GERALD FINZI AND JOHN IRELAND:

A STYLISTIC COMPARISON OF COMPOSITIONAL APPROACHES

IN THE CONTEXT OF TEN SELECTED POEMS BY THOMAS HARDY

A Written Document
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
In partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts
in
The School of Music

by
Richard Michael Jupin
B.M., State University of New York at Potsdam, 1995
M.M., The Boston Conservatory, 2000
December, 2005
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….iii

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..1

CHAPTER
1 THE POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THOMAS HARDY:
A BRIEF INSIGHT……………………………………………………………...3

2 GERALD FINZI AND JOHN IRELAND: BIOGRAPHICAL DATA………..13

3 GERALD FINZI AND JOHN IRELAND:

A STYLISTIC COMPARISON OF COMPOSITIONAL APPROACHES
IN THE CONTEXT OF TEN SELECTED POEMS BY THOMAS HARDY...34

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………..72

APPENDIX
A TEXTUAL EXAMPLES………………………………………………………...74

B A COMPLETE LIST OF HARDY SETTINGS BY GERALD FINZI AND

JOHN IRELAND FOR VOICE AND PIANO ……………………………….76

C A SELECT DISCOGRAPHY OF SONGS BY JOHN IRELAND AND

GERALD FINZI……………………………...............................................................78

D PERMISSIONS ……………………………………………….................................81

VITA……………………………………………………………………………………...85

ii
ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to provide a stylistic analysis that contrasts five Thomas

Hardy settings by Gerald Finzi with five settings by John Ireland. In order to investigate the

apparent intuitiveness with which both Ireland and Finzi approached Thomas Hardy’s

poetry, biographical information is provided to reveal similarities in the backgrounds of each

composer. Highlighted are the compositional techniques and text setting ideologies each

composer utilized when facing the challenges and eccentricities of Hardy’s poetry. A brief

discussion on the philosophical foundations of Thomas Hardy’s poetry is also included. The

repertoire discussed within are the settings Summer Schemes, The Phantom, Rollicum-Rorum, The

Clock of the Years, and Channel Firing by Gerald Finzi as well as Summer Schemes, The tragedy of

that moment, Beckon to me to come, Dear, think not that they will forget you and Weathers by John

Ireland.

iii
INTRODUCTION

In the preface to his book Parry to Finzi- Twenty English Song-Composers, Trevor Hold

proposes that there exist two Golden Ages of song in England. He defines the first Age as

having its beginnings at the turn of the 17th century, naming composers such as Dowland,

Campion, Daniel, and Rosseter amongst its ranks. The second, according to Hold, occurred

at the end of Queen Victoria’s reign (c. 1901), lasted into the later stages of King George V’s

reign (c. 1910-1936), and encompassed the careers of Parry, Stanford, Somervell, and

Warlock. Mr. Hold sites the strong influences of Parry and Stanford as the tour de force

responsible for linking together the composers of this second era. Parry’s compositional

style, for example, provided inspiration for the well-known song composer Gerald Finzi.

Stanford, on the other hand, taught many of the era’s song composers, not the least of

which was the meticulous John Ireland.

Coined by some as the Era of English Romantic Song, the composers of this period

chose from a colorful palate of poets. The philosophical slant of one poet in particular,

Thomas Hardy, was well supported by a number of the era’s compositional geniuses. In the

book Music in Britain: The Twentieth Century, Stephen Banfield notes that Ireland and Finzi

“achieved the best rapport” with Hardy’s particular brand of serious verse.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a stylistic analysis that contrasts five Thomas

Hardy settings by Gerald Finzi with five settings by John Ireland. In order to investigate the

apparent intuitiveness with which both Ireland and Finzi approached Thomas Hardy’s

poetry, biographical information will be provided to reveal similarities in the backgrounds of

each composer. Highlighted are the compositional techniques and text setting ideologies

each composer utilized when facing the challenges and eccentricities of Hardy’s poetry. A

1
brief discussion on the philosophical foundations of Thomas Hardy’s poetry is also provided

herein.

2
CHAPTER 1
THE POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THOMAS HARDY:
A BRIEF INSIGHT

Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Brockhampton near Dorchester in Dorset,

England. Hardy’s father, Thomas Hardy senior, was a stonemason. His mother, Jamina, was

a well-read woman whose concern for her children compelled her to equip them with the

“linguistic, educational, and social skills to rise out of their background and into the middle

class.”1

Hardy is generally regarded as one of the greatest names in the canon of British

literature. He is a prolific poet having composed 1,093 poems.2 To many of his critics,

however, Hardy was said to be primarily a novelist. Literary critics, especially those in

Hardy’s lifetime, were not easily swayed by the author’s claim to be first and foremost a poet

and not primarily a writer of prose.3 It was not until the 1950s that a re-evaluation of

Hardy’s poetry was sparked by the highly acclaimed poet/critic Phillip Larkin.4

It is interesting to note the vigor with which Hardy defended his poetry. Hardy had

composed poetry in the beginning of his career, but only to modest success. It was his

return to poetry after writing several successful novels that marked a creative renaissance in

the seasoned veteran’s literary career. It was at this point in the author’s career that his

experience and maturity was allowed to manifest itself in the genre of poetry. In 1902, Hardy

justified his return to poetry proclaiming: “that form of expression seems to fit my thoughts

1
Michael Millgate, Thomas Hardy. A Biography Revisited (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004),
30-31.
2
Dennis Taylor. Hardy’s Metres and Victorian Prosody. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 2.
3
Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems, ed. Walford Davis (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1982), 7.
4
Taylor, 139.

3
better as I grow older, as it did when I was young also.”5 In 1904, he elaborated on this

point saying that he “found the condensed expression that it (poetry) affords so much more

consonant to my natural way of thinking and feeling.”6 In 1912, Hardy suggested to a

friend that he ought to read his poems rather than his novels saying: “the novels seem

immature to me.”7 Furthermore, in 1915, he instructed professor and scholar Harold Child

to: “treat my verse…as my essential writings and my prose as accidental.”8 By 1923,

Hardy’s confidence in his poetry prompted his proclamation that in regards to his total

output, the novels had been “superseded in the view of critics by the more important half of

my work, the verse, published during the last 25 years.”9 In his book, Hardy’s Metres and

Victorian Prosody, Dennis Taylor explains that by the time he died in 1928, Thomas Hardy

had committed himself to the genre of poetry on a full-time basis for thirty-six years.10

Taking into account his earliest poems, we can say that Hardy’s poetic career

spanned roughly between1860-1928. Historically speaking, this career includes the mid- and

late Victorian period (1837-1901), the Edwardian period (1901-1910), the Georgian period

(1911-1912), the post war period, and the twenties. Represented in this time-span are both

the climax and end of a five hundred year tradition of accentual-syllabic verse in English

literature.11

Taylor states that Hardy’s preoccupation with metrical form was “a fascination born

and nurtured within the context of Victorian metrical theory and practice.”12 Given the fact

that many Victorian poets were metrical theorists, it is logical to surmise that theory directly

5
The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, ed. Richard Little Purdy and Michael Milgate (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1978), 3:43.
6
Ibid., 133.
7
Thomas Hardy’s Personal Writings, ed. Harold Orel (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1966), 48.
8
Hardy, Collected Letters, 4:220.
9
Ibid., 6:182.
10
Taylor, 2.
11
Ibid., 3.
12
Ibid.

4
inspired the poetry of the Victorian period. In fact, Taylor argues that the Victorian period

“was the first period to discover a theory of metre adequate to the genius of its poets.”13

Taylor also reminds us that Hardy’s first career, spanning from 1856-72, was that of

a Gothic revival architect. Hardy’s award-winning year, 1863, marked his triumph as an

architect, and a high Victorian Gothic. Taylor notes that the “imagery, structure atmosphere,

and aesthetic issues of Gothic architecture nurtured Hardy’s…poems and…his theory of

metre.”14

In the late 1920s, Hardy made a Gothic-metre analogy. Taylor speculates that this

analogy was most likely influenced by the 1919 Ramsay Traquair article which Hardy read

entitled “Free Verse and the Parthenonon.”15 The basis of Traquair’s article, and

furthermore the tenets of Hardy’s Gothic-metre analogy, is a theory based on the premise

that variety may be achieved within the basic frameworks of “old forms.”16 Traquair writes:

“Just as correct metre will not make a fine poem, so regular rhythm will not make a fine

building.”17 Traquair’s also provides an answer to the conservative skeptic that might

counter his argument. He states: “Is not rhythm, regular rhythm, the very essence of

poetry?”18 The balance between irregularity and structure Traquair labels the “paradox of

order and freedom.”19 Traquair’s commentary also notes that in classical architecture “no

part can be taken away”20 and then in Gothic architecture “we may add a choir, aisles,

chapels, cloister, chantries in what profusion we wish.”21 Taylor further clarifies Traquair’s

13
Taylor, 3.
14
Taylor, 47.
15
Ramsey Traquair, “Free Verse and the Parthenonon,” Canadian Bookman (April 1919): 22-6. Quoted in
Taylor, Hardy’s Metres and Victorian Prosody, 47.
16
Ibid., 48.
17
Ibid., 47.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid.

5
analogy noting: “these two architectures are in turn related to strict and loose forms of

rhythm and poetry.”22

Thomas Hardy wrote in more metrical forms than any other well-known English

poet. Hardy’s commitment to stanzaic forms endured throughout his career. Hardy’s

Complete Poetical Works, for example, contains very little blank verse (any verse comprised of

unrhymed lines all in the same meter) and absolutely no instances of free verse. Hardy’s

concept of metrical form matured as he developed an increasingly intense fascination with

the works of metrical theorists.23 Regarding the integral nature of this theorist-poet

relationship, Taylor notes that Hardy:

…(Hardy)…participated in a common exploration…

(in) a community of metrical discovery which inspired
theory and practice.24

Hardy agreed full-heartily with theorists like Basil De Selincourt whose 1911 article

stressed the need for English poets of the day to be more open minded in regard to the

structure of their verse. Hardy copied the following from a 1911 De Selincourt article:

…so long as the structure of a verse shows either in

itself or in its context the number of accents which
it ought to have and the places where they ought to
fall, so long as the mind hears the implied accents
in their places, the number and position of the accents
which naturally occur is of no consequence.25

Theorists like DeSelincourt respected traditional forms while also supporting a new,

progressive style of prosody.

Another theorist from whose works Hardy took vigorous notes was Coventry

Patmore. Patmore theorized that there exists a basic human need for form. Patmore noted

22
Taylor, 47.
23
Taylor, 4.
24
Taylor, 3.
25
Basil De Selincourt, quoted in Taylor, Hardy’s Metres and Victorian Prosody, 23.

6
that even an “ictus” or “beat” can both satisfy this need by giving the brain a unit by which it

can organize material. Furthermore, he proclaimed that form has little to do with the

external (that which is observable on the written page) and much more to do with the

internal (that having its place in the mind on a conscious or unconscious level). Patmore

explains in one of his Essays:

… ‘ictus’ or ‘beat’, actual or mental, which, like a

post in a chain railing, shall mark the end of one
space, and the common cement of another…
Yet, all important as this time-beater is, I think
it demonstrable that, for the most part, it has
has no material and external existence at all,
but has its place in the mind, which craves measure
in everything.26

Another theorist that piqued the interest of Hardy was Robert Bridges. Bridges,

similar to Patmore, writes about form as it relates to expectation. The theorist comments

that the reader has an innate expectation not only for form, but also for rhythm. Bridges

notes that “old metrical verse” carried a greater expectancy of rhythm, whereas new ideals in

prosody work to vary the expected rhythm. The poet’s art, according to Bridges, was to

“vary the expected rhythm as much as he could without disagreeably balking the

expectation.”27

Because of its inherit intricacies, it is difficult to impose rules and restrictions on

metre in the English language. Taylor notes:

The centuries old puzzle of English rhythm is that

once a metrical theorist finds a way to formulate the
metrical rule of a given poem, a reader will soon

26
Coventry Patmore, Essay on English Metrical Law, ed. Sister Mary Roth (Washington, DC, 1961), 15.
quoted in Taylor, Hardy’s Metres and Victorian Prosody, 22.
27
Robert Bridges, quoted in Taylor, Hardy’s Metres and Victorian Prosody, 29.

7
find a line which violates the formulation.28

Hardy uses experimental methods of writing prosody and encases these progressive

rhythmic intricacies within traditional Romantic and Victorian forms. Thus, Hardy’s work

can be seen as both traditional and transitional. The literary culture in which the author

lived, a culture largely defined by the writings of metrical theorists, allowed Hardy the

opportunity to exist as a catalyst for progress.

Hardy’s revolutionary views on writing as they relate to tragedy are not at all

surprising. Katherine Kearney Maynard in her book Thomas Hardy’s Tragic Poetry writes:

His poems are remarkable efforts to crystalize

the tragic feeling that emerges intermittently in
Romantic and Victorian lyric poetry.29

Hardy’s brand of tragedy is one steeped in the sorrows of the human oppression. This

oppression, from Hardy’s viewpoint, is brought on by the inevitable discouragement and

adversity of everyday life. For this reason, many of Hardy’s critics have labeled his writing as

pessimistic in nature.

