Before and After Summer, Op 16 - Hyperion Records - CDs, MP3 and Lossless downloads

Before and After Summer, Op 16

composer

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)

first performed by Robert Irwin and Frederick Stone in a BBC broadcast on 17 October 1949

author of text

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Recordings

Finzi: Earth & Air & Rain

Martyn Hill (tenor), Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

MP3 £7.99FLAC £7.99ALAC £7.99Buy by post £13.99 CDD22070 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

Details

No 01: Childhood among the Ferns I sat one sprinkling day upon the lea

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 11 on CDD22070 CD2 [3'19] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 02: Before and After Summer Looking forward to the spring

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 12 on CDD22070 CD2 [2'29] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 03: The Self-Unseeing Here is the ancient floor, footworn and hollowed and thin

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 13 on CDD22070 CD2 [2'30] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 04: Overlooking the River The swallows flew in the curves of an eight

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 14 on CDD22070 CD2 [2'24] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 05: Channel Firing That night your great guns, unawares

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 15 on CDD22070 CD2 [6'05] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 06: In the Mind's Eye That was once her casement, and the taper nigh

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 16 on CDD22070 CD2 [1'46] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 07: The Too Short Time Nine leaves a minute swim down shakily

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 17 on CDD22070 CD2 [2'53] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 08: Epeisodia Past the hills that peep

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 18 on CDD22070 CD2 [1'59] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 09: Amabel I marked her ruined hues

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 19 on CDD22070 CD2 [2'45] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

No 10: He Abjures Love At last I put off love, for twice ten years

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)

Track 20 on CDD22070 CD2 [4'09] 2CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1)

English

Before and After Summer, Op 16

Before and After Summer contains two of Finzi’s finest ‘vision’ images: the delicate dream-dance in ‘The Self-Unseeing’ and the urgent dissolving modulations of ‘In the Mind’s Eye’. In this set too is the improbable ‘Channel Firing’, a long dramatic piece in which, undaunted by Hardy’s immense subject and his colloquial expression of it, Finzi through-composes nine verses with only the gunfire figure and a little melodic phrase to hold them together. This set was first performed by Robert Irwin and Frederick Stone in a BBC broadcast on 17 October 1949.

from notes by Diana McVeagh © 1989
Diana McVeagh’s Gerald Finzi: His Life and Music is published by Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge

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