Tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Anna Tilbrook perform three of Gerald Finzi's song cycles for high voice: Oh Fair to See, Till Earth Outwears, and the more substantial A Young Man's Exhortation. Of the three, only A Young Man's Exhortation was published as a cycle during Finzi's lifetime; the other two were assembled into cycles after his death from individual songs the composer wrote between 1922 and 1956. Not surprisingly, Exhortation holds together as a large-scale experience better than the other two, not least ...
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Tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Anna Tilbrook perform three of Gerald Finzi's song cycles for high voice: Oh Fair to See, Till Earth Outwears, and the more substantial A Young Man's Exhortation. Of the three, only A Young Man's Exhortation was published as a cycle during Finzi's lifetime; the other two were assembled into cycles after his death from individual songs the composer wrote between 1922 and 1956. Not surprisingly, Exhortation holds together as a large-scale experience better than the other two, not least because its two-part structure (Part I: In the Morning it flourisheth, Part II: In the evening it is cut down) provides a framework for the sentiments of the 10 individual poems. Till Earth Outwears holds its own as a group fairly well, since each of its seven poems is by the same author, Thomas Hardy, by far Finzi's most important muse. But Oh Fair to See is more of a pleasant grouping of songs than an organic whole, featuring poems by six different authors. Gilchrist and Tilbrook are...
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