It is impossible to speak of Hardy without a brief insight into his philosophy. Hardy

voices his viewpoint regarding the ancient institutions of religion and drama in the apology to

Late Lyrics and Earlier calling all religions “questionings in the exploration of reality.”30

Maynard points out that the mere fact that Hardy found comparisons “between works as

different as Athenian drama and Christian scripture”31 ought to indicate a certain degree of

sensibility that exists in Hardy’s creative thought processes. This sensibility, she adds, is the

core of his melancholy nature. Although many of Romantic and Victorian poets shared this

28
Taylor, 7.
29
Katherine Kearney Maynard, Thomas Hardy’s Tragic Poetry: the Lyrics and the The Dynasts. (Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press, 1991), 7.
30
Thomas Hardy, Introduction to Late Lyrics and Earlier. James Gibson, ed., The Complete Poems of
Thomas Hardy (London: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1978), 556-57.
31
Maynard, 7.

8
melancholy nature in their poetry, Maynard proclaims, Hardy’s “sharp sense of irony”32

distinguishes him from other nineteenth-century poets.33

In regards to the dramatic content of his poetry, Hardy’s poems can oftentimes be

seen as glimpses or snapshots of a situation or a happening. Mardsen notes that these are in

fact, Hardy’s attempts “to communicate a sense of immediate present.”34 In fact, Mardsen

equates Hardy’s approach as an effort to “arrest the flux of Time and Change.”35 The effect

is a freezing the present rather than making it actual, a technique Mardsen calls “continuous

present.”36

The function of the speaker in many of Hardy’s tragic poems is to express how he or

she is experiencing a particular moment. At times, these “moments” may seem frivolous.

However, upon a second or third reading it may become evident to the reader that Hardy

intention is to turn these seemingly trivial “moments” into instances of tragedy. What is

interesting is that in his poetry, Hardy does not prepare his audience before presenting his

tragedy. In the absence of biographical material to give insight into the speaker’s

experiences and memories, interpretation of his poetry is often difficult. Moreover, it is

impossible for the reader to know the depth of a poem.

Why did Hardy write poems that resist interpretation? Why did he write tragic

poetry about seemingly mundane circumstances of everyday life? Samuel Hynes

summarized Hardy’s unique philosophy as it pertained to his tragic poetry remarking that

Hardy “saw tragedy as a constituent of ordinary existence and not as a quality of noble and

32
Maynard, xii.
33
Ibid.
34
Kenneth Mardsen, The Poems of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Introduction. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1969), 92.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid.

9
dramatic lives.”37 Hynes further postulates that Hardy’s poetry often seems to be “written

almost from habit”38 or from “some private need to record reality.”39 Indeed, it is almost as

if Hardy never intended to publish these works at all because they are written without an

audience in mind. Hynes proclaims that this “is not a matter of allusiveness, or Modernist

obscurity.”40 Instead, Hardy felt since he was his own audience and he had an understanding

of the events leading to the composition of a particular poem, there existed justification

enough for the poem’s composition.41

As one reads the poetry of Hardy, the poet’s fascination with time will be quite

evident. Hardy’s fixation with the element of time is a fixation linked intimately to his system

of beliefs. Hardy scholar Kenneth Mardsen notes that time, memory, and death are all

interwoven in Hardy’s worldview. For Hardy, an atheist, the here-and-now is the only reality

that exits. The lack of Providence in Hardy’s worldview allows time to dictate truth instead

of God. Mardsen speculates:

When the idea of God or Guiding Providence

disappears or becomes incredible, Time and Truth
come to have a very close association.42

Truth, to Hardy, is revealed only through what happens over the course of time.

Thus, when time meets one’s expectations, truth takes on a wonderful connotation, but

when time does not meet ones expectations, the stage is set for tragedy. Both theists and

atheists alike might share the sentiment that “without hope in God, tragedy is inevitable.”

Thus, the theist is placing his hope in something while the atheist can find nothing in which

to place his hope. This idea of divine indifference possessed by the atheist is the critical
37
Samuel Hynes, Introduction. In Thomas Hardy: Selected Poetry. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1994) xx.
38
Ibid.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.

10
component to the tragic element of Hardy’s poetry. Hardy’s philosophy proclaims that we

will all inevitably fall victim to natural circumstance. Katherine Maynard remarks:

Many of Hardy’s lyrics demonstrate that humanity

as victim of divine indifference is a suitable theme
for tragedy.43

Linda Shires, in her article entitled Saying that you are not as you were: Hardy’s Poems of

1912-1913 explains: “Thomas Hardy understood the source of his art to be a relationship

between emotion and time.”44 Hardy, in his letters, explained this far-reaching connection

between memory and drama saying:

I have a faculty…for burying my emotion in my

heart or brain for forty years, and exhuming it at the
end of that time as fresh as when interred.45

Hardy relied on his memory to supply him with material for a big portion of his poems.

“Reminisence,”46 Kenneth Mardsen exclaims, “is one of his characteristic modes.” Mardsen

continues commenting on the way in which Hardy’s poems, one can sense, are products of

long periods of pre-meditation and amalgamations of his experiences.

One feels that with him thought has long preceded

words and has formed itself almost without them, that
there has been brooding in almost inarticulate
meditation upon Experience and experiences, and
only later have the metrical moulds been formed
to receive the results47

Hardy’s atheistic worldview manifests itself in his work as an author and in the

statements he issued to the general public. In one such statement, Hardy proclaimed: “I

43
Maynard, 34.
44
Linda Shires. “Saying that you are not as you were: Hardy’s Poems of 1912-1913,” Thomas Hardy and
Contemporary Literary Studies. (New York: Palgrave Mac Millan. 2004) , 138.
45
Thomas Hardy, quoted in “Saying that you are not as you were: Hardy’s Poems of 1912-1913”, Thomas
Hardy and Contemporary Literary Studies. Shires, 138.
46
Mardsen, 93.
47
Ibid.

11
have been looking for God 50 years, and I think that if he existed I should have discovered

him.”48 Music historian Stephen Banfield, in his book entitled Sensibility and English Song

writes that “Hardy’s rejection of Christianity was brittle, and often irritably defiant.”49

Since Hardy’s atheistic worldview afforded him no supreme deity or eternal perspective on

his future, Hardy came to the realization that he was subservient to both time and nature.

Thus, Hardy’s poetry is distinguishable from that of his peers because of its fatalistic

nature. Also signature of Hardy’s poetry is an extreme creativity of prosody which he sets

within antique forms. These two distinct characteristics combine to make a rather unusual

body of poetry. The opinion echoed in the speculations of many music scholars is that

Hardy’s poetry is unattractive because of its bleak outlook and because of the difficulties

inherent in its prosody.

48
Stephen Banfield, Sensibility and English Song. Vol.2, Critical Studies of the Early 20th Century.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 275.
49
Ibid.

12
CHAPTER 2
GERALD FINZI AND JOHN IRELAND:
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

The Hardy settings by Gerald Finzi and John Ireland discussed in this paper were

composed well into the mature stages of each composer’s career. An investigation into the

personalities, viewpoints, and beliefs of Finzi and Ireland reveals the philosophical ideals of

the composers to be quite similar. Biographical sketches of the composers unveil events in

each of their lives that provided the foundations for their fatalistic philosophic ideals. With

this type of information, one is better able to understand the willingness of each composer

to approach Hardy’s most eccentric poetry with a spirit of boldness. In order to explore the

intuitiveness with which Ireland and Finzi seemed to approach Thomas Hardy’s fatalistic

poetry, biographical information will be provided in this chapter uncovering the similarities

in the backgrounds of each composer.

The Childhood of Gerald Finzi

Until September 15, 2005, the date marking the publication of Diana McVeagh’s study

entitled Gerald Finzi: His Life and Music, the only published biography on Gerald Finzi was

Stephen Banfield’s book published in 1997 entitled Gerald Finzi: An English Composer. In the

past, biographers steered clear of Finzi as a subject because of the composer’s relatively

small output and lack of influence on the history of British music. Banfield comments on

his pioneering pursuit saying:

(what) makes the task of biography stranger

in Finzi’s case than any other (is that) although
his output and influence is that of a minor
composer, something about his profile, the way
he went about his job, the breadth of his thought,
the depths of his personality and his impact on

13
others, in short, his individuality, always suggested
something greater.50

Much of the “individuality” to which Banfield speaks was molded within the composer’s

youth. Indeed, a glimpse into Finzi’s upbringing and maturation provides much insight into

the man and his music. It is through his life experiences that Finzi developed his own

philosophical outlook. This outlook resembles, on many accounts, the philosophy of his

favorite poet, Thomas Hardy. In the liner notes to the recording Earth And Air And Rain:

Songs By Gerald Finzi To Words By Thomas Hardy, Diana McVeagh proclaims that both Finzi

and Hardy believed in “the accident of chance in a man’s life and the power of memory to

crystallize the past.”51 The first half of this chapter will include a biographical sketch of Finzi

concentrating largely on the events of his younger years, with a special focus on his interest

in the poetry of Thomas Hardy.

Gerald Finzi was born in London on July 14, 1901. Finzi’s background, or more

specifically the background of his family, is one of affluence and intellect yoked heavily in

cultural influences. Finzi was the youngest of five children born to Jack and Lizzie Finzi.

Interestingly enough, the composer’s family background does little to support the notion of

his Englishness. The Italian generation of Finzis is historically recorded as far back as the

fourteenth century beginning with one Musetino del fu Museto de Finzi di Ancona “who

was concerned in establishing the first Jewish money-lending office in Padua in 1369.”52

The generations of Finzis that lived in the following centuries enjoyed influential positions as

rabbis, astronomers, bankers, physicians, lawyers, and surgeons. By the eighteenth century,

50
Stephen Banfield, Gerald Finzi: An English Composer. (London: Faber & Faber, 1997), 180.
51
Diana McVeagh, Liner Notes from Earth And Air And Rain: Songs By Gerald Finzi To Words By
Thomas Hardy, Martyn Hill (tenor), Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano), Hyperion
#CDA66161-2, 1989, CD.
52
Banfield, 4.

14
the Finzi family enjoyed a presence in England.53 Finzi’s father, Jon Abraham (Jack) Finzi

(1860-1909), although a non-practicing Jew, held firm to his cultural background.54 Within

his father’s generation there remained a strong semblance of power regarding “his Jewish

intellectual and social ties.”55 In his book The Musicmakers: heirs and rebels of the musical

renaissance: Edward Elgar to Benjamin Brittin, Michael Trend notes that because of his father’s

“success as a shipbroker” Finzi “would never have to rely on his music to make a living.”56

Isolation was a feeling experienced by the composer from birth. Joy Finzi, Gerald’s

wife, comments that Gerald was “an unwanted addition to a bursting upper-floor nursery

and not welcomed by his sister and brothers.”57 Although Gerald grew to love his father

dearly, he “always felt a stranger amongst siblings.”58 Joy quotes her husband, saying he:

likened this feeling to a group of telegraph wires,

each being able to communicate forward and
backward to eternity, but never to the closely
adjoining lines on either side.59

Intertwining Finzi’s life story with the sentiment of Hardy’s poetry is a common

theme. In his article: Textual-Musical Relationships in Selected Songs of Gerald Finzi, Burton B.

Parker describes this theme as an inescapable dissatisfaction with one’s environment. Parker

notes:

We will see in Hardy’s texts, his dissatisfaction

with his environment, however, he offers no
saving grace. In his poems there is no escape
from one’s environment.60

53
Ibid., 4.
54
Ibid., 5.
55
Ibid, 6.
56
Michael Trend, The Musicmakers: heirs and rebels of the musical renaissance: Edward Elgar to Benjamin
Britten. (London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1985), 214.
57
Banfield, 10.
58
Ibid., 11.
59
Ibid.
60
Burton B. Parker, “Textual-Musical Relationships in Selected Songs of Gerald Finzi,” The NATS Bullitin
(May/June 1973): 11.

15
Adding to young Finzi’s sense of isolation were the untimely deaths of virtually all of

his male influences. His father died of cancer on July 1, 1909 before the composer’s eighth

birthday. His eldest brother, Felix (1893-1913), a highly intelligent aircraft designer

committed suicide in India at the age of twenty. Douglas, born in 1897, died of pneumonia

at the age of five. Edgar, born in 1898, showed potential as a teenage cartoonist but “died

in action with the Fleet Air Arm in the Aegean, shot down on September 5, 1918.”61 By the

end of the First World War, the composer’s sister, Katie, was Gerald’s only remaining

sibling. Katie, the first of the five children, did not much care for her youngest brother

Gerald.62

The Development of Finzi’s Philosophy and Compositional Style

Given his childhood experiences with death, it should come to no great surprise that

Finzi adopted a fatalistic outlook on life. Michael Trend remarks “many people have noted

that Finzi seemed aware that his own life too would be cut short.”63 Burton Parker concurs,

noting that “even before his early bout with tuberculosis in 1927 his fatalistic personality had

emerged.”64 Diana McVeagh states that between Finzi and Hardy “three shared subjects

stand out.”65 She lists these three subjects as being: “the futility of war, the pressure of

passing time, and the world’s natural beauty and indifference to man.”66 It is interesting to

note that each of McVeagh’s “shared subjects”67 align with an event in Finzi’s life.

The“futility of war,”68 for example, resulted in the death of one of the composer’s brothers.

61
Banfield, 11.
62
Ibid.
63
Trend, 214.
64
Parker, 11.
65
Diana McVeagh, Liner Notes from Earth And Air And Rain: Songs By Gerald Finzi To Words By
Thomas Hardy, Hyperion #CDA66161-2, 1989, CD.
66
Ibid.
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid.

