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

46Figure 29. “This sovereign subject” (measure 112).In his survey of “Twenty English Song-Composers,” Trevor Hold offers the followingobservation on role of gesture in Finzi’s music:The expressiveness of his vocal lines is usually achieved by contour rather thanchromaticism, in a mixture of conjunct movement and large expressive leaps. 57Both types of note movement have now been observed in this study, the linear-lyrical, and thedisjunct-declamatory. 5857 Hold, Parry to Finzi, 397.58 In the Crees Lectures, Finzi discussed the importance of balance between gesture and pitch, line and lyric:“Hitler, Mussolini, and even Lloyd George could rouse an audience to a frenzy with pauses, gestures and theatricaleffects, but a complete lack of sense of logic, in a way which no unfortunate lecturer, through talking sound sense,could ever do. Thus it is only at the extremes that it is impossible to reconcile manner and matter, and it is nocondemnation of virtuosity to say that in any age where the cadenza becomes more important than the song, thecomposer for whom words have any significance finds himself in a vacuum. To turn to the opposite extreme. Most