Gerald Finzi: Dies Natalis auf CD

Die CD vereint zwei der charakteristischsten Werke Finzis. »Dies natalis«, eine Vertonug von Texten des Dichters Thomas Traherne (17. Jahrhundert), ist ein Werk sublimer Harmonie, das die Vision von kindlicher Unschuld treffend lebendig macht. »Intimations of Immortality« ist im Gegensatz hierzu eine Klage über die verlorenen Freuden von Trahernes idealisierter Kindheit, ein Werk von fesselnder Schönheit.

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This disc brings together two of Finzi’s most characteristic works. Dies Natalis, a setting of prose and verse by the seventeenth-century metaphysical poet Thomas Traherne, is a piece of sublime concord and timelessness, music which vividly suggests the vision of a child’s innocence and unsullied perception of the world which lies at the heart of Traherne’s philosophy. Intimations of Immortality is by contrast a lament, not only for the lost joys of Traherne’s idealized childhood, but also for the severing of the adult soul from the intuitive primal state. Finzi uses Wordsworth’s famous Ode to convey his view that ‘a dead poet lives in many a live stockbroker’ and the result is a work of arresting beauty.

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Rezensionen

»The performance by tenor John Mark Ainsley and Corydon Singers weds the ecstatic to the sublime« (The New Yorker)

»Rich, glowing performances in a class apart« (BBC Music Magazine)

»With such ardent, beautiful singing that communicates deep respect for the music, it's a performance to treasure … [a] ravishingly poignant release« (Soundscapes, Australia)

»I shall treasure this recording« (Organists' Review)

»There have been several excellent previous recordings of Dies natalis but John Mark Ainsley's rendition is as fine as the best of them.​ This recent release is indispensable to the Finzi aficionado and highly recommended to all who enjoy the early twentieth-century English school of composers« (Fanfare, USA)