Finzi: Requiem da camera, For St Cecilia & In terra pax

Featuring

Gwilym Bowen
Thomas Simpson
Steven Grahl
Hilary Cronin
Florian Störtz
Augustine Cox

The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge
Gerald Finzi

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Composition History

In terra pax was inspired by Finzi's memory of a solitary New Year's Eve in 1925/26 on Chosen Hill, Gloucestershire, as he contemplated a new Christmas work.

Composer Biography

Finzi experienced significant personal losses early in life, including his father to cancer at age eight and his older brother Edgar in the Great War.

Compositional Technique

Finzi's typical approach to word-setting, seen in For St Cecilia, involves one note per syllable, similar to the French mélodie tradition, to preserve speech rhythms.

Compositional Technique

In his work For St Cecilia, Finzi primarily uses forceful homophony and long-breathed secondary melodic lines, rather than motivic development or rigorous counterpoint.

Composer Biography

Gerald Finzi, a composer of Jewish Italian descent, did not identify with any particular faith, leading to his sacred music being seen as an 'outsider gazing in'.

Recording & Production

The orchestral contributions for For St Cecilia and In terra pax on this recording are transcribed for organ by Robert Gower, and for Requiem da camera by Francis Jackson.

Composition History

Finzi's Requiem da camera is dedicated to the memory of his music teacher and mentor, Ernest Farrar, a promising composer who also died in the Great War.