16
The “pressure of time”69 may have been the reason behind the suicide of another of his

brothers. Similarly, the situation of Finzi’s father’s untimely death may be attributed to

“nature’s indifference to man.”70

In her book Song: A Guide to Style & Literature, Carol Kimball comments: “Finzi

loved poetry and had an extensive library.”71 She also calls attention to the fact that Finzi

“used texts of uniformly high quality.”72 Kimball also notes that Finzi set over fifty of the

poet’s texts because Hardy’s “themes appealed to the pessimistic side of Finzi’s personality

and allowed him to express his despondency in musical terms.”73

Not much is known about Finzi’s childhood “beyond his perception of it as isolated

and unhappy.”74 Banfield speculates that it was probably in the time period following his

father’s death that Finzi was sent to boarding school at Kingswood in Camberley, Surrey.

This was not a good experience for the young Finzi who “faked fainting fits in the bath”75 so

that he might be taken out of the school. Also adding to the difficulties of Finzi’s childhood

was the fact that he contracted measles in 1913 while at Kingswood.76

By 1915, Mrs. Finzi moved to Harrogate, a move that may have been prompted by the

Zeppelin raids on London beginning in April of that year. The director of the Municipal

Orchestra in Harrogate, Julian Clifford, recommended that Finzi study composition with

Ernest Farrar, a student of the esteemed composer Charles Stanford. Farrar, a young

composer himself, was intimately connected with some of the best musicians of his

generation, a generation that Banfield notes “formed the backbone of the turn-of-the

69
Ibid.
70
Ibid.
71
Carol Kimball, Song: A Guide to Style & Literature (Seattle: Pst…Inc., 1996), 333.
72
Ibid.
73
Ibid.
74
Banfield, 12.
75
Ibid.
76
Ibid.

17
century English musical renaissance.”77 Amongst Farrar’s friends were Frank Bridge, Clive

Carey, and perhaps most importantly, Ralph Vaughn Williams. The relationship between

Finzi and Farrar was one of mutual admiration. Farrar recognized Finzi’s talent and Finzi

idolized his new teacher.78

After a period of months, Farrar was called to duty and joined his regiment at

Caterham. While on leave, Farrar took Finzi to meet Stanford at the Royal Conservatory of

Music. Shortly following this endeavor, Stanford’s advice was that Finzi should not pursue a

career in music. Shortly after this incident, Farrar wrote Finzi informing his once beloved

protege that he did not have the time to continue teaching him. This letter provoked Mrs.

Finzi and her son to confront Farrar face to face. At this point in time Farrar recommended

that Finzi study with the only other teacher easily accessible from Harrogate, namely,

Edward C. Bairstow. In her letters, Gerald Finzi’s wife, Joy, notes that “poor G(erald) was

horrified as he had heard such tales of Bairstow’s strictness and at first he did not go.”79

Finzi did, indeed, shy away from study with Bairstow and initially began to study with a far

less superior composer, Frederick Helmsley.80

Finzi soon realized his error and mustered up the courage to study with Bairstow.

Although Finzi did not much like Bairstow, the teacher saw much potential in the young

composition student. Furthermore, during the time that Finzi studied with him and

thereafter, Bairstow went out of his way to play Finzi’s compositions. After three months of

lessons Bairstow wrote to Mrs. Finzi:

I think your son and I are beginning to

understand one another better now. He is doing

77
Ibid., 14.
78
Ibid., 14.
79
Ibid., 18.
80
Ibid., 17-19.

18
much better work, and I am very interested in him.81

A few years later in 1925, Finzi took a course on counterpoint with R.O. Morris at which

time Bairstow wrote Finzi saying:

I am glad you are tumbling to it at last that a little

hard grind at CP (counterpoint) won’t do you any harm.82

At the bottom of this letter Finzi’s personal addition to the document reads:

Yes, dear old ECB, but the counterpoint is nothing

to do with the rubbish you tried to teach me for a year.
I showed extraordinary common sense in jibbling
against it.83

In a subsequent letter to Mrs Finzi, Bairstow’s accolades continued:

I would do what I could for your boy if I never

received a cent for it…one can help the real thing
when there us a chance to do so.84

These private notes give a tinge of the pessimism with which Finzi, unbeknownst to many,

led his life. Howard Ferguson, a close friend of the composer with whom he had much

written concordance, writes: “few people will know that beneath his buoyant exterior lay a

deep and fundamental pessimism…it seemed to colour everything he did and gave a peculiar

intensity to everything he experienced.”85

One might imagine that Finzi longed for a reunion with his former mentor, Farrar,

who left him to fend for himself in the fierce and ugly jaws of the dreaded Edward C.

Bairstow. However, as fate had it, this would not be possible. A month before the

confirmed death of Finzi’s brother Edgar, Ernest Farrar died after only two days on the

81
Ibid., 18.
82
Ibid., 18-19.
83
Ibid., 19.
84
Ibid., 19.
85
Howard Ferguson, Letters of Gerald Finzi and Howard Ferguson, ed. Michael Hurd (Rochester, NY:
Boydell & Brewster, 2002), 134-135.

19
front lines. This event marked the end of a cherished relationship and the loss of one of the

only positive male role models in the young composer’s life.86

Equipped with a glimpse into the composer’s childhood, let us now turn to Gerald

Finzi, the mature composer. Otto Karolyi, in his book entitled Modern British Music: The

Second British Musical Renaissance-From Elgar To P. Maxwell Davies, further clarifies the means by

which Finzi’s has remained a figure in British music. Karolyi highlights the chief works by

which the composer earned his way into the ranks of British music history: He states:

Finzi’s claim for a place in the history of British

music largely rest on Dies natalis, op 8 (1926-39)
and his fine settings of several of Hardy’s poems.87

Dies natalis is a cantata for solo tenor or soprano and string ensemble. The cantata’s five

movements, based on the prose and poetry of a seventeenth century clergyman Traherne,

describe the poet’s childhood. In Sensibility and English Song, Stephen Banfield makes a point

that the driving force compelling Finzi to express Trahern’s sentiment of “childhood

ecstasy”88 was his need to express “what had been denied him in his youth.”89 The death of

his father when he was eight and loss of his three brothers during his youth, left Finzi with

“something of a fixation on his childhood.”90

In regard to his settings of Hardy’s poems including: A Young Man’s Exhortation, op. 14

(1933), Earth and Air and Rain (1936), Before and After Summer op. 16 (1949), I Said to Love

(1958), and Till Earth Outwears (1958), Karolyi notes that Finzi empathized much with

Hardy’s outlook on life. He writes:

86
Ibid., 20.
87
Otto Karolyi, Modern British Music: the second British musical renaissance- from Elgar to P. Maxwell
Davies. (London: Associated University Press, 1994), 56.
88
Stephen Banfield, Sensibility and English Song. Vol.2, Critical Studies of the Early 20th Century.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 276.
89
Ibid.
90
Karolyi, 56.

20
Finzi fully understood Hardy’s world of struggle and
suffering and the principle of “the implanted crookedness
of things”, as R. L.Binyon put it.91

Banfield proclaims that between Hardy and Finzi, there exist both differences and

similarities between the poet and composer. He asks: “What drew Gerald Finzi so repeatedly

to Hardy’s poetry?”92 Banfield answers this question first from a spiritual perspective. Finzi

“was a second-generation agnostic”93 who was “temperamentally mellower than Hardy.”94

Hardy often expressed a harsh and intentional rejection of Christianity. Banfield suggests

that Finzi’s rejection of faith was limited, existing only as feelings of nostalgia. Finzi was a

man unable to “accept the Christian myth,”95 yet held onto a hope that “its truth might be

regenerated for him.”96

While Finzi’s musical approach was simple and somewhat limited in scope, Hardy’s

command on the English language allowed him to be masterfully dynamic. Hardy’s unhappy

marriage to his wife Emma “caused him to shoot out dark questionings and self-

contradictory philosophies.”97 Finzi, on the other hand, experienced his unhappiness

primarily in childhood, was happily married, and remained “quietly and conscientiously”98

devoted to a life of composition. Banfield adds that even when Finzi learned that he had a

fatal illness, the composer remained “apparently unrebellious.”99

Many similarities exist between the two poets and composer as well. The differences,

Banfield suggests, are less profound than the similarities. Fundamentally, there existed a

sense of isolation under Finzi’s seemingly ever-present happiness. Finzi’s decision to lead

91
Ibid., 57.
92
Stephen Banfield, Sensitivity, 275.
93
Ibid.
94
Ibid.
95
Ibid.
96
Ibid.
97
Ibid.
98
Ibid.
99
Ibid.

21
much of his adult life in rural seclusion was a decision made out of a need for the

environmental security so lacking in his childhood.100

Finzi was often inwardly affected by the events of the world. One such event was the

onset of the World War II. Joy Finzi recorded in her journal on March 14, 1938, two days

after Germany entered Austria, some of the commentary her husband made:

More persecution for the individuals who do

not fit into a regime of physical force…101

On October 5, 1938, Joy recorded another commentary that captures her husband’s

sensitivities:

I can feel nothing but the suffering of humanity

and fear for the future of civilization.102

Banfield proclaims that the biggest similarity in both composer and poet was a shared

sense of “the inexorability of time.”103 This belief was fostered by the atheistic convictions

of both poet and composer. Finzi worked very slowly and would often put a composition

aside for a period of time. Often anxiety stricken by the thought that there would never be

sufficient time to write all that he envisioned, his anxiety grew ever more real after the

composer was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease in 1951.104 Although the disease rendered

the composer somewhat impaired, with the encouragement of his wife, Finzi continued to

write. Regarding the inopportune time in which her husband took ill, Joy wrote: “The

passing of time at such a vital moment in his life when he was just achieving an easier

technique is a constant remorse.”105

100
Ibid., 276.
101
Ibid., 276.
102
Ibid.
103
Ibid.
104
Ibid., 277.
105
Ibid.

22
Although both Finzi and Hardy did not believe in a supreme being, Finzi’s empathy

towards Hardy’s fatalistic pessimism only went so far. In a preface to his own works, a

catalogue entitled Absalom’s Place, Finzi makes this point clear. Finzi begins the preface with

the statement: “It was Thomas Hardy who wrote ‘Why do I go on doing these things?’”106

Next, Finzi proceeds to answer Hardy’s question. Finzi’s proposes that by becoming an

artist, one takes on certain responsibilities:

…some curious force compels us to preserve and

project into the future the essence of our individuality,
and, in doing so, to project something of our age and
and civilization. The artist is like a coral insect, building
his reef out of the transitory world around him and
making a solid structure to last long after his own fragile
and uncertain life.107

Finzi’s statement gives us insight into the composer’s artistic philosophy, while also

affording us a glimpse into the fragility with which he viewed his existence.108

As illustrated by his biographical sketch, Gerald Finzi’s life included a highly

dysfunctional environment in his childhood. His childhood, combined with his reaction to

the concerns of civilization during the time in which he composed provided a direction for

his philosophy and artistic output. Finzi’s fatalistic outlook is an end product of a life of

difficulties, death, and despair. Thomas Hardy’s poetry reflected the inner turmoil that Finzi

experienced.

The Childhood of John Ireland

Other composers of the 1920s and 1930s also found they could relate to the

sentiment of Hardy’s poetry. One in particular whose art song output reflects a profound

association with Thomas Hardy is John Ireland. Not unlike Finzi, Ireland’s childhood had

106
Ibid., 277.
107
Ibid.
108
Ibid.

23
much to do with his personality as a mature composer. Muriel Searle, author of John Ireland:

The Man And His Music, notes that for Ireland “quality rather than quantity was always his

creed.”109 A critical component to understanding John Ireland lies in recognizing the degree

to which his music spawned from a childhood rich in literary influences.110 The second half

of this chapter will include a biographical sketch of John Ireland concentrating largely on the

events of his younger years, with a special focus on his interest in the poetry of Thomas

Hardy.

Alexander Ireland, the composer’s father, had “an intense interest in every aspect of

writers and writing. Alexander was introduced to Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1833 upon the

author’s first trip to Europe. The composer’s father was charged with giving the American

poet a tour of Edinburg. From this event commenced a long-lasting connection between

Alexander and his American literary idol.111

In 1839, Alexander Ireland enjoyed a brief marriage to Eliza Mary Blyth of

Birmingham who died only three years after they were united in matrimony.112 After 25

years remaining a single widower, Alexander Ireland married Annie Nicholson. Alexander’s

bride was thirty years younger and was highly intelligent, excelling as both an author and

editor. The couple gave birth to five children, the last of which, John, was separated from

his siblings by a seven-year gap of time. Even with five children, Alexander and Annie,

owners of a successful printing company, enjoyed a comfortable life and regularly

entertained guests of Victorian notoriety. In the 1880’s the couple suffered a sizeable drop

in income when readers changed allegiances from the Manchester Examiner to the rivaling

Manchester Guardian.

109
Muriel Searle, John Ireland: the man and his music. (London: Midas, 1979), 5.
110
Ibid., 5.
111
Ibid., 6.
112
Ibid.

24
John “Jackie” Ireland was born on August 13th 1879 in Bowdon. John’s relationship

with his father was a bit atypical. Searle notes that because Alexander was nearing the age of

seventy upon the birth of his youngest son, he was “a little remote-seeming to his children

on account of his grandfatherly rather than fatherly age.”113 John took more of a liking to

his mother. However, his mother regularly endured angina pectoris, which confined her

primarily to the main rooms in the downstairs of the home. Because John’s father was an

older gentleman and his mother a “semi-invalid,”114 John’s older brother Alleyne took

responsibility for the punishments of his younger siblings. Searle notes that Alleyne handed

out “a leathering”115 as needed.

