Gerald Finzi facts for kids
Gerald Finzi (born July 14, 1901 – died September 27, 1956) was a British composer. He is most famous for his choral music, which is music written for choirs. However, he also wrote many other types of music. Some of his larger works include Dies natalis, a cantata for a solo singer and string orchestra, and his concertos for the cello and the clarinet.
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About Gerald Finzi's Life
Gerald Finzi was born in London. His parents were John Abraham Finzi and Eliza Emma Leverson. He grew up to become one of the most "English" sounding composers of his time. Even though he came from a Jewish family and had his own personal beliefs, many of his choral pieces use Christian texts.
Gerald's father, a successful shipbroker, passed away just before Gerald's eighth birthday. Gerald was taught at home. During World War I, his family moved to Harrogate. There, Finzi started studying music in 1915 with Ernest Farrar. Farrar was a kind teacher, and his death during the war deeply affected Finzi.
During these early years, Finzi also lost all three of his brothers. These sad events made him often feel a bit gloomy about life. He found comfort in the poems of Thomas Traherne and especially Thomas Hardy. He started setting their poems, and those by Christina Rossetti, to music. Finzi was drawn to poems that talked about how the innocence of childhood can change as people grow older. From the very beginning, much of his music had a thoughtful and sometimes sad feeling.
Early Studies and First Compositions (1918–1933)
After Farrar's death, Finzi continued his music studies privately. He learned from Edward Bairstow, who was an organist and choirmaster at York Minster. Bairstow was a stricter teacher than Farrar. In 1922, after five years with Bairstow, Finzi moved to Gloucestershire. There, he began to compose seriously. His first musical settings of Hardy's poems and an orchestral piece called A Severn Rhapsody were soon performed in London. They received good reviews.
In 1925, Finzi moved to London. He became friends with other composers like Howard Ferguson and Edmund Rubbra. He also met famous composers such as Gustav Holst, Arthur Bliss, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams even helped him get a teaching job at the Royal Academy of Music, where he taught from 1930 to 1933.
Developing His Music (1933–1939)
Finzi never really liked living in London. After marrying the artist Joyce Black, he and his wife moved to Wiltshire. There, he focused on composing music and growing apples. He even helped save some rare English apple types from disappearing! He also collected a huge library of books on English poetry, philosophy, and literature. This collection is now kept at the University of Reading. He also gathered many old English music scores from the 1700s, which are now at the University of St Andrews.
During the 1930s, Finzi wrote fewer pieces, but his music really grew during this time. His unique style became clear in works like the cantata Dies natalis (1939). He also helped the poet and composer Ivor Gurney, who was in a mental hospital. Finzi and his wife organized and prepared Gurney's works for publication. They also studied and published old English folk music and music by earlier English composers.
In 1939, the Finzis moved to Hampshire. There, Gerald started the Newbury String Players. This was a group of amateur musicians that he conducted until he died. He helped bring back old 18th-century string music. He also gave young, talented musicians a chance to perform their works.
Growing Fame (1939–1956)
The start of World War II delayed the first performance of Dies natalis. This performance could have made Finzi a very well-known composer. During the war, he worked for the Ministry of War Transport and welcomed German and Czech refugees into his home. After the war, he became more productive. He wrote several choral pieces and his Clarinet Concerto (1949), which is one of his most popular works today.
By this time, Finzi's music was often performed at festivals. But this happy time didn't last. In 1951, he found out he had a serious illness called Hodgkin's disease. Doctors told him he might only have ten years to live. His feelings after this news might be shown in the first part of his Cello Concerto (1955), which was his last major work. The second part of the concerto, however, is more peaceful.
In 1956, after a trip with Vaughan Williams, Finzi became very ill. He died soon after, at age 55. The first performance of his Cello Concerto was played on the radio the night before he passed away. His ashes were scattered on May Hill in 1973.
Finzi's Musical Works
Finzi wrote many pieces, including nine song cycles. Six of these cycles used poems by Thomas Hardy. One of his first, By Footpath and Stile (1922), was for a singer and a string quartet. Others, like A Young Man’s Exhortation and Earth and Air and Rain, were for a singer and piano. Among his other songs, the settings of Shakespeare poems in the cycle Let Us Garlands Bring (1942) are very well known. He also wrote music for Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labour’s Lost (1946). For a singer and orchestra, he composed Dies natalis and the peaceful Farewell to Arms (1944).
Finzi's choral music includes popular anthems like Lo, the full, final sacrifice and God is gone up. He also wrote songs for choirs without instruments. He composed larger choral works too, such as For St. Cecilia, Intimations of Immortality, and the Christmas piece In terra pax. All of these were written in the last ten years of his life.
Finzi wrote only a few pieces for instruments alone, even though he worked very hard on them early in his career. He started what might have been a piano concerto, but it was never finished. After he died, two parts of it were published as separate works: Eclogue and Grand Fantasia and Toccata. The Grand Fantasia and Toccata shows how much Finzi admired Johann Sebastian Bach. He also finished a violin concerto, which was performed in London. However, Finzi wasn't happy with it and removed the first and last parts. The middle part that survived is called Introit. Finzi's Clarinet Concerto and his Cello Concerto are probably his most famous instrumental works.
Of Finzi's few chamber works (music for a small group of instruments), only the Five Bagatelles for clarinet and piano, published in 1945, are still often played today. The Prelude and Fugue for string trio (1938) is his only piece for a string group. It was written to honor his teacher R. O. Morris.
Finzi had a long friendship with composer Howard Ferguson. Ferguson gave him advice on his music during his life and later helped prepare some of Finzi's works for publication after his death.
Finzi's Legacy
Finzi's older son, Christopher, became a conductor and helped share his father's music with the world. His younger son, Nigel, was a violinist. He worked closely with his mother to promote his father's music.
See also
In Spanish: Gerald Finzi para niños
