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

EPILOGUEFinzi died at the age of fifty-five. Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease in 1951, he battledprivately until, in a countryside excursion with Vaughan Williams following the Three ChoirsFestival of 1956, he contracted chicken pox. In his already weakened state, Finzi passed withinthree weeks.While still a very young man he had tasted much of death. His father battled adebilitating cancer of the mouth which slowly took his jaw and eye, dying just prior to Gerald’seighth birthday. Of his three older brothers, one died of illness while away at boarding school,another by suicide, and another was killed during the final weeks of the first World War. His firstcomposition teacher, Ernest Farrar, a man described by McVeagh as “young enough to be hisfirst real friend, a man whose ideals became his own,” also was killed at the close of the war, thishaving a great impact upon Finzi. 71 Understandably then, he was acutely aware of the transienceand uncertainty of life. While he could be pleasant, warm, and enthusiastic with visitors,discoursing on “food, apple trees, cats, literature, people, everything except his own music,” 72 hewas also very introspective, private, deeply thoughtful, and often tense, Joy Finzi describing:He experienced the isolation of the artist—the eternal onlooker. His lonely, hurt,incompatible early surroundings made his books his companions and his fewdeeply chosen friends. Aristocratic, acutely sensitive, he built round himself anemphatic positive reaction to life and work . . . . 7371 McVeagh, 15, and Crutchfield, 166.72 Russell, 630.73 McVeagh, 289.