Both Ireland’s parents promoted his love of music. Searle notes that “constant

contact with good music and good books were for Jackie natural facts of life.”116 By the age

of eight, John began to show interest in taking piano lessons, “even composing simple tunes

long before taking any formal tuition in that art.”117 Indeed, by the turn of the decade,

before the boy’s early teens, Ireland had “decided that music meant more to him than to the

average youth”118 and he made a life decision to pursue music.

In 1893, Ireland told his mother of his decision to pursue music. Next, without telling

anyone, the thirteen-year-old Ireland ventured to London to audition at the Royal College of

Music. Searle notes: “he passed in flying colours and was accepted as a full-time student to

commence his piano studies in the summer term.”119 Upon his return home, Ireland

informed his mother of his day’s adventure. Pride overcame her instinct to punish the boy

as she slowly began to realize her son’s uncommon talent. In light of her son’s
113
Ibid., 8.
114
Ibid.
115
Ibid.
116
Ibid.
117
Ibid., 11.
118
Ibid.
119
Ibid., 12.

25
accomplishment, Annie made monetary arrangements enough to cover his college fees and

living expenses. Ireland’s modest living accommodations included “lodgings in houses kept

by gentlewomen with small incomes, supplemented by letting rooms.”120

Ireland was fortunate enough at this time to have an opportunity to have this type of

accommodations with his sister, who was studying piano at the Royal College of Music. The

accommodations came complete with a cat, the variety of household companion that Ireland

adored throughout his lifetime. Mrs. Norah Kirby is the interviewed source from whom

Searle retrieves much of the information for her book. Kirby is noted in Searle’s book as

being a companion and confidante of Ireland in his latter years. Regarding the composer’s

feline friends, Kirby states: “He never forgot a cat, or what he looked like.”121

After Ireland moved to London to study, a queer twist of fate reared its ugly head.
Searle notes:
The future seemed bright and reasonably predictable
when fate struck one of those cruel blows which
she appears deliberately to keep in hand for mortals
whose courses seem set too fair.122

Six months after Ireland became a music student, his mother died of a heart attack. There

was yet another blow to be issued upon Ireland as well. Searle continues:

Fate had not yet finished with young John Ireland.

Not long after Annie’s death, just before the Christmas
of 1894, Alexander joined her in the Hereafter…123

Thus at the tender age of fourteen, John Ireland became an orphan. John’s portion of his

father’s assets was only two-sixteenths. His brother and three sisters, each older than him

and well on their way into adulthood, enjoyed inheritances two times the size of his. To

120
Ibid., 13.
121
Ibid., 14.
122
Ibid.
123
Ibid., 15.

26
make things even more difficult, John’s portion of the estate was placed in a trust that he

would not be allowed to access until he was eighteen.124

Ireland’s affairs were handed over to guardians, both of whom were lawyers. Searle

notes that Ireland, having just lost his parents “needed adult sympathy and advice as well as

kindly shoulders to lean on in confidence when times seemed black or studies went badly.”125

Instead, the relationship offered up by his new guardians was very cold and business-like.

Every weekend Ireland suffered a trip to the home of his guardians where they would have

lunch then calculate expenses for the upcoming week. Kirby remembers Ireland

recollections saying:

Each Sunday his London guardian carefully

calculated his expenditure… for the coming
week, and gave him a sufficient sum to cover
it, making him enter every item of expenditure
into a black leather account book to be scrutinized
before the following Sunday’s luncheon, after
which he gave the boy his usual weekly allowance.
This meant that “luxuries” were condemned as
extravagance, and deducted from the following week’s
allowance.126

Searle adds: “The handing-over process was usually accompanied by a grim lecture on

thrift…every pre-decimalized ha’peny spent…accounted for in that black book of

reckoning.”127

As a result, Ireland sought out accompanying work.128 He often took engagements at

social events, the money from which was his own to spend as he pleased. Ireland also took

124
Ibid., 15.
125
Ibid.
126
Ibid.
127
Ibid.
128
Ibid.

27
on organ playing jobs at different churches. Searle notes that a second instrument of study

was a demand of his program of study, and so Ireland chose the organ.129

Now at the age of fifteen, Ireland decided on a career in composition, rather than

piano performance. This decision cemented in his head, he began his quest for a

composition teacher. Searle makes the observation “It is not easy, when scanning a musical

dictionary, to find many composers of late 19th century origin without the repetitive tag

‘studied with Stanford’.”130

Ireland greatly admired Stanford. He asked the professor many times in passing if he

might join his composition studio, but got no positive response. Taking it upon himself to

visit to Stanford’s office armed with one of his own compositions, Ireland sustained a

powerful jab by the arrogant teacher. Upon one look at Ireland’s work, he cried out “Dull as

ditchwater, me b’hoy. Take it away.”131 As if by grace, Stanford changed his mind shortly

thereafter and made arrangements for Ireland’s piece to be featured at College pupil’s

concert. In the audience that night was the esteemed composer Hubert Parry who was at

that time serving as director of the Royal College of Music. Halfway through the piece,

Parry ventured over to Ireland and said “Capital my boy, Capital! You are a composition

scholar.”132 The very next day, equipped with the approval of the college’s director, Ireland

confronted Stanford saying “Sir! I’m a composition scholar. Will you take me now!”133

Regarding Ireland’s work with Stanford, Searle notes:

Ireland worked with his hero from 1897 to 1901,

Thus earning the biographical entry for his generation,
‘Studied under Stanford.’134

129
Ibid., 17.
130
Ibid., 19.
131
Ibid.
132
Ibid., 20.
133
Ibid.
134
Ibid.

28
Trevor Hold, in his book Parry To Finzi: Twenty English Song-Composers notes that Stanford’s

strict brand of teaching was not appreciated by Ireland until later in his career when he

realized the “strong sense of criticism and sound technique” it instilled in him.

In 1896, Ireland accepted a position as an assistant organist at Holy Trinity a church

in London that boasted a particularly excellent organ. The salary, however, paled in

comparison to the grandeur of the church’s beautiful instrument. Too young to assume the

position of head organist once it became available, Ireland was offered the job as organist at

Holy Trinity’s daughter church, St. Jude’s in Chelsea.135

By 1900, Ireland was granted his access to the funds due to him from his father’s

estate. This was a significant event for a composer such as Ireland, whose personality

demanded quality over quantity. The composer would always be able to write at his own

pace, never having to compose less than excellent material in order to support himself. At

this time, Ireland added the job of choirmaster at St. Luke’s in Chelsea to his workload.

Ireland would stay at St. Luke’s twenty-five years.136

The Development of Ireland’s Philosophy and Compositional Style

Ireland’s excellent choice of poetry came not only as a result of the strength of his

literary background, but also out of a need for material containing depth enough to express

his inner-most emotions. The composer possessed a desire to steer clear of poetry that

expressed emotion only on a superficial level. Trevor Hold comments on the idea of

Ireland’s ability to tap into poetry of significance, he writes:

Nor was he afraid to express deeply felt emotion,

Choosing poets whose words and sentiments elicited
a strong personal response.137

135
Searle, 22.
136
Searle, 23.
137
Hold, 186.

29
Ireland’s choice of poets challenged him as a composer to write music worthy of the words

which he was setting. Speaking to this very point Hold adds the names of the composers

who’s words provided Ireland’s inspiration:

The poets to whom he returned again and again.

were Houseman (10), Hardy (9), D.G. Rossetti (5)
and Symons (5), and of these it was Hardy and
Housman who drew from him his finest, most
original music.138

Indeed, Ireland’s choice poets allowed him to compose a storybook of his life. This, says

Hold, is what makes Ireland “the compleat [sic] romantic song-composer.”139 He adds that,

when compiled together, Ireland’s songs “form a spiritual diary.”140 Hold writes:

The autobiographical element present in all his

music is particularly noticeable in those songs where
his feelings are articulated through the words of the
poets with whom he felt special empathy.141

Singer Peter Pears once commented on Ireland’s “edgy pessimistic nature.”142 To this

Hold adds, “the phrase could sum up Ireland’s musical personality too.”143 What seem to be

light hearted moments in Thomas Hardy’s poetry are usually just moments of satire used to

mask the poet’s real feelings. Likewise, one can accurately assume the same type of denial

masquerading behind superficial layers of Ireland’s more up-tempo ballads. Regarding this

point, Hold writes: “Even in his serenest songs…one feels a sadness lurking in the wings.

There is a bittersweetness about all his best music.”144

The similarities between Ireland and Hardy are uncanny regarding their pessimism,

an attitude rooted in the spiritual ideology of fatalism. Hold notes:

138
Ibid.
139
Ibid., 212.
140
Ibid.
141
Ibid.
142
Ibid.
143
Ibid.
144
Ibid.

30
His two large-scale Houseman and Hardy cycles
have a bleak fatalism, which not only matches that
of his poets, but expresses his own lonely outlook
on life.145

Also tying Ireland to Hardy was the preoccupation both artists shared with nature. In the

pages of her book The Music of John Ireland, Fiona Richards brings attention to the intimate

link between man and nature that is so prevalent in Hardy’s poetry . Highlighted in Hardy’s

works is the dichotomy that exists in the relationship between man and nature. In Hardy’s

world, nature can act “both as a place of refuge and a place of terror.”146

Fiona Richards also gives insight into the composer’s spiritual background. John

Ireland worked for the Anglican Church for most his life and was sincere in his commitment

to his faith for a big portion of his life. In his later years, Ireland’s faith deteriorated and he

began to doubt its very tenets. Richards notes:

Ireland was a practicing Anglican for most of

his life, and read the Bible on a regular basis. His
faith was genuine, but as he grew older, increasingly
tinged with cynicism.147

How sincere was Ireland’s faith? There exist a collection of letters that Ireland wrote Father

Kenneth Thompson between 1936 and 1961. The letters reveal that Ireland’s doubts

regarding religion came in stressful times. Richards notes: For Ireland, a traumatic incident

was often the catalyst for an outpouring, and a questioning of the reason for religion. In July

of 1936, when a close friend of his died of blood poisoning, Ireland expressed feelings of

disillusionment with a God who could allow such things to happen, he exclaims:

I cannot see why, if there is a God who knows

individually the life of all his creations…that a
man of blameless life, of purest heart, of the
very finest & most stable character, can be

145
Ibid.
146
Fiona Richards, The Music of John Ireland. (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2000), 80.
147
Ibid., 37.

31
struck down, & wasted, in this way, - causing the
very bitterest grief to all his relatives & friends.148

Another very revealing letter regarding faith is one that the composer wrote to a friend,

Arthur Robert Lee Gardner. In this letter he challenges his friend’s assuredness in the

powers of the Holy Spirit. Ireland expresses that he has a higher level of certainty that Evil

exists than he does in any supernatural force of Good. Ireland’s interest in Catholicism, and

specifically, the composer’s “fascination with the ritualistic aspects of religious ceremony”149

is also very evident in this letter. Ireland writes:

I am much interested in what you say about the

Christian faith. If, as you say, you are definitely
convinced of a Holy Spiritual Influence on this
earth and that the Christian faith is a fact – then you
have got a good deal further than I have. I used
to think so – but now I feel very uncertain about it.
I am much more certain that there is an Evil Spiritual
Influence on this earth – which is very much in evidence…
If I could really feel convinced of the other proposition,
I think I should feel the only logical thing to do would
be to become a Roman Catholic- which faith combines
Christianity with Magic. Indeed, I wish I could! At
present, I am unable to experience that personal
contact with Jesus Christ which seems to be the essence
of Christianity, as a practicing religion.150

Gerald Finzi and John Ireland: Similar Lives and Similar Philosophies

Gerald Finzi and John Ireland both experienced childhoods containing

circumstances of death, isolation and rejection. Sadly, both composers suffered the loss of

important family members early in their life. Also plaguing the childhood of each composer

was a sense of isolation. Interestingly, England’s foremost composition teacher, Charles

Stanford, initially rejected both composers. Because of the bleak circumstances encapsulated

148
Ibid.
149
Ibid., 38.
150
John Ireland to Arthur Robert Lee Gardener, 23 July 1944, Miscellaneous item held at the John Ireland
Trust, quoted in Fiona Richards, The Music of John Ireland. (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing,
2000), 37.

32
within each of their childhoods, Finzi and Ireland each came to a similar conclusion: each

believed nature and time were their enemies. Spiritually speaking, instead of seeking a

supreme power with which neither composer could relate, both Finzi and Ireland turned to

an author whose poetry seemed to describe the world in which they lived.

33
CHAPTER 3
GERALD FINZI AND JOHN IRELAND:
A STYLISTIC COMPARISON OF COMPOSITIONAL APPROACHES
IN THE CONTEXT OF TEN SELECTED POEMS BY THOMAS HARDY

Finzi, Ireland and The Hardy Problem: An Introduction

Stephen Banfield notes that Ireland and Finzi “achieved the best rapport with serious

verse.”151 Both of them, adds Banfield, “tackled Hardy at his most pregnant.”152 When one

examines his poetry it is easily deduced that a Hardy who is “at his most pregnant” is a

Hardy who does much to stretch the time-honored rules of poetry. Music historian Trevor

Hold is quite accurate when he makes the simple point that Hardy’s poetry “presents the

composer with problems.”153 Hardy’s fatalistic philosophy is “not a sentiment universally

held, least of all amongst song writers.”154 Another problem is found within Hardy’s use of

language. On a surface-level, Hardy’s language makes use of “antique phrases, Dorset

dialect-words, and Anglo-Saxonisms”155 (Appendix A, Text C). In his writing, Hold makes

the point that the two most important features the song-composer looks at when

considering a poem are “line-length and stanza shape.”156 Ideal to many composers, Hold

notes, are poems with short, four-line stanzas. Regarding Hardy, these credentials “are the

last thing he requires”157 because “their squareness restricts.”158 Hold concludes that with

enough determination, a composer can work through these difficulties. Making the claim

that Hardy’s poetry is worthy of a musical setting, Hold writes: “the aptness of his poetry

151
Stephen Banfield, ed., The Twentieth Century: The Blackwell History of Music in Britain (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995), 471.
152
Ibid.
153
Hold. Parry to Finzi, 401.
154
Ibid.
155
Ibid.
156
Ibid.
157
Ibid.
158
Ibid.

