Finzi: Intimations Of Immortality, Etc / Hill, Et Al

$19.99
Label
Naxos
Release Date
May 16, 2006
Format
Added to Cart! View cart or continue shopping.


    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      FINZI
    • ORCHESTRA / ENSEMBLE
      Bso Chorus
    • PERFORMER
      Hill, Bournemouth So, Gilchrist
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      May 16, 2006
    • UPC
      747313286324
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      8557863
    • LABEL
      Naxos
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Choral - Sacred
    Works ⌄

    1. Andante sostenuto

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Conductor: David Hill

    2. There was a time when meadow, grove and stream

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    3. The Rainbow comes and goes

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    4. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    5. Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    6. Oh evil day! If I were sullen

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    7. But there's a Tree, of many, one

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    8. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    9. Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    10. Oh joy! That in our embers

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    11. But for those first affections

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    12. Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    13. And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills and Groves

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    14. Delightful Goddess, in whose fashionings

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    15. Changed is the age; mysterious, man's next star

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    16. How came you, lady of fierce martyrdom

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    17. How smilingly the saint among her friends

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill

    18. Wherefore we bid you to the full concent

      Composer: Gerald Finzi

      Ensemble: Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

      Performer: James Gilchrist

      Conductor: David Hill


This disc represents an easy first choice in Finzi's Intimations of Immortality, one of the masterpieces of the English choral literature and a surprisingly neglected one too. Its only serious competition comes from Richard Hickox on EMI (if it's still in print) and Matthew Best on Hyperion (a very good version, if not quite as orchestrally polished as this). David Hill has one advantage over everyone: his is simply the most exciting performance available, not just a function of swift tempos, but also in terms of the acuity and enthusiasm of the instrumental response to the music's bold contrasts and driving climaxes.


With James Gilchrist, a very fine tenor soloist, singing with impressive clarity of diction and very little of that traditionally English, pinched tone quality, the overall picture only gets better. It may be that in his own Corydon Singers Best has a finer contingent of massed voices, but the Bournemouth choir certainly does as well as Hickox's Liverpool forces. The coupling is equally impressive: a resounding performance of the ebullient ceremonial ode For St. Cecilia (Hickox offers the Grand Fantasia and Toccata for piano and orchestra, Best the gentle cantata Dies Natalis). At Naxos' budget price, this is an easy call. Buy it! [7/24/2006]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com