Finzi: Dies Natalis on Naxos and English festival tour
(May 2008)
Gerald Finzi's rapturous song-cycle Dies Natalis has just been released on a new Naxos disc, completing a major survey of the composer's vocal music. One of Finzi's most popular and performed works, the cantata for tenor and strings captures a newborn child’s first sensations of the world, setting texts by the 17th century poet Thomas Traherne. Tenor soloist on the new CD is James Gilchrist with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Hill. Other vocal repertoire on the disc includes Farewell to Arms and Two Sonnets, with Prelude for String Orchestra, The Fall of the Leaf and Nocturne as orchestral fillers.Buy the new Dies Natalis CD from our Online Shop.
The Naxos Finzi series has attracted high sales, and has encompassed the baritone song cycles with Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside, and the tenor cycles with John Mark Ainsley. A parallel survey of the choral music has included Intimations of Immortality, For St Cecilia and church settings and anthems from St John's Cambridge. Recordings of the Clarinet Concerto with Robert Plane and the Cello Concerto with Tim Hugh remain best-sellers.
Dies Natalis is being toured by Mark Padmore and the Britten Sinfonia, visiting the Salisbury Festival (31 May), Chelsea Festival (18 June) and Lichfield Festival (8 July). The BBC Proms is featuring music by English composers who worked in the orbit of Vaughan Williams, and a central feature of this theme is a performance of Intimations of Immortality with Paul Daniel, the BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Concert Orchestra (19 July).
All the Naxos Finzi series of CDs are available on sale from our Online Shop, together with recordings on the Hyperion and Chandos labels.
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