34
for musical treatment far outweighs the difficulties.”159 This chapter will discuss the ways in

which composers Gerald Finzi and John Ireland approached the eccentricities of Hardy’s

poetry within the context of selected songs by each composer.

Summer Schemes: An Example of the Hardy Problem

Hardy’s poetry is irregular on many accounts. Within Hardy’s poetry, these

irregularities can be observed in the variation of it stanza-shapes, length of its lines and the

unconventional nature of its rhyming patterns. Hold notes that Hardy:

invented an amazing diversity of stanza shapes,

varying short lines with long, adopting irregular
rhyming patterns and making original use of
refrains.160

With the exception of Hardy’s poem Her Temple, found in both Finzi’s A Young Man’s

Exhortation, and Ireland’s Five Poems by Thomas Hardy, the only other of Hardy’s poems set by

both Finzi and Ireland is Hardy’s Summer Schemes. Since this paper focuses on the baritone

repertoire of each composer, a comparison between settings of Her Temple was not included

as Finzi’s song is in the tenor repertoire. Summer Schemes illustrates each of the above

described eccentricities of the ingenious poet. Take, for example the opening stanza:

When friendly summer calls again,

Calls again
Her little fifers to these hills,
We’ll go – we two – to that arched fane
Of leafage where they prime their bills
Before they start to flood the plain
With quavers, minims, shakes and trills.
‘We’ll go,’ I said; but who shall say
What may not chance before that day!161

The eccentricities of Hardy’s poetry are not always apparent or definable upon a first

reading. This may in fact be the case in the above quoted stanza. With the exception of the

159
Ibid.
160
Ibid., 402.
161
Ibid.

35
short restatement of the words “calls again,” each line contains eight syllables, thereby

lending the poem its symmetry. The rhyming scheme, however, is irregular. The first two

lines rhyme, line three rhymes with line five, four with six and five with seven, and line eight

rhymes with line nine. Thus the every-other-line rhyming scheme is framed on its top and its

bottom by a pair of consecutively rhyming lines. Another oddity is the short portion of the

stanza contained between two hyphens; the parenthetical phrase “we too” seems to be an

interruption of the line’s lyrical flow.

In Hardy’s defense, Hold writes of the lyrical, even musical, aspects inherent in

Hardy’s poetry:

Few major poets had such a natural talent

for the lyric-writer’s art. Many of his major
poems he conceived with half-an-ear to
musical setting- in some cases he even went
as far as to specify the mode that the composer
should adopt.162

Hold solidifies his point saying: “of the 900 or so poems that Hardy wrote, one in eight

has musical associations.”163

There are some primary difficulties that stand out in Hardy’s poetry. These

difficulties Hold coins “anti-lyrical”164 factors. Although Hardy utilizes formal stanzas, he

sets out to destroy the symmetry they achieved “by counterpointing his thoughts through

the stanza.”165 Hold further clarifies his point by defining three scenarios that typify the way

Hardy sets his thoughts down asymmetrically within the formalized structure of a traditional

stanza:

his sentences come to rest within a line or flow

on from one line to another, or in some cases

162
Ibid., 401.
163
Ibid.
164
Ibid., 403.
165
Ibid.

36
from stanza to stanza.166

Indeed, Summer Schemes reflects many of Hardy’s characteristics as mapped out above.

Hardy’s words in Summer Schemes come to rest in the middle of a line. In the text: ‘fane of

leafage,’ for example, it feels as though the sentence ought to stop after the word ‘leafage’.

Instead, Hardy continues the sentence, turning a single sentence into a lengthy phrase.

Hardy uses such lengthy phrases to create verse wherein his thoughts are seamless. Indeed,

Hardy’s thoughts in Summer Schemes rest only at momentary instances of cadence. Instead,

the lines in Summer Schemes simply “flow on from one line to another,”167 allowing Hardy’s

words to continue in a free-flowing stream of consciousness.

Summer Schemes : As Set by Gerald Finzi

In order to accommodate Hardy’s lengthy initial phrase in Summer Schemes, Gerald

Finzi composed a vocal line that is nineteen measures long and void of rests. Additionally,

Finzi accommodates the “chunks” of Hardy’s prose-like text by changing meter seven times

within the initial nineteen measures of the vocal line. The seven changes in meter (in the

progression 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 4/4, 3/2, 4/4, 3/2 , 4/4) are hardly detectable because Finzi uses

them in a way that is masterful in its syllabic declamation of the text. The combination of

Finzi’s rhythmic durations and Hardy’s prose-like text make the first nineteen bars of Summer

Schemes remarkably speech-like in nature.

Banfield notes that Finzi builds on the sonata form already inherent in Hardy’s

poem. It should be noted, however, that Finzi has herein stretched the conventions of

sonata form. Much like Hardy, who liked to take established literary forms and stretch them

to the full extent of their elasticity, Finzi’s Summer Schemes leaves us with a mere skeleton of a

166
Ibid.
167
Ibid.

37
sonata form. Finzi summed up his rather experimental viewpoint regarding musical form in a

the following statement:

When a work can’t be fitted to preconceived ideas

they call it “formless.” Formality has about as much
to do with form as bugs with buggery.168

Buggery, in this instance, is British slang for homosexuality. Finzi is making the point that

buggery, a man-made classification system for categorizing some people as homosexuals,

does not limit what kind of people could be homosexual. Likewise, formality’s role in the

compositional process of a piece ought not to be limited to preconceived ideals about

compositional forms.

Given Finzi’s viewpoint on form, Banfield’s formal analysis of Summer Schemes should

be regarded as abstract in its implications. To get an idea of how Hardy’s Summer Schemes

lends itself to sonata form, one must look at its structure. Banfield first notes that the poem

contains two parallel stanzas. Each stanza, notes Banfield, is fairly long and contains within

its structure a thesis as its first seven lines and an antithesis as its last two lines (Appendix A,

Text A). This is vaguely similar to the theme and codetta ideals of sonata form. Banfield

notes that Finzi uses Hardy’s poetic refrains in stanza I (denoted by the text “calls again” and

“We’ll go”) to signal the divisions within the song. Finzi uses a descending fourth on the

texts “calls again” (Example 1) and “We’ll go” (Example 2 ) to designate these poetic

refrains (Appendix A, Text B). One might say that the beginning of the Hardy’s refrain

(Appendix A, Text B) looks nothing like what is expected of a refrain because it starts in the

middle of a sentence. Summer Schemes illustrates Hardy’s habit of “making an original use of

refrains.”169

168
Gerald Finzi to Thorpe Davie quoted in Stephen Banfield Gerald Finzi: An English Composer, 214.
169
Hold, 402.

38
Also supporting its sonata form is the harmonic movement in the middle of the first

stanza toward the dominant (at the first “We’ll go”) (Example 2) Finzi uses Hardy’s second

stanza to provide the material needed for development and recapitulation. The first subject

of the recapitulation (starting at “We shall, I say”) includes a recap of earlier sung material,

but then deviates from a true return at its second subject.170

Example 1: Finzi’s Summer Schemes in m.3 the descending fourth designates beginning of the
refrain.

To conjure up the nature of the antithetical refrain, Finzi has made musical choices

in accordance with the fatalism of Hardy’s poetry. Banfield notes that although the five bars

of piano introduction (Example 3) “conjures up a miraculous degree of lyrical warmth,”171

the composer “soon reiterates the antithetical refrain”172 (Example 2) see also (Appendix A,

Text C). Banfield notes that the song ends in “a sunny D major,”173 (Example 4) a gesture

that illustrates the ever so slight glimmer of hope which is part of Finzi’s personality, this

gracious gesture is one the poet might not afford us, had he himself set the poem to music.

Trevor Hold, on the other hand, notes the modal inflection at the very end of the piece,

170
Stephen Banfield. Sensibility, 291.
171
Ibid.
172
Ibid.
173
Ibid.

39
found in the last six bars of the piano calling these bars “unexpectedly telling”174 (Example

4). Not only does the modal material give the piece a small, but effective touch of folk

influence as is prevalent in the music of Vaughn Williams, but it also works to dull the joyful

euphoria stirred up by the happier portions of the song. Instead of being left with a feeling

of assurance, we are instead left with feelings of apprehension.175

Example 2: Finzi’s Summer Schemes in mm. 28-29 the descending fourth designates
beginning of refrain. In mm. 28-29 the harmonic movement is toward the dominant.

174
Hold, 396.
175
Ibid.

40
Example 3: Finzi’s Summer Schemes Piano introduction: note its lyricism, denoted by its
legato phrase markings.

Example 4: Finzi’s Summer Schemes: final bars seem to be in D major,

however, note mm. 72-73; a brief instance of modal inflection.

41
Summer Schemes as Set by John Ireland

When describing Ireland’s music, Trevor Hold makes the claim that the composer

uses as compositional tools a battery of several musical symbols. For “stoicism,”176 Ireland

composes “a falling fifth”177 (Example 6) Ireland symbolizes “ecstasy”178 (Example 5), a

concept Hold describes as “the timeless moment when the beauty of nature is captured by

the individual,”179 by use of “murmuring alternation of chords, usually (though not always)

adjacent triads,”180 a technique Ireland probably discovered in the music of Ravel and

Debussy.

Describing Ireland’s tonal scheme in Summer Schemes, Hold notes the “two long

stanzas…are given two different, reflecting tonalities.”181 In regard to the first of Ireland’s

strophic stanzas, Hold notes that the composer chose “A-flat major modulating through to

A major in the first verse and A-major back to A-flat major for the second.”182 One might

propose that when the first tonality, A-flat major, leads to the second tonality, A-major, the

modulation in the upward direction represents the excitement and anticipation of the

upcoming summer months. Likewise, one might say that Ireland’s second modulation

downward to return to A-flat major reflects the sensibility, or return to reality so apparent in

nature of the Hardy’s words.

Elaborating on Ireland’s “musical symbols,” within the context of Summer Schemes,

Hold notes that they start to assume their prominence when “the rippling ‘ecstasy’ symbol

emerges in the first verse at the first sharpwards modulation.”183 Specifically, Hold is

176
Ibid.
177
Ibid.
178
Ibid.
179
Ibid.
180
Ibid.
181
Ibid., 203.
182
Ibid.
183
Ibid.

42
referring to the alternating of chords occurring after the text “with quavers, minims, shakes

and trills.” This alternating of chords creates what Hold refers to as “murmuring”184

(Example 5). In contrast with the ecstasy symbol, when the words are those of questioning

and uncertainty as in ‘but who shall say, What may not chance before that day!,’ Hold notes:

“we hear the ominous ‘stoical’ falling fifth”185 (Example 6).

Example 5: Ireland’s Summer Schemes mm.18-19 murmuring effect of alternating chords:

Ireland’s ‘ecstasy’ symbol.

184
Ibid.
185
Ibid., 203.

43
Example 6: Ireland’s Summer Schemes: falling fifth in m. 22 represents Ireland’s ‘stoical’
symbol.

Additional Examples of Hardy’s Poetry Set by Gerald Finzi

• Song: The Phantom (Finzi)

Song set of origin: Earth and Air and Rain
Poem serving as source of lyrics: The Phantom Horsewoman
Poem’s collection of origin: Satires of Circumstance

Hardy’s The Phantom Horsewoman, contained within a collection of his poems entitled

Satires of Circumstance, was written during the period of time immediately following the death

of his wife. The poem is one of the poet’s most impressive works. The Phantom Horsewoman

typifies many of Hardy poetic traits. One of these traits, as explained earlier by Trevor Hold,

is Hardy’s tendency to “counterpoint his thoughts.” In The Phantom Horsewoman Hardy

sustains his thought process by linking stanzas together in a seamless fashion and waiting

until the end of the poem to come to a complete cadence. The Phantom Horsewoman

illustrates Hardy’s practice of first creating a formal stanza pattern, then intentionally

“destroying” it. Key to Hardy’s “destruction” in this instance is his rhyming scheme

(Appendix A, Text D). Of the nine lines in each stanza his scheme is such: Line 1 rhymes

with lines 8 and 9, while line 2 rhymes with line 4, line 3 rhymes with line 5 and line 4

rhymes with line 6, and line 5 rhymes with line 7.

