Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)

Surely one of the front-runners in any hypothetical competition to find the most 'English-sounding' composer, the twentieth-century composer Gerald Finzi (whose 125th birthday fell on July 14th, and whose seventieth anniversary of death is in late September) avoided both the pomp and circumstance of Parry and Elgar and the deliberate folk influences of Vaughan Williams, instead cultivating a lyrical, often nostalgic, style in which the inspirations of poetry and of the English rural landscape are frequent features. 

Finzi's youth was not a happy one; his father died when he was seven, his beloved music teacher Ernest Farrar never returned from the First World War, and by the time he reached adulthood all three of his brothers had likewise died. It is almost certain that these experiences shaped not only his commitment to pacifism but also his broader artistic outlook; his musical voice is often described as 'elegiac', and many of his favoured poets dealt with themes of innocence being replaced by experience. The cantata Intimations of Immortality, in particular, places this concern front and centre - with Finzi processing complex feelings about emotional change and hardening not through a religious lens but rather through a secular poetic one, in the form of Wordsworth's 1804 Ode of the same name. 

His music is predominantly vocal in nature - either solo song in the English tradition, or choral music for the Church of England (for which he evidently felt a great affinity, despite a nominally Jewish heritage and a lifelong agnosticism). Let Us Garlands Bring, a setting of Shakespeare texts, features some of his best-loved and best-known songs, in particular the reflective 'Come away, death' and 'Fear no more the heat o' the sun'. To A Poet, another song-cycle, includes a particularly thought-provoking text as its opening movement, in which the singer sends a letter into the far future, asking the recipient what life is like, what is different and what is the same. 

Finzi's sacred choral works, by contrast, are much more upbeat in their outlook - or at any rate more positive. In terra pax strongly reflects the period of time he spent living in Painswick in Gloucestershire, and combines the words of Robert Bridges with text from the Christmas story in the Gospel of St Luke into a deeply nostalgic reflection on Christmas as both a breathtaking sacred event and at the same time a treasured and comfortable tradition.

His anthem God is gone up, for Ascensiontide, is bright and brassy, while his Magnificat and For St Cecilia (the latter name-checking Merbecke, Byrd, Purcell and Handel as forerunners of English musicmaking!) embrace a larger-scale, more orchestral side of sacred music. The extensive anthem Lo, the full, final sacrifice - for which we have the prolific commissioner of sacred music Walter Hussey to thank - is a monumental, quarter-hour meditation on the metaphysics of the Eucharist, drawing together imagery of sacrifice, nourishment for the faithful and more. Perhaps too ambitious to be truly practical in the course of a normal service, it remains a jewel in the crown of the English sacred tradition. 

Away from the vocal arena, Finzi's best-known works are probably his concerti for clarinet and for cello, the five Bagatelles for clarinet and piano, and the haunting Eclogue for piano and orchestra (a standalone slow movement from a concerto that never was). Here too, just as in his vocal works, Finzi's long melodic lines are in evidence, and the music is frequently dominated by a reflective, wistful mood.

Beyond his own compositional efforts, Finzi contributed much to the wider world, both musical and beyond; he was one of the strongest champions of the work of Ivor Gurney, whose music he and his wife helped to catalogue and to prepare for publication. It's likely that without the Finzis' hard work, the 'poet of the Severn and Somme' would have remained relatively unknown. 

Perhaps more whimsically, Finzi was an enthusiast of unique breeds of English apple, and is believed - through his farm in Wiltshire - to have preserved more than one strain from going extinct. His passion for the reviving of rare apple varieties was no mere side-show; his friend Vaughan Williams considered it to have been almost as important to Finzi as his musical works. If you're able to get hold of a Baxter's Pearmain, a Lord Lennox, a Mead's Broading, a Morris's Russet or a Norman's Pippin today - English readers in particular do let us know if you've seen these on sale anywhere! - then from what we can tell, there's a pretty good chance that you have Gerald Finzi to thank. 

Sadly, Finzi's rich and indeed fruitful life was a relatively short one - he was diagnosed in the 1950s with a strain of leukaemia that was, at the time, incurable, and it is thought that the impact of this disease on his immune system led both to him contracting shingles in 1956, and to the disease quickly developing in an aggressive direction that led to his death.