Post by erik on Jun 5, 2021 12:19:19 GMT -5
Gerald Finzi, whose career as a composer was obscured by larger fellow Englishmen like Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton, is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight with one of the most popular clarinet concertos of the 20th century.
Gerald Finzi: CLARINET CONCERTO
Given that England gave the classical music world Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and William Walton, to name just three, it is not too terribly surprising that other worthwhile composers from The Crown have sometimes fallen under everybody’s radar. But it isn’t always fair. One of those who had slipped under the classical music radar was Gerald Finzi, who had a relatively short life, from 1901 to 1956. Finzi contributed significantly to the English song cycle genre during the first third of the 20th century, as well as a number of choral works. But his best-known orchestral work is his 1949 Clarinet Concerto. Finzi’s concerto came along during the same five-year period from 1945 to 1950 where a pair of equally popular concertos for that instrument came about, namely Stravinsky’s 1945 Ebony Concerto, and the 1947 Clarinet Concerto of Aaron Copland, both of which were written for the legendary Woody Herman. But whereas those concertos integrated jazz elements into them, Finzi’s borrows from his own native England’s pastoral traditions, thanks to this concerto requiring only a neo-Classical string orchestra. Despite its composer’s untimely death in 1956, Finzi’s contribution to the form of the clarinet concerto, like its 20th century companions and the ultra-popular one by Mozart, has endured and been taken up by the leading clarinetists of the day, including Richard Stolzman, Emma Johnson, Michael Collins, and Andrew Marriner.
Clarinet: ANDREW MARRINER
Academy of St. Martin In The Fields/SIR NEVILLER MARRINER (Philips)
Included:
ROMANCE FOR STRING ORCHESTRA
NOCTURNE (NEW YEAR’S MUSIC)
DIE NATALIS (CANTATA FOR TENOR SOLO AND STRING ORCHESTRA) (Tenor: SIR IAN BOSTRIDGE)
Gerald Finzi: CLARINET CONCERTO
Given that England gave the classical music world Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and William Walton, to name just three, it is not too terribly surprising that other worthwhile composers from The Crown have sometimes fallen under everybody’s radar. But it isn’t always fair. One of those who had slipped under the classical music radar was Gerald Finzi, who had a relatively short life, from 1901 to 1956. Finzi contributed significantly to the English song cycle genre during the first third of the 20th century, as well as a number of choral works. But his best-known orchestral work is his 1949 Clarinet Concerto. Finzi’s concerto came along during the same five-year period from 1945 to 1950 where a pair of equally popular concertos for that instrument came about, namely Stravinsky’s 1945 Ebony Concerto, and the 1947 Clarinet Concerto of Aaron Copland, both of which were written for the legendary Woody Herman. But whereas those concertos integrated jazz elements into them, Finzi’s borrows from his own native England’s pastoral traditions, thanks to this concerto requiring only a neo-Classical string orchestra. Despite its composer’s untimely death in 1956, Finzi’s contribution to the form of the clarinet concerto, like its 20th century companions and the ultra-popular one by Mozart, has endured and been taken up by the leading clarinetists of the day, including Richard Stolzman, Emma Johnson, Michael Collins, and Andrew Marriner.
Clarinet: ANDREW MARRINER
Academy of St. Martin In The Fields/SIR NEVILLER MARRINER (Philips)
Included:
ROMANCE FOR STRING ORCHESTRA
NOCTURNE (NEW YEAR’S MUSIC)
DIE NATALIS (CANTATA FOR TENOR SOLO AND STRING ORCHESTRA) (Tenor: SIR IAN BOSTRIDGE)