Set by the composer in 1932, The Phantom is the fourth installment in Finzi’s song set

entitled Earth and Air and Rain. This song set, according to Trevor Hold, is “the finest of his

44
sequences…the most varied, unified and emotionally satisfying.” In The Phantom, Finzi

illustrates his ability to utilize “extremely flexible word setting” in order to follow the poet’s

“train of thought.” Important words in the text are given longer durations and are quite

often approached by an ascending or descending leap. A master in the realm of text-setting,

Finzi is able to do this “without difficulty, and creates (a) complex, through-composed song

structure.” 186

Stephen Banfield notes that The Phantom marks a point in Finzi’s career when his

music assumes a definite character. Banfield writes that Finzi’s effective use of idée fixe

combined with a good sense of pacing “makes it one of his finest achievements.”187 The

dotted-eighth--sixteenth--eighth ascending motive, representing the gallop of a horse, is the

most prevalent use of a reoccurring motive (idée fixe) in the piece (Example 7). Banfield adds

that the overall success of the piece is largely dependent on its accompaniment. Banfield

notes:

Finzi has suddenly learnt how to give a song

both instant character and lasting momentum
through the use of simple, flexible and vivid
accompaniment motif- something which
Schubert or any of the Lied composers could
have taught him years earlier.188

In reference to the manner in which Finzi musically portrays the phantom horse rider, Hold

feels this is an area in which the piece falls short, he notes: “Finzi’s phantom horse-rider

seems insipid, lacking horror or fearsomeness.”189

186
Ibid., 403.
187
Stephen Banfield. Gerald Finzi: An English Composer, 184.
188
Ibid.
189
Hold, 407.

45
Example 7: Finzi’s The Phantom: Reoccurring ascending motive (idée fixe) representing the
gallop of a horse.

The motivic lines running throughout the left and right hands in The Phantom

maintain their individual prominence because of their ability to “keep out of each other’s

way.”190 On the other hand, the scattered nature of their running about “guarantees the

‘quasi-symphonic effect’”191 that defines one of Finzi’s greatest strengths. Characteristic of its

contrapuntal nature, one can trace the melodic line within the accompaniment as its contour

weaves from right hand, down to left hand and back up to the right. Finzi makes his

intentions known in regard to the highly lyrical nature of the accompaniment by including

markings such as legato pedaling (suggested by phrase markings) and lines drawn to show

the movement of the melodic theme from bass to treble clef (Example 8 and Example 9 ).

Finzi’s piano part paints a vast “landscape”.

By allowing the piano to assume a bigger role, the voice then takes on a different

perspective, that of an “observer.”192

Banfield further clarifies his point writing:

the voice is cast as an observer, or viewpoint,

not as an enactor or mimic.193

190
Ibid., 185.
191
Ibid.
192
Ibid., 187.
193
Ibid.

46
There is a tremendous degree of intimacy reached in Finzi’s The Phantom. Banfield

attributes this to the baritone tessitura to which the composer turned for this particular

piece.

Example 8: Finzi’s The Phantom: highly lyrical accompaniment marked by legato

pedaling. In m.4, the melodic interest switches from treble to bass clef.

Example 9: Finzi’s The Phantom: legato pedaling mm.111-115 and lines drawn to show
movement of melodic theme from betwixt bass and treble clefs.

The intimacy afforded by pen that inked The Phantom, was “rarely achieved in the

earlier songs for tenor.”194 What was it about the baritone voice that created such intimacy?

According to Banfield, intimacy is achieved especially well in the baritone voice because its

range “represent(s) the authentic, vernacular voice of the poet’s experience.”195 More

194
Ibid.
195
Ibid.

47
specifically, Banfield links the depth of the baritone voice to “secrecy”196 and he links the

height of the baritone voice to “earnestness”197 (rather than a beautiful cantabile198). He notes

that this intimacy is especially important in interpreting Hardy’s brand of poetry. Banfield

notes that, because the range of the baritone voice, “even with bits of falsetto at the top,”199

it is a voice part that possesses an uncanny ability to portray private moments with the

degree of earnestness and secrecy that they require.200

Throughout the piece, Finzi provides “the casual snatch”201 of tuneful material. Banfield

writes that these short, tuneful motives were the result of Finzi’s intermittent bouts of

“spontaneous, piecemeal inspiration.”202 He cites this as being a byproduct of Finzi’s work

habits. This technique of writing “snapshots” of tuneful material parallels Hardy’s style of

writing poetry that captures short moments in time (Example 10).

Example 10: Finzi’s The Phantom: the motivic material in piano propels the piece forward.

196
Ibid.
197
Ibid.
198
Ibid.
199
Ibid.
200
Ibid.
201
Stephen Banfield. Gerald Finzi: An English Composer, 185.
202
Ibid.

48
The piece (especially the vocal line) is in small chunks, some more melodic than others, but

propelled forward via motivic material in the accompaniment.

Although the song starts out with a piano introduction containing a fair degree of

rhythmic interest (the music characterizes the oncoming Phantom riding horseback) , the

material initially presented in the vocal line is non-tuneful. Then, after only a few bars, there

is a glimpse of a tune in the words “a man I know” the song continues to propel itself

forward at a moderate pace, then there is a sudden change in mood. At the text: “moveless

hands/ And face and gaze,” using only three three-bar phrases, Finzi slows the piece down

to accommodate a moment in Hardy’s poetry calling for “time and place suddenly enter

another dimension.”203

• Song: Rollicum Rorum (Finzi)

Song set of origin: Earth and Air and Rain
Poem serving as source of lyrics: The Sergeant’s Song
Poem’s collection of origin: a narrative from his novel The Trumpet Major

In Hardy’s The Sergeant’s Song, we see colloquial phrases such as “practice what they

preach,” “march his men on London town,” “When justices hold equal scales,” “the

Poorman’s Purse,” “husbands with their wives agree,” and “maids won’t wed from

modesty.” Although these phrases stir up a certain familiarity, we would rarely expect to see

them used in lyrical poetry. However, Hardy’s choice to include them gives this poem a

certain bourgeois appeal. This type of “homeliness,”204 as Banfield coins it, is also inherent to

Finzi’s setting of a portion of the poem which he entitles Rollicum-Rorum.

If there is a melodic folk influence in Hardy’s poetry, Banfield writes, “it is the sort

of folksong that is closest to the homeliness of a hymn tune.”205 Finzi’s vocal lines illustrate

the composer’s desire to observe, reflect, and preserve the essence of the poet’s voice. In his

203
Ibid.
204
Stephen Banfield, Sensibility. 281.
205
Ibid.

49
melody for Rollicum-rorum, for example, rather than decorative turns and virtuosic runs,

Banfield makes the observation that there exists:

the sort of thing which we might expect to

make up ourselves were we to try to sing a line
of Hardy’s poetry, and in this they could hardly
be more different from Britten’s floral, decorative
melodic inventions.206

Simple rather than florid, Finzi’s melodies seem to have a “rightness”207 about them.

Within all his songs, the purity with which Finzi tackles word-setting is remarkable.

Banfield comments that Finzi’s “shaping his melodic contours to rise and fall of the

conversing or reciting voice”208 is surpassed only by his thorough observance of the “for

every syllable a note”209 dictum. The grace note dictated on the word “pouncing” in

Rollicum-rorum, marks one of only two instances in all Finzi’s Hardy settings that calls for a

syllable set to two notes210 (Example 11).

Example 11: Finzi’s Rollicum Rorum: the grace note in m.12 represents a rare instance of
more than one note per syllable in Finzi’s song literature.
206
Ibid.
207
Ibid., 282.
208
Ibid.
209
Ibid.
210
Ibid.

50
• Song: The Clock of the Years (Finzi)
Song set of origin: Earth and Air and Rain
Poem serving as source of lyrics: The Clock of the Years
Poem’s collection of origin : Lyrics and Reveries

Hardy’s poem The Clock of the Years, as is the case with many of his poems, is

prefaced with biblical scripture. In this case Hardy has chosen a passage from the Book of Job:

“A spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.” The spiritual force

representing one of the two characters in The Clock of the Years has the power to make time

go backwards, but only as he sees fit. The poet, the character with which the spirit

converses throughout the poem, has his beloved brought back to life, then into her youth,

childhood, babyhood, and lastly into non-existence, or as Hardy proclaims textually: “it was

as if she had never been.”

The Clock of the Years the eighth installment in Finzi’s song set Earth and Air and Rain,

begins with a recitative-like melody. In The Clock of the Years, Finzi’s masterful word-setting

“guarantees him an assurance in tackling Hardy’s idiosyncratic, rough-grained conceit”211

while at the same time “keeping them intact.”212 However, it can also be said that the

composer’s allegiance to the poet can, at times, leave him at a disadvantage. Banfield notes

that by upholding the integrity of the text, Finzi is left with little choice but to create a vocal

line that is little more than a “functional code”213 or “an unemotional slow recitative.”214

Indeed, Finzi’s reaction to setting Hardy’s more non-lyric poems was to use

recitative-like lines that boarder on prosody rather than melody. On December 5, 1933,

upon observing this very point, critic Marion Scott wrote:

It is curious to see how the musician has reacted to

the slightly non-lyric touch that checks the singing

211
Ibid.
212
Ibid.
213
Ibid.
214
Ibid.

51
quality in so many of Hardy’s poems. Mr. Finzi
reflects this non-lyricism by vocal lines and verbal
rhythms that deviate from melody towards prosody.
The process is very subtle and, at times successful;
but one wonders whether in some instances he
would not have been justified in overriding Hardy
with pure singing tunes that would have expressed
the poems without too much deference to the spoken
word values.215

In fact, the composer makes us aware of his conscious decision, marking the opening

to The Clock of the Years “Recit: Dramatico.” The melodrama of the opening vocal material,

remarks Banfield, “is an excellent pretext for a tiny solo cantata.”216 Following the opening

recitative, the remainder of the song is composed of “instrumental tropes”217 betwixt “small

portions of arioso”218 (Example 12). Each of the portions of arioso, Banfield points out, “are

signaled by…an upbeat figure”219 which is then followed by “the comfort of a lilting, settled

accompaniment pattern.”220

Although some of his critics remarked upon The Clock of the Years with sour

criticisms, Trevor Hold praises the composer’s craftiness in The Clock of the Years, bringing

attention to “Finzi’s genius in handling what for most composers would be an intractable

poem.”221 As evidence for his observation, Hold cites the phrase in the song marked by the

text “He shook his head:/No stop was there” noting “the masterly way in which he moves

from duple to triple meter”222 (Example 13). The piece starts out free of meter. The

introductory recitative contains no time signature. Following the recitative, the initial

portion of arioso is in 4/4 meter. In order to accommodate Hardy’s uneven textual phrases,

215
Ibid., 283.
216
Stephen Banfield. Gerald Finzi: An English Composer, 210.
217
Ibid.
218
Ibid.
219
Ibid.
220
Ibid.
221
Hold, 409.
222
Ibid.

52
which are more like prose than poetry in this instance, Finzi changes meter four more times

within the remaining forty-four bars of the piece. Within the scope of the entire song, Finzi

brings the piece through the following metrical progression: free meter (without time

signature), 4/4, 7/8, 6/8, 4/4, 2/4. Also noteworthy is Hold’s observation that Finzi

“deliberately builds silences into his texture.”223 These instances of silence add much to the

dramatic content of the piece and ought to be observed. When the performer strictly

adheres to the amount of rest prescribed by the composer, the element of silence achieves its

dramatic purpose. The suspense created by the rests gives the performer and his or her

audience the opportunity to fully digest the bit of Hardy’s drama which has already been

performed while building suspense for that which is to come.

Example 12: Finzi: The Clock of the Years: instrumental/arioso exchanges.

223
Ibid.

53
Example 13: Finzi’s The Clock of the Years mm. 15-16: note Finzi’s masterful declamation of
the text via a seamless change in meter.

• Song: Channel Firing (Finzi)

Song set of origin: Before and After Summer
Poem serving as source of lyrics: Channel Firing
Poem’s collection of origin : Satires of Circumstance

Hardy’s general philosophies regarding God, war, and fate are each made evident in

Channel Firing, one of his most masterful works of poetry. Burton Parker notes:

Here the irony of fate is God represented to be

manipulating events as though deliberately

54
frustrating and mocking the protagonist.224

The poem is epic in length, utilizing four-line stanzas each of which employ the same rhyme

scheme abab, cdcd, etc. Although the poem is “in syllabic line form, having eight syllables to

each line,”225 Parker notes that each line has “a different accentuation scheme.”226 Trevor

Hold gives a succinct summarization of the poem’s content, writing: “it describes the effects

of gunnery practice at sea on the coffined inhabitants of a churchyard.”227 In true Hardy

fashion, the poem has a grim nature, but Finzi is able to find within its content “a lyrical

core.”228 The centerpiece, explains Banfield, is “God’s anti-war sermon.”229 The depth of

the poem’s irony is found in the Parson’s remark that so greatly contrasts the expected

viewpoint of a Godly man. About three quarters of the way into the song, the Parson

proclaims: “I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Within his opening bars, Finzi’s setting provides a ‘gun-firing’ motive which, as Hold

notes, “acts as a ritornello to draw the pieces of the jigsaw together”230 (Example 14).

Example 14: Finzi’s Channel Firing: These three introductory bars represent a ‘gun-firing’
motive
.
Indeed, with Channel Firing Hardy has brought out some of the best in Finzi, Hold

notes:

224
Burton B. Parker, “Textual-Musical Relationships in Selected Songs of Gerald Finzi,” The NATS
Bullitin (May/June 1973): 18.
225
Ibid.
226
Ibid.
227
Hold, 410.
228
Ibid.
229
Ibid.
230
Hold, 410.

55
The result is one of his most original songs, at once
frightening and, in its black humor, wryly amusing.231

Form, or the lack thereof, is somewhat of an interesting topic in this piece. With the

exception of the ritornello, which, as Banfield notes, “provides the only formal certainty…

in the whole song,” form is illusive in Channel Firing232 Banfield notes:

Finzi plays with form…his teasingly incomplete,

layered musical sections and interrelationships
matching Hardy’s blasphemous theology.233

Trevor Hold notes that there is “a marshmallow center to Finzi’s music that does not

match Hardy’s bleak, granite-like vision.”234 Especially evident in Channel Firing is an

inconsistency in Finzi’s ability to capture the sophistication of Hardy’s true sentiment.

