Gerald Finzi - Dies Natalis/Farewell to Arms/Two Sonnets (Naxos Audio CD)  

A superb follow-up to the critically-acclaimed collaboration between James Gilchrist and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under David Hill on the Naxos CD "Intimations of Immortality/For St Cecilia", "Dies Natalis/Farewell to Arms/Two Sonnets" depicts Gerald Finzi in elegiac mode.

Quintessentially Finzi, the tender yet radiant Dies natalis, a setting of texts by the 17th-century poet Thomas Traherne, depicts both the first sensations of a child as it enters the world, and life’s tarnishing experience of the innocence of childhood.

In Farewell to Arms, a further example of Finzi’s enthusiasm for 17th-century poets, the steady but inevitable tramp of time, symbolized by the measured bass and the tenor’s sad, arching melody, becomes a poignant symbol for the brevity of life as expressed in lines such as ‘O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing’. Finzi knew all too well that ‘Beauty, strength, youth are flowers but fading seen’.

"The underrated BSO plays with great beauty under the meticulous David Hill" —The Guardian


David Hill (Conductor), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra).

Dies natalis*:
I. Intrada
II. Rhapsody
III. The Rapture
IV. Wonder
V. The Salutation

Prelude for String Orchestra

The Fall of the Leaf (Elegy) (compl. Howard Ferguson)

Two Sonnets for Tenor and Orchestra*:
I. When I consider
II. How soon hath Time
Nocturne (New Year Music)

Farewell to Arms*:
I. Introduction
II. Aria

James Gilchrist (tenor)*
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (Leader: Duncan Riddell),
David Hill