"History, Analysis and Performance Considerations of Gerald Finzi's ...

7miniaturist is now generally recognized, can also handle a larger form with a suretouch. 25In 1948, the same reviewer reported:Finzi’s ‘The Full Final Sacrifice’ was repeated from the Gloucester programme oflast year, and was conducted by Dr. Herbert Sumsion. Like Rubbra in ‘TheMorning Watch,’ Finzi catches the spirit of the metaphysical poets and writes afree flowing music whose melodiousness is in the last resort derived fromfolksong as Rubbra’s is from Tudor polyphony. Both, therefore, write acharacteristically English kind of music, not music for the market-place, it is true,nor necessarily for the church, but for any place or occasion of meditation. 26And of the latter performance The Musical Times related:The repetition of Finzi's cantata 'The Full, Final Sacrifice', first heard at last year'sFestival, was ample testimony of its worth. This composer's gentle and graciouslyricism must be as soothing to the singers as it is to the audience in our brusqueand angular melodic age. 27Devotional and celebratory, brooding and triumphant, penitent and dramatic, Lo, the FullFinal Sacrifice is viewed today as one of Finzi’s finest works. His delayed entrance into thepublic eye now inconsequential, the anthem—his first mature choral setting—continues to find arespected place among both secular and ecclesiastical ensembles, and has been commerciallyrecorded by such choirs as the Choir of King’s College, Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Choir ofWorcester Cathedral, and The Finzi Singers. 2825 Frank Howells, “From Our Music Critic,” The Times, [London], 13 September 1947, in Crutchfield, 85.26 Ibid.27 “The Three Choirs Festival,” 252.28 For a more extensive list see Dressler, 34, 62-75.