Although “Finzi mirrors Hardy’s metric patterns and melodic patterns impeccably”235 notes

Hold, “he often fails to reach the inner heart of the poems.”236 Compared to those of

Hardy, Finzi’s resources are “extremely narrow and restricted.”237 Perhaps most poignant

regarding Finzi’s treatment of Hardy’s poetry is Hold’s comment that Finzi “irons out the

irony.”238 In attempt to further clarify his point, Hold notes that although Finzi captures the

melancholy of Hardy’s work, he misses the “bitterness.”239

Banfield elaborates on some of the same points made by Hold. Providing us with

the phrase ‘It will be warmer when I blow the trumpet,’ Banfield makes the claim that Finzi

231
Ibid.
232
Ibid.
233
Stephen Banfield. Gerald Finzi: An English Composer, 289.
234
Hold, 414.
235
Ibid.
236
Ibid.
237
Ibid.
238
Ibid.
239
Ibid.

56
is guilty on the count of “failing to provide the proper accentuation”240 because his setting

does not recognize the divinity of the speaker (Example 15).

Example 15: Finzi’s Channel Firing: In m.42, Finzi uses an ascending third to emphasize the
word “warmer”. Banfield argues that the word “I” ought to be the emphasized syllable,
since “I” is God in this case.

He also notes that Finzi “does not really grasp the narrative voices with the dramatic

characterization of colour, pace and tessitura that they demand.”241 Hold notes that Hubert

Parry’s influence on Finzi later in his career particularly manifested itself in the composer’s

“detailed attention to choice of poetry and meticulous scansion and word-setting.”242 Earth

and Air and Rain was written in the middle of Finzi’s career, whereas many of the songs in

Before and After Summer were written towards the end of Finzi’s career. Finzi’s career spanned

from 1920 to 1954. Although it is speculation, one can see Parry’s possible influence

manifesting itself in Finzi’s Channel Firing which he wrote in 1940. Finzi’s obsession with

Parry’s declamatory style of “one syllable-per note” word-setting is evident both in the

recitative and arioso portions of the piece.

240
Stephen Banfield. Gerald Finzi: An English Composer, 289.
241
Ibid., 290.
242
Ibid.

57
Ireland’s Establishment of a British Technique and Finzi’s “Eclectically British”
Approach

“What…distinguished lyricism in song after 1918 from its earlier manifestations?”243 asks

Stephen Banfield. To this question he provides a simple, one word answer: “technique.”

Composers like Ireland, Quilter, and Vaughn Williams, Banfield notes, “had learnt to find

their voice through setting poetry to music.”244 Subsequently, this rise in song writing

supplied examples of a well-polished technique and “built up a reserve of style for others to

draw on.”245 Because of his unique place in the timeline of British songwriting, Finzi had an

advantage that Ireland did not. There was no need for his search to be cosmopolitan in

scope. He had the opportunity to look solely upon British models. Regarding Finzi’s

compositional “Englishness” Hold writes:

His music is unashamedly in an English tradition;

contemporary continental models are almost entirely
absent and one can not detect Wagner, Strauss or
Debussy influences as one can in the music of Elgar
Delius, Bridge, or Bax. 246

Finzi’s influences include names of composers who came from the generation after Elgar,

Delius, Bridge, and Bax. That being said, did Finzi “draw on” any of Ireland’s techniques?

Trevor Hold does not include Ireland amongst Finzi’s influences which he lists as being:

Vaughn Williams, Holst, Butterworth, Gurney, and later in Finzi’s career, Parry. Indeed, the

song material of these composers is a generation or two removed from “continental models”

and is distinguishable as English Art song. Since both Finzi and Ireland have been dubbed

“English,” can we find anything stylistically similar in their settings of Hardy’s poems? How

do their compositional choices compare? Attention to settings like Summer Schemes, The

243
Stephen Banfield. Sensibility, 160.
244
Ibid.
245
Ibid.
246
Hold, 395.

58
tragedy of that moment, Beckon to me to come, Dear, think not that they will forget you and Weathers by

John Ireland when presented as a stylistic comparative to the aforementioned Finzi settings

reveal answers to these questions.

Additional Settings of Hardy’s Poetry by John Ireland

• Song: Beckon to me to come (Ireland)

Song set of origin: Five poems by Thomas Hardy
Poem serving as source of lyrics: Lover to mistress
Poem’s collection of origin: Human Shows

Hardy’s fatalistic attitude is not apparent in this poem. Music historian Michael

Pilkington, in his book Gurney, Ireland, Quilter and Warlock notes that the general theme which

Hardy’s protagonist is declaring in this poem can be summarized: “one sign would bring me

to you, whatever the difficulty.”247 Within the context of the poem, reference is made to

“two fields, a wood, and a tree” (Appendix A, Text E). Pilkington notes that the poem

might be in reference to Tryphena Sparks, a woman that Hardy was in love with before he

met his wife. Pilkington writes that “Between her house and his there were two fields, a

wood and several lone trees.”248

Ireland’s setting of the Hardy poem Lover to mistress is entitled Beckon to me to come. The

piece is written in through-composed form.249 It is interesting to note that both Ireland and

Finzi find motifs to be a particularly helpful tool in setting Hardy’s poetry. In the case of

Beckon to me to come, similar to Finzi’s use of the “gunfire” motif used at the beginning his

Channel Firing, there is a “beckoning”250 motif that starts this piece and is also present at its

247
Michael Pilkington, Gurney, Ireland, Quilter and Warlock (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1989), 58.
248
Ibid.
249
Hold, 205.
250
Ibid.

59
conclusion. Pilkington notes that this “beckoning” motif, which is used as a sort of

ritornello, is that of a “fluttering handkerchief”251 (Example 16).

Example 16: Ireland’s Beckon to me to come; the ‘beckoning’ motif.

Although the melody of Beckon to me appears to be in small sections separated by

rests, its musical sections are sequenced together by a steady rise in the melodic line and via

the rhythmic interest of its accompaniment. The piano propels the piece forward through its

sections of rest in the vocal line. Ireland’s melodic lines, and likewise Hardy’s poetic

interests, are sustained throughout several piano interludes in this fashion252 (Example 17).

Example 17: Ireland’s Beckon to me to come: piano propels the piece forward in brief sections
of rests in the vocal line.

251
Pilkington, 58.
252
Hold, 205.

60
On the other hand, Finzi’s melodies, in songs like Summer Schemes, The Phantom, The

Clock of the Years, and Channel Firing sustain themselves only within incomplete musical

sections, a compositional technique Banfield refers to as “patchwork.” 253 Although the

“chunking” style of Finzi’s phrasing is somewhat akin to the way in which Hardy

approached his poetry, Finzi’s compositional approach seldom addresses unity amongst the

component parts of a piece. Finzi’s songs lack the certain sense of wholeness present in

Beckon to me to come and several other of Ireland’s Hardy settings.

• Song: The tragedy of that moment (Ireland)

Song set of origin: Five poems by Thomas Hardy
Poem serving as source of lyrics: That moment
Poem’s collection of origin: Human Shows

That moment is an excellent example of one of Hardy’s poems that, as mentioned in

chapter two, “resists interpretation.” As previously mentioned by literary scholar Samuel

Hynes, Hardy felt he was his own audience. At times, the poet was selfishly unsympathetic

to his audience. Without knowledge of the circumstances leading up to the particular

“moment” to which Hardy is referring, we are left to our own inferences. Needless to say,

the poet’s compulsion to capture moments of time manifests itself in this piece whose very

namesake professes his intentions. Regarding the tragedy as mentioned in the initial line of

the poem, one must take into perspective that no matter the nature of the circumstances that

lead up to the composition of this poem, Hardy “saw tragedy as a constituent of ordinary

existence and not as a quality of noble and dramatic lives.”254

Michael Pilkington lists the subject of this poem as being “When I came in and you

spoke to me I was overwhelmed by sorrow.” Pilkington denotes That moment as a “strange

253
Banfield, Sensibility, 287.
254
Hynes, Samuel, Introduction. In Thomas Hardy: Selected Poetry. (New York: Oxford University
Press. 1994) xx.

61
poem,”255 and adds some biographical information which, if it is indeed true, may link this

“tragic moment” to the jealousy felt by Emma, Hardy’s wife. Pilkinton writes: “many

commentators seem to feel it refers to Emma’s jealousy of Mrs. Henniker.”256 Mrs.

Henniker was a married woman in her late thirties that Hardy and his wife met on a trip to

Dublin. In his book Thomas Hardy a Biography Revisited, Michael Millgate notes of Mrs.

Henniker:

though not exactly a beauty, she was handsome

assured, and elegantly dressed- in sharp contrast
to Emma, who is said to have appeared in Dublin
in an outfit of muslin and blue ribbons ludicrously
inappropriate to her fifty-one years.257

Millgate adds that Hardy’s attraction to Mrs. Henniker was immediate and powerful.

John Ireland’s setting of That moment entitled The tragedy of that moment is the fourth song

in his cycle Five Poems by Thomas Hardy. The piece is written in through-composed form.258

The song begins with “a slow and intense recit”259 (Example 18).

In order to portray tragedy, Ireland uses very low notes contained within what

Pilkington describes as a “congested harmony.” He also notes that the piece concludes with

a “drum-roll” (Example 19). He speculates that the drumroll could be that of a funeral. But

whose funeral, was Ireland referring to, was it that of Hardy’s wife, Emma? Pilkington

suggests that the woman (to which this poem is directed) is dying, but does not know it,

whereas the singer does260 (Appendix A, Text F). Pilkington’s interpretive suggestion gives

us a clearer perception of what is meant by Hardy’s phrase: “Yes, that which I seeing, but

knew that you were not.”

255
Pilkington, 59.
256
Ibid.
257
Michael Millgate, Thomas Hardy. A Biography Revisited (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004),
308.
258
Hold, 205.
259
Pilkington, 59.
260
Ibid.

62
Example 18: Ireland’s The tragedy of that moment: a slow recitative with ominous low
notes and “congested”261 harmonies.

Example 19: Ireland’s The tragedy of that moment: The “drumroll” motif from the conclusion
of the piece.

Regarding Ireland’s harmonic technique, Carol Kimball notes that “More than

melody, it is Ireland’s harmonic style that gives the text its clearest voice.”262 This is clearly

evident in The tragedy of that moment, a song where the melody is no more than a non-tuneful

succession of pitches that relies on its harmonies to bring expression to its words. The

harmonies of Ireland, writes Kimball, have the effect of “underscoring and intensifying

moods and images within the verse.”263 Ireland uses harmony in a non-functional way, a

261
Ibid.
262
Carol Kimball, Song: A Guide to Style & Literature (Seattle: Pst…Inc., 1996), 319.
263
Ibid.

63
skill which he may have learned from studying the works of Ravel. Regarding Ireland’s

innovative use of chromatiscism, Kimball remarks:

He embellishes harmonies with chromatiscism

in a distinctive way, a way that is lyrical in its
own right.264

Comparatively, Finzi’s harmony is more contrapuntal, almost fugal at times. In this

regard, Banfield goes as far as to suggest an influence of Bach in Finzi’s music, he writes:

Bach shows through often more clearly than

influences from intervening periods…265

Finzi’s approach to harmony, Banfield adds, was “in many ways ultra conservative”266 and a

“backwash of watery modality”267 rather than one that utilized a functional model. A

downside to Finzi’s contrapuntal approach, Banfield notes, was a weak harmonic structure,

he writes:

He (Finzi) wrote such contrapuntal passages all too

Easily, often at the price of weak harmony.268

• Song: Dear, think not that they will forget you (Ireland)
Song set of origin: Five poems by Thomas Hardy
Poem serving as source of lyrics: Her temple
Poem’s collection of origin: Late Lyrics and Earlier

In Hardy’s poem entitled Her Temple, Pilkington explains the subject as being: “I will

build you such a shrine as all men will wonder at it, and you will be remembered, though I

shall not.”269 Pilkington notes that “the poem probably referred to Emma, and the ‘Poems

of 1912-13’ which Hardy wrote immediately after her death.”270

264
Ibid.
265
Banfield, Sensibility, 280.
266
Ibid.
267
Ibid.
268
Ibid.
269
Pilkington, 59.
270
Ibid.

64
Ireland’s setting of Her Temple is entitled Dear, think not that they will forget you. The

song is the fifth and final song in Ireland’s cycle entitled Five poems by Thomas Hardy. The

piece is written in through-composed form.271 Pilkington notes that the opening of the song

“refers back to the first bars of the cycle.”272 Indeed we see once again, although in a slightly

embellished state, the return of the “fluttering handkerchief”273 motif. This motif was

present at the beginning and end of Beckon to me to come and is here included within the piano

introduction to Dear, think not that they will forget you (Example 20).

Example 20: Ireland’s Dear, think not that they will forget you: this piano introduction marks the
return within Five poems by Thomas Hardy of the ‘beckoning’ motif from the cycle’s first
song, Beckon to me to come.

