Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
Cello Concerto, Op. 40 (1955)
Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988)
Suite Veris Gratia Op.9 (1951)
Raphael Wallfisch (cello)
George Caird (oboe)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon Handley
rec. 1986, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, UK
Presto CD
Chandos 8471W [66]

This welcome Presto CD release brings back into the physical CD catalogue performances of two works which are roughly contemporaneous with each other by composers at opposite ends of their careers. The Cello Concerto turned out to be Finzi’s last major work. Commissioned by John Barbirolli and the Hallé, it was given its first performance at the 1955 Cheltenham Festival. Its first broadcast performance was on 26 September 1956, the night before Finzi’s untimely death. It’s an ambitious work, whose scope and power are evident from the turbulent opening bars, which the RLPO under Vernon Handley here render with an ominous, almost severe intensity. When Raphael Wallfisch enters, he very much channels that mood, but he’s also alive to the nuances of Finzi’s writing and his direction that the cellist should treat the opening material almost rhapsodically. There’s some lovely lyrical playing, and the technical challenges of the solo part never compromise his superb tone, even in the daunting cadenza, where his double-stopping at speed is remarkable.

Wallfisch’s lyricism is given even greater opportunity in the rapturous slow movement, and he doesn’t shy away from the passages of melancholic writing, but they never become dirge-like. There are recordings that very successfully take this movement a little faster, notably that of Paul Watkins and Andrew Davis on a later Chandos release in 2018. However, my goodness, it is highly effective at a more measured tempo too, when played as sensitively as here. It’s not surprising that Barbirolli wrote to Finzi after the first London performance to say that the movement brought him to tears on the podium. The Rondo finale is a thing of joy in this performance, vibrant and effervescent, yet there’s also an underlying emotional depth and warmth.

In 1949, Finzi directed a performance by the Newbury String Players of Leighton’s Symphony of Strings, when the latter was still an undergraduate at Oxford. Leighton composed Veris Gratia for the same ensemble, and it was given its first performance in May 1951, again with Finzi conducting. When the score was eventually published, Leighton dedicated the work to Finzi’s memory. The work is structured around four of Helen Waddell’s translations of Medieval Latin Lyrics (1929), six of which Holst had set in his Six Choruses of 1932. Leighton chose a purely instrumental reflection with parts for solo oboe and cello. All of the lyrics reflect aspects of spring and are placed at the head of each movement in the score. The mood is set with great care in this performance’s first movement, as George Caird’s oboe, in an almost mystical way, enunciates the opening theme just introduced by the orchestra, before being joined by Wallfisch, open-hearted and forthright. This characterisation is held throughout their dialogue, which has a lyrical spontaneity. The second movement Allegro molto is a lively dance, infused with melody, with the orchestral playing delightfully complementing the soloists’ bursts of energy. The third movement opens with just oboe and cello, and the way the two players intertwine, then draw apart, then rejoin has a freshness and charm entirely consonant with the composer’s intentions. The final movement has a real sense of thanksgiving to it, very much with Waddell’s words in mind: ‘Then let us praise together/This earth that is new-stirred’, Handley here in his element in moulding an emphatically fitting conclusion. Finzi had also introduced the young Leighton to Vaughan Williams, and anyone who knows Flos Campi will immediately see the connection to this later work.

These pieces fit together so well that it’s surprising the coupling hasn’t been repeated. In fact, I think this remains the only recording of the Leighton, so its reissue by Presto is even more valuable. The 1986 Chandos recording, made in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, still sounds very fine nearly 40 years later. The excellent booklet notes are by the late Diana McVeagh, Finzi’s biographer.

Dominic Hartley

Buying this recording via the link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free