English Song Series 15 - Finzi: Earth And Air And Rain

$13.99
Label
Naxos
Release Date
July 25, 2006
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      FINZI
    • PERFORMER
      Burnside, Williams
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      July 25, 2006
    • UPC
      747313296323
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      8557963
    • LABEL
      Naxos
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Vocal
    Works ⌄

    1. No. 1. Summer Schemes

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    2. No. 2. When I Set Out for Lyonesse

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    3. No. 3. Waiting Both

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    4. No. 4. The Phantom

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    5. No. 5. So I Have Fared

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    6. No. 6. Rollicum-Rorum

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    7. No. 7. To Lizbie Browne

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    8. No. 8. The Clock of the Years

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    9. No. 9. In a Churchyard

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    10. No. 10. Proud Songsters

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    11. No. 1. To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    12. No. 2. On Parent Knees

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    13. No. 3. Intrada

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    14. No. 4. The Birthnight

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    15. No. 5. June on Castle Hill

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    16. No. 6. Ode on the Rejection of St Cecilia

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Performer: Roderick Williams, Iain Burnside

    17. No. 1. Paying Calls

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Sacconi Quartet

      Performer: Roderick Williams

    18. No. 2. Where the Picnic Was

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Sacconi Quartet

      Performer: Roderick Williams

    19. No. 3. The Oxen

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Sacconi Quartet

      Performer: Roderick Williams

    20. No. 4. The Master and the Leaves

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Sacconi Quartet

      Performer: Roderick Williams

    21. No. 5. Voices from Things Growing in a Churchyard

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Sacconi Quartet

      Performer: Roderick Williams

    22. No. 6. Exeunt Omnes

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Sacconi Quartet

      Performer: Roderick Williams


Lovely rich, dark tone, exquisite enunciation … glorious songs brilliantly performed.

Roderick Williams has already recorded the Finzi song-cycles I Said to Love, Let Us Garlands Bring, and Before and After Summer on Naxos. Here he continues the sterling work.

English solo song is a deceptive genre. Although the songs often appear simple, in actual fact they are not easy to pull off effectively. For them to work, every nuance must be brought out, every slightly inflection must be spot-on, every word invested with the right emotion. Williams is no stranger to English solo song and always gets to the heart of the work. Here he is, as always, beautifully sympathetic, awake to all nuances of the text – listen to wonderful shades of light and dark in When I set out for Lyonesse, to the poignancy in Lizbie Brown and the chilling intensity in Clock of the Years. He demonstrates excellent versatility – from the rumbustious Rollicum-Rorum, scintillatingly performed – through to the intense and serious (Ode on the Rejection of St. Cecilia), or the beautifully tender – The Birthnight.

This is the only version of By Footpath and Stile currently available. It was Finzi’s earliest Hardy setting, written in 1921-22, and was later withdrawn by the composer, whose plans to revise it were not fully seen through. The work was abandoned until Finzi’s friend, the composer Howard Ferguson edited it for republication. Although not as convincing as Finzi’s later Hardy settings, it nonetheless demonstrates the composer in the process of finding his own “voice”. The songs are deftly crafted, and often deeply moving. It is scored for string quartet accompaniment, sensitively performed here by the Sacconi Quartet.

Williams has a lovely rich, dark tone, and exquisite enunciation that facilitates his excellent communication of the words and the meaning. He is well accompanied by Iain Burnside. Glorious songs, and brilliantly performed.

-- Em Marshall, MusicWeb International