Finzi - Cello Concerto; Leighton - Suite "Veris Gratia"

Gerald Finzi : Cello Concerto

Kenneth Leighton : Suite "Veris Gratia"

Raphael Wallfisch (Cello); George Caird (Oboe)

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Vernon Handley

Gerald Finzi's Cello Concerto is a beautiful and lyrical work. It's played here by Raphael Wallfisch as soloist backed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley. It was commissioned by Sir John Barbirolli for the 1955 Cheltenham Festival, where it was conducted by Barbirolli with the Hallé Orchestra. It is written in conventional three-movement form. On hearing the central slow movement I was much reminded of the mystical atmosphere that pervades Finzi's Intimation of Immortality - a subject of particular relevance to Finzi for, although he was only in his 50s, he knew that he was dying. This work is accessible even on first hearing.

The other work on this CD, somewhat shorter than the Finzi but of very similar mood, is what is effectively a double concerto or concertino for oboe and cello with string orchestra by English composer Kenneth Leighton - someone I had not heard of until I bought this record several years ago. Again, it is a beautiful work with long sweeping melodic lines and I have grown to love it as much as its companion piece. The composer called it `Veris gratia' and it is an arrangement for string orchestra in four movements of Leighton's cantata Veris Gratia that sets four verses on Spring from Helen Waddell's Medieval Latin Lyrics. Like the cello concerto, it is very much in the English pastoral tradition. Wallfisch is again the cellist and the oboist is George Caird. This is a CD of more than an hour's lovely reflective music from Chandos.