Celebrating its 30th release on Hyperion, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge dedicates its latest project to secular choral music by Gerald Finzi. This, the debut release for Trinity’s newly appointed Director of Music Steven Grahl, presents three of Finzi’s larger choral works in first recordings of these arrangements. Written during the 1930s and ’40s, this music dwells on the transience of mortal life and human happiness through Finzi’s unique compositional voice: a mix of outwardly festive works (‘For St Cecilia’) and darker, more introspective music (‘Requiem da camera’). ‘For St Cecilia’ was scored originally for solo tenor, chorus and full orchestra, but appears here with the orchestral parts arranged for organ by Robert Gower. Gower has also re-arranged Finzi’s orchestral parts for organ in the Christmas work ‘In terra pax’, which takes inspiration from the composer’s time on the picturesque Cotswolds landmark Chosen Hill. Finally, the orchestration of the introspective ‘Requiem da camera’ was left unfinished at the time of Finzi’s death; a 2013 completion by Christian Alexander has here been combined with Francis Jackson’s earlier organ transcription to create a fresh arrangement. Award-winning soloists Hilary Cronin, Gwilym Bowen and Florian Störtz join the forces of the Trinity Cambridge Choir, whose last all-Finzi album was praised by Gramophone as ‘a beautifully crafted disc’ with ‘Trinity at their absolute best’.

 

Tracklist:

1. Finzi/Gower: For St Cecilia, Op 30 - 1: Prelude – Delightful Goddess, in whose fashionings

2. Finzi/Gower: For St Cecilia, Op 30 - 2: Changed is the age; mysterious, man’s next star

3. Finzi/Gower: For St Cecilia, Op 30 - 3: How came you, lady of fierce martyrdom?

4. Finzi/Gower: For St Cecilia, Op 30 - 4: Stand with us, Merbecke, and be Byrd close by

5. Finzi/Gower: For St Cecilia, Op 30 - 5: Wherefore we bid you to the full concent

6. Finzi/Gower: In terra pax, Op 39 - 1: Prelude – A frosty Christmas Eve when the stars were shining

7. Finzi/Gower: In terra pax, Op 39 - 2: And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them

8. Finzi/Jackson: Requiem da camera - 1: Prelude

9. Finzi/Jackson: Requiem da camera - 2: How still this quiet cornfield is tonight!

10. Finzi/Jackson: Requiem da camera - 3: So beautiful it is, I never saw

11. Finzi/Jackson: Requiem da camera - 3: Only a man harrowing clods

12. Finzi/Jackson: Requiem da camera - 4: We who are left, how shall we look again?