For St Cecilia op. 30 : Ceremonial Ode

Following the publication of Francis Jackson’s organ reduction of Finzi’s Requiem da Camera in 2014, Robert Gower, chairman of the Finzi Trust, recitalist and organist of Nottingham Cathedral, has created reductions of the full orchestra accompaniments to two more of Finzi’s choral works. These reductions broaden the reach of these works to choirs which do not wish to present the works with orchestra, as with other standards from the sacred repertoire such the Requiems of Fauré and Duruflé. The reductions sympathetically recreate the orchestra scoring for a three-manual organ. Ingeniously, the manual couplings (II to III, II and III to I) are unaltered throughout, with pedalcoupled to manuals as appropriate. Detailed registrations are not indicated as these are best left to the performer, taking into account the unique circumstances of the particular instrument, size of choir and acoustic setting at each performance. The scores are user-friendly, in landscape format and with at least one principal vocal line cued throughout, and a cappella choral passages are reproduced in full. The reductions are fully compatible with the published piano vocal scores of the respective works which the singers will use. For St Cecilia, Ceremonial Ode for tenor solo, chorus & orchestra; words by Edmund Blunden. The original work was commissioned by the St Cecilia’s Day Festival Committee for the 1947 celebration of music’s patron saint. The ceremonial mood is established with fanfares, and the sonorous sweep of the choral writing reflects Finzi’s admiration for Parry and Elgar. The ‘catalogue’ of saints, shared between the soloist and chorus, are deftly delineated: St Valentine, St George, St Dunstan, St Swithin and St Cecilia herself. In rapt stillness, the English composers of the past – Merbecke, Byrd, Dowland and Purcell – are summoned. To close, Finzi creates a festal summation with exultant counterpoint and the saint’s name pealing around the chorus.