Gerald Finzi - Music for Love's Labour's Lost • Let Us Garlands Bring • Two Sonnets by John Milton • Farewell to Arms • In terra pax

John Carol Case, baritone **
Ian Partridge, tenor ***
Jane Manning, soprano ****
John Noble, baritone ****
John Alldis Choir ****
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra *
New Philharmonia Orchestra ** *** ****
Vernon Handley, conductor

Label: Lyrita
Copyright: 2007 Lyrita Recorded Edition, England
Catalogue number: SRCD.237
UPC/EAN: 5020926023728
Format: CD
Analogue / Digital recording: DDD / ADD
Number of discs: 1
Total playing time: 77.38
Price: £ 14.99 (+ postage & packing)

Tracks 1 - 10: Recorded at Walthamstow, 2 December 1986, Producer: Andrew Cornall, Engineer: John Dunkerley
Tracks 11 - 19: Recorded at Walthamstow, 30 August 1975
Track 20: Recorded at Kingsway Hall, 4 November 1976, Producer: James Walker, Engineers: Colin Moorfoot, John Dunkerley

In 1946 Noel Iliff was to produce Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost for the BBC Home Service. His wife, Simona Pakenham, was adapting it. She was musician enough to be writing a book on Vaughan Williams, and to have recognized Finzi's gifts. He agreed to compose incidental music for sixteen players. As he was a slow worker, he was shocked to find he had only three weeks. But "I rather wanted to do it," he wrote to a friend, "just to show myself that I could do it."

"Who would ever guess this was by Finzi – perhaps Prokofiev or maybe Arnell. The Three Soliloquies are core Finzi and have been recorded freestanding by Boult on his Lyrita anthology. It’s a pleasing suite ... Let us Garlands Bring was written for Vaughan Williams birthday in 1942. It is here sumptuously recorded and sung with unparalleled attention to meaning and variation in hue and emphasis by John Carol Case ..." Rob Barnett, www.musicweb-international.com Click here to read the full review

"This is quite delightful music and Vernon Handley directs a sparkling account of it. Handley’s marvellously fresh reading will do nicely for me ... this is an excellent disc overall, containing some fine and completely idiomatic performances, all captured in first rate sound. It’s both essential listening and a self-recommending issue for all Finzi lovers ..." John Quinn, www.musicweb-international.com Click here to read the full review

Music for Love's Labour's Lost for string orchestra * Gerald Finzi 28.33
1 Introduction 4.23
2 Moth 2.00
3 Nocturne 3.27
4 The Hunt 2.23
5 Dance 5.06
6 Clowns 2.23
7 Soliloquy I 1.42
8 Soliloquy II 1.41
9 Soliloquy III 1.46
10 Finale 3.42
Let us Garlands bring Op. 18 - Five Shakespeare Songs for Baritone and String Orchestra ** Gerald Finzi 14.58
11 Come away death 3.15
12 Who is Sylvia? 1.26
13 Fear no more the heat o' the sun 5.29
14 O mistress mine 2.05
15 It was a lover and his lass 2.43
Two Sonnets by John Milton for Tenor and small Orchestra *** Gerald Finzi 8.32
16 When I consider 5.09
17 How soon hath time 3.23
Farewell to Arms for Tenor and small Orchestra *** Gerald Finzi 9.00
18 Introduction 3.56
19 Aria 5.04
20 In terra pax (Christmas Scene) for Soprano, Baritone, Chorus and Orchestra **** Gerald Finzi 16.21