Gerald FINZI (1901-1956): Clarinet Concerto Op. 31 (1949)
1: Allegro vigoroso | 2: Adagio ma senza rigore | 3: Rondo: Allegro giocoso
Much of the first half of 1949 was taken up with writing the concerto; a slow process due to the distraction provided by Finzi's two teenage sons. By August the concerto still wasn't finished, so with the premiere at Hereford's Three Choirs Festival looming in early September, Finzi's wife, Joy, took the boys on a Cornish holiday, leaving Gerald at home to work. Progress was thereafter more rapid, and the premiere took place as planned, with Vaughan Williams in the audience (he was at the festival conducting his Third Symphony). The Clarinet Concerto is regarded today as Finzi's first fully mature instrumental work.
Finzi wrote in the programme for the premiere that the mood of the concerto grew out of "the warm and romantic qualities ... and natural fluidity" of the clarinet, and yet the opening is the most arrestingly forceful and dissonant music he ever wrote. Bold octave Cs crash immediately into D-flats, and this interval unsettles much of the string orchestra's contribution to the movement. The brief orchestral exposition ends dramatically with hammered-out octaves on the dominant: an unusual commitment for Finzi, his preference being for subtler alternatives at cadence points. This most dramatic of gestures is ignored by the seemingly-oblivious, softly singing entry of the clarinet, its 'natural fluidity' thrown into greater relief by the confrontational opening. Is the audience cheated of a true concerto, by the clarinet's constant evasion of this confrontation? Does the clarinet ever really engage with the string orchestra in the first movement, which traditionally is driven by conflict and resolution between soloist and orchestra? Or, alternatively, does Finzi vindicate a lone, quiet, rhapsodising voice, unaffected by the distraction of the wider world? The last word, certainly, seems to be one of the orchestra's torment: emotionally charged, pounding octave Cs curtail the clarinet's cadenza, framing the wayward rhapsodising of the first movement. There was no cadenza in the first performance in Hereford - Vaughan Williams suggested to Finzi afterwards that the work might benefit by including one.
By contrast, the opening of the second movement is almost trance-like in its stillness. The clarinet weaves timeless, upwards-reaching arabesques over rapt, floating violins - reminiscent of the soloist's first entry in The Lark Ascending. The solo line becomes increasingly mobile, and the emotional intensity builds to a fortissimo discord, the same as Elgar chose for his 'Angel of Agony' chord in The Dream of Gerontius. As the movement winds down, a slowly-falling bass line generates one of the most exquisite moments in the work: in the final bars the strings sink from Gb-major to F-major, fading 'a niente' (to nothing).
Like the first movement, the rondo finale opens in a harsh and troubled manner, which is similarly brushed aside by the clarinet's first infectious tune. Punctuating the returns of the main theme are two charming episodes, the first gentle and waltz-like, developing over a fearsome pizzicato cello obbligato bass-line, and the second, spontaneous in nature, marked 'scherzando' (jokily). The greatest surprise of the concerto comes after the final return of the rondo melody: the coda transforms into the music of the first movement, followed by a moment of stillness and three bars of upwards-reaching improvisatory rhapsody, recalling the second movement. A more prolonged, wistful reflection of the first movement is swiftly abandoned in a flurry of trills and racing virtuosity as the concerto draws brilliantly to a close.
The loss of his father, his three brothers, and his beloved music teacher before he was aged eighteen may have imbued Finzi's music with its characteristic wistfulness which has a particularly English hue: the gravity which never descends to pessimism or despair, but instead maintains an innocent, elegiac quality. It is difficult to say whether the Clarinet Concerto is more remarkable for the perfection with which these typically-Finzi elegiac colours are captured, or for the daring of its untypically-Finzi vigour and discord.
