Customer Reviews

Finzi: Love's Labours Lost; Let Us Garlands Bring; Two Milton Sonnets; Farewell to Arms; In Terra Pax

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I first heard Finzi's In Terra Pax on an old Lyrita LP from the stacks of my local library in the mid-'80s. That LP had Intimations of Immortality coupled with Pax. I had to wait until 2004 for a CD to become available, a 2-CD set of Finzi's choral music & songs (with a couple of short instrumentals). Although that CD is a fine one, I prefer this re-issue of the older recording. Finzi sets the Gospel narrative and builds up the first ten minutes or so with the chorus and baritone. When the words "Fear not..." are sung ecstatically by the angel (soprano), you realize how perfectly Finzi has built the momentum for that sweet soprano to express her tidings of joy.

There is no filler on this disc. The Love's Labour's Lost suite is becoming a favorite recording item of conductors who favor his music (I just wished we'd hear it, or at least selections, on concert stages in place of the ubiquitous bombastic overtures that music directors keep re-programming. I've had my fill of Mozart, Rossini & Weber opera overtures to open EVERY symphony concert. Bravo to the late Sergiu Commissiona who opened a Vancouver Symphony Concert in 1998 or 1999 with the last act Pas de Deux from Nutcracker----a beautiful, elegaic way to begin a symphony concert, I think, with that gorgeous harp intro). The Milton Sonnets are sung better in the recording with Rebecca Evans in the '90s on the Conifer label, but the soloist on this CD doesn't ruin the piece. And Let Us Garlands Bring and Farewell to Arms are works that lovers of Vaughan Williams, Parry and Dyson will enjoy.

Writing this review on Christmas Eve here in Seattle, I can't help but wonder why so many people will keep their childhood/family tradition of attending a Messiah or Carols concert every year without also adding something new, like this In Terra Pax by Finzi, The Nativity According to St. Luke of Randall Thompson, Ode on the Nativity by Parry, Hodie by Vaughan Williams, Lauda per la Nativita of Respighi, Retablo de Navidad by Rodrigo, Charpentier's Masses or Saint-Saen's Oratorio Noel.......the Seattle Symphony and several local amateur ensembles are performing countless Messiahs, with the occasional Amahl & the Night Visitors thrown in. None of these other wonderful Christmas works are ever performed. Thank goodness for recordings and the small labels that keep these treasures available. This CD is highly recommended. Like other classical music collectors, some of my enthusiasms wax and wane with composers that I've just "discovered" for myself, but like Handel operas, Finzi's music has never failed to please. Heartbreakingly bittersweet music.