a personal and nostalgic return to something that I once listened to frequently.  Lump-in-throat stuff remembering a lovely man and past days!  I can hardly listen to it now…oh let me be sentimental just once!  It is a superbly-crafted performance which, for my ears, no other recording of the same piece has come near to matching - truly historic and unique.  I’ll find something easier on myself next week!   

A lovely surprise followed the Spotify performance – David Willcocks’ wonderful interpretation of the Vaughan William Mass in G minor.

Thought 1 for the Week

We seem now to be entering the more all-encompassing part of the virus spread.  How quickly it is all happening, and I can only repeat my hope that you are all safe.  It was quite something to see every one of our neighbours, some really quite elderly, out to applaud the NHS at 8 pm the other evening.  If you are on the front line of medicine or elsewhere, then we all say a massive thank-you for what you are doing and will continue to do.

Thought 2

As I write this (Saturday afternoon) the RCS should be rehearsing the St. John Passion with a performance at 6pm in Holy Trinity, Sloane Square.  CCS missed their concert in Canterbury Cathedral last Saturday and the UofE Choir will miss its Bach B minor Mass performance at Snape Maltings shortly.  It’s great to read your comments and realise that we are ‘together’.

Please pass this blog on to friends.

Keep well,
Richard