Regarding, Five poems by Thomas Hardy Pilkington notes, “there is a musical

connection between the first and last.”274 It is the manner in which all the songs in this set

seem to be “describing the singer’s relationship with a particular woman over a period of

years”275 that makes this collection, as Pilkington points out, “a genuine cycle.”276 It seems as

though Ireland had little difficulty finding Hardy poems that contained a common theme

which he could group into a cycle. Finzi, on the other hand, exercised much caution in this

regard, preferring not to create song cycles per se of Hardy’s poems. Regarding Finzi’s three

271
Hold, 205.
272
Pilkington, 59.
273
Ibid.
274
Ibid.
275
Ibid., 57.
276
Ibid.

65
major Hardy song sets, Banfield notes: Finzi “did not wish the three major song sets to be

regarded as cycles.”277 Banfield notes furthermore that by “publishing the songs together,”278

Finzi claimed to be “lessening the chances of a single song’s being overlooked.”279 Regarding

the issue of a lack of song grouping in Finzi’s Hardy settings, Banfield defends Finzi’s

position saying:

Admittedly there are no stories running through

them, and the principle of variety is more important
than unity, but there is at least good evidence of their
having been built up with extreme care.280

In the setting Dear, think not that they will forget you it is clearly evident that Ireland is

every bit as insistent as Finzi in maintaining the text-setting ideal “for every syllable a note.”

Just as Finzi holds fast to his allegiance to Hardy by expressing every idiosyncrasy of his

poetry (see for example The Clock of the Years), so too does Ireland make every effort to

similarly support Hardy’s poetry in Dear, think not that they will forget you. The first stanza,

Pilkington notes, “is strong, as befits the building of a temple.”281 Continuing to support the

intricacy of the Hardy’s emotional roller coaster, Ireland next supports the singer’s second

state of emotions of unfulfilled longing. Pilkington describes this second state as being

“loving, wistful, accepting the singer was never of importance in her life in the way she has

been in his.”282

In order to set this poem, whose prosody creates ever-changing rhythmic patterns,

Ireland was dynamic in his metrical decisions. Similar to Finzi in the Clock of the Years,

Ireland proves in this piece his ability to shift meter in order to accommodate Hardy’s

277
Banfield, Sensibility, 290.
278
Ibid.
279
Ibid.
280
Ibid.
281
Pilkington, 27.
282
Ibid.

66
dynamic prosodic shifts. Within the twenty-four bars of this piece, Ireland changes meter

six times. Regarding the ideas pertaining to metrical text-setting between Ireland, Finzi, and

other English composers of the early 20th century, Carol Kimball notes:

Like other English composers in the early 20th

century, Ireland adopted a text-orientated style
of composition, with a primarily syllabic approach
to word-setting. He generally let the natural form
and meter of the verse determine the shape and
rhythm of the melody.283

• Song: Weathers (Ireland)

Song set of origin: Three songs to poems by Thomas Hardy
Poem serving as source of lyrics: Weathers
Poem’s collection of origin: Late Lyrics and Earlier

Weathers is a very popular poem within Hardy’s anthology. Perhaps it is its seemingly

light-heated nature that gives it a popular appeal. However, if we look at how the poem fits

into the poet’s philosophy on a whole, the sunshine that is characteristic of Hardy’s first

verse soon fades to black in the second verse, a description of the weather that ought to be

“shunned.” Ultimately, Weathers simply echoes Hardy’s sentiment on nature’s two distinctly

different personalities: both beauty and beast.

Ireland’s song based on Hardy’s Weathers bears the same name as the poem and is

contained within his song set entitled Three songs to poems by Thomas Hardy. This grouping of

songs is a set and not a cycle. Finzi’s Weathers is a strophic setting containing two verses.

The first, Trevor Hold writes, is a “spring-like verse in the major.”284 The second verse, by

contrast, is “a wintry verse in the minor.” Both verses, notes Hold, are written “with

ambiguous minor cadences in the piano righted by the singer’s ‘And so do I’”285(Examples

21 and 22). Similar in one respect to Finzi’s The Phantom, Ireland sets the short chunks of

283
Kimball, 319.
284
Hold, 204.
285
Hold, 204.

67
Hardy’s poetry into short, tuneful motives. Unlike Finzi’s motives which seem to be

unrelated, incomplete islands of melodic material, Ireland’s short motives are offered up as

antecedent and consequent musical ideas separated by short piano interludes.

Example 21: Ireland’s Weathers: Note the momentary, ambiguous minor cadences in m. 21
which eventually morph into a reassuring major at m.24.

Example 22: Ireland’s Weathers: Note the return of previously mentioned momentary,
ambiguous minor cadences.

68
Conclusion: Two Stylistic Approaches to Hardy’s Poetry

John Ireland, together with composers like Vaughn Williams and Quilter, enjoyed “a

new confidence in technique…a technique which was not a major stumbling block.”286 What

were the stumbling blocks to composers prior to Ireland? Banfield notes that English

composers since the time of Purcell struggled with problems of word-setting, problems that

were apparently inherent within the confines of the English ballad. Banfield notes that

Ireland was “conscious of framing his chosen poetry in music of excellent workmanship”

and he adds “gone were the old problems of word-setting, and gone were all but the last

picked bones of the ballad.” Ireland, twenty years Finzi’s senior, blazed a trail for

composers of Finzi’s generation by creating a “reserve of style for others to draw on.”287

Gerald Finzi, on the other hand, enjoyed an opportunity not afforded to Ireland- the

opportunity to draw upon the techniques and compositional ideals of a handful of excellent

composers who had already worked diligently to create a distinctive style of English art song.

Both differences and similarities exist in the styles of Gerald Finzi and John Ireland

and this fact becomes increasingly evident when we examine their approaches to Hardy’s

poetry. It is interesting to note that both composers chose to use musical symbols of some

type in order to portray the character of Hardy’s poetry. More specifically, both composers

are effective in their use of symbols to capture a specific “moment” in Hardy’s poetry.

There are differences, however in the methods each uses to employ their symbols. Ireland’s

musical symbols are harmonic (as in Summer Schemes) and he uses five “stock” symbols

throughout the entire body of his repertoire to represent different affectations. Finzi uses

motifs which are usually melodic. Some of Ireland’s compositional ideals are cosmopolitan

and he is indeed influenced by Ravel and Debussy in his use of non-functional, chordal

286
Banfield, Sensibility, 160.
287
Ibid.

69
harmonies to evoke mood. Ireland’s harmonic approach, though chordal, is “embellished

with chromaticism,” making it “lyrical in its own right.” Rather than using a chordal

approach, Finzi also approaches harmony in a non-functional manner, achieving lyricism in

his harmonic writing by utilizing contrapuntal writing, weaving thematic material throughout

different voices in a way that almost resembles Bach. In Finzi’s settings of Hardy we see an

imitative relationship between the voice and the piano including much “skillful

interaction”288 written by the composer between voice an piano. Ireland’s Hardy settings

contain less imitation between voice and piano. Instead, Ireland provides in his piano lines

beautifully shaped lines “to match the expressiveness of the poem.”289 Ireland’s melodies

within a single song contain between them a certain degree of cohesion. Finzi’s Hardy

settings contain several short melodies within a single song that are patched together having

little if any cohesiveness. Whereas Ireland uses chromatic embellishments to create lyricism

in his chordal harmonies, Finzi uses chromatic tones for dissonance and uses them in a way

that is “skillfully integrated into the texture for effect.”290

When taking on the task of setting Hardy’s poetry, Trevor Hold notes that Ireland is

“able to match the bleak fatalism of the poet.”291 On the other hand, when approaching the

same task, Hold writes, Finzi is unable to “reach the inner heart of the poems.”292 Regardless

of the comments from their critics, a willingness on the part of each composer to set some

of Hardy’s most anti-lyrical poetry illustrates a high degree of courageousness and an

ambition unmatched by their peers. A look into the lives of each composer gives a strong

testimony of the bleak childhoods endured by each man. Perhaps the deep identification

288
Kimball, 332.
289
Ibid., 319.
290
Ibid., 319.
291
Hold, 212.
292
Ibid., 414.

70
that each composer shared with the poet drove them into their Hardian pursuits. Whatever

the reason for his pursuit, the body of repertoire representing a renaissance in English song

repertoire is all the richer because of their efforts.

71
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Banfield, Stephen. Gerald Finzi: An English Composer. London: Faber & Faber, 1997.

________. Sensibility and English Song. Vol. 2, Critical Studies of the Early 20th Century.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

________. The Blackwell History of Music In Britain. Edited by Stephen Banfield. Vol. 2, The
Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995.

Caldwell, John. The Oxford History of English Music. Vol. 2, c.1715 to the Present Day,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Ferguson, Howard & Michael Hurd, ed., Letters of Gerald Finzi and Howard Ferguson.
Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2002.

Finzi, Gerald. Before and After Summer. London: Boosey and Hawkes. 1949.

________. Earth and Air and Rain. London: Boosey and Hawkes. 1936.

Hardy, Thomas. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy. Edited by Richard Little Purdy and
Michael Milgate. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

________. The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy. Edited by James Gibson. London:
Macmillan Publishing Company, 1978.

________. Thomas Hardy’s Personal Writings. Edited by Harold Orel. Lawrence:

University of Kansas Press, 1966.

Hold, Trevor. Parry to Finzi: Twenty English Song-Composers. Rochester, NY: Boydell &
Brewer, 2002.

Hynes, Samuel. “Introduction.” In Thomas Hardy: Selected Poetry. ed. Samuel Hynes, i-xx. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Ireland, John. The Complete Works for Voice and Piano. London: Stainer and Bell, 1981.

Karolyi, Otto. Modern British Music: the second British musical renaissance- from Elgar to P. Maxwell
Davies. London: Associated University Press, 1994.

Kimball, Carol. Song: A Guide to Style & Literature. Seattle: Pst…Inc., 1996.

Kramer, Dale, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1999.

Longmire, John. John Ireland: portrait of a friend. London: Baker Publishing, 1969.

72
Mabry, Sharon. Exploring Twentieth-Century Vocal Music. Oxford University Press, 2002.

Mardsen, Kenneth. The Poems of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1969.

Maynard, Katherine Kearney. Thomas Hardy’s Tragic Poetry: the Lyrics and the The Dynasts. Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press, 1991.

McVeagh, Diana. Liner Notes from Earth And Air And Rain: Songs By Gerald Finzi To
Words By Thomas Hardy. Hyperion #CDA66161-2, 1989, CD.

Millgate, Michael. Thomas Hardy. A Biography Revisited. New York: Oxford University Press,
2004.

Parker, Burton B. “Textual-Musical Relationships in Selected Songs of Gerald Finzi.”

The NATS Bullitin (May/June 1973): 10-14.

Pilkington, Michael. Gurney, Ireland, Quilter and Warlock. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press,
1989.

Richards, Fiona. The Music of John Ireland. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing,
2000.

Scott-Sutherland, Colin. John Ireland. Rickmansworth, England: Triad Press, 1980.

Searle, Muriel. John Ireland: the man and his music. London: Midas, 1979.Composer. London:
Faber & Faber, 1997.

73
APPENDIX A
TEXTUAL EXAMPLES

Text A When friendly summer calls again,

Stanza I Calls again
Summer schemes
(by Thomas Hardy) Her little fifers to these hills,
We’ll go – we two – to that arched fane Thesis
Of leafage where they prime their bills
Before they start to flood the plain
With quavers, minims, shakes and trills.

-‘We’ll go,’ I said; but who shall say Antithesis

What may not chance before that

Text B When friendly summer calls again, Refrain

Stanza I *Calls again
Summer Schemes
(by Thomas Hardy) Her little fifers to these hills,
We’ll go – we two – to that arched fane
Of leafage where they prime their bills Verse
Before they start to flood the plain
With quavers, minims, shakes and trills.

*-‘We’ll go,’ I said; but who shall say

What may not chance before that day! Refrain

* Finzi uses descending fourths to designate

these poetic refrains.

74
Text C
Stanza I (portion) And the little brown nightingale bills* his best,
Weathers And they sit outside at ‘The Travelers Rest,’
(by Thomas Hardy)
*bills= sings.293

Stanza II (portion) And hill-hid tides* throb throe and throe

Weathers And meadow rivulets overflow.
(by Thomas Hardy)
*hill-hid tides= the sea, beyond the hills.294

Text D
Stanza I Queer are the ways of a man I know
The Phantom Horsewoman He comes and stands
(by Thomas Hardy) In a careworn craze,
And looks at the sands
And the seaward haze
With moveless hands
And face and gaze,
Then turns to go…
And what does he see when he gazes so?

Text E Two fields, a wood, a tree,

Stanza II Nothing now more malign
Lover to mistress Lies between you and me;
(by Thomas Hardy) But were they bysm, or bluff,
Or snarling sea, one sign
would be enough
Maid mine,
Would be enough!

Text F What I could not help seeing

Stanza II Covered life as a blot;
That moment Yes, that which I was seeing,
(by Thomas Hardy) And knew that you were not!

293
Michael Pilkington, Gurney, Ireland, Quilter and Warlock (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1989), 60.
294
Ibid.

75
APPENDIX B
A COMPLETE LIST OF HARDY SETTINGS BY GERALD FINZI AND
JOHN IRELAND FOR VOICE AND PIANO

Hardy Settings by Gerald Finzi for Voice and Piano

Earth and Air and Rain op 15

Summer Schemes
When I set out for Lyonesse
Waiting Both (1929)
The Phantom (1932)
So I have fared (1928)
Rollicum-rorum
To Lizbie Browne
The Clock of the Years
In a Churchyard (1932)
Proud Songsters (1929)

Till Earth Outwears op 19a

Let me enjoy the earth before (1936)
In years defaced (1936)
The Market-Girl (1927, revised 1940)
I look into my glass (1937)
It never looks like summer here 1956
At a lunar eclipse (1929, revised1941)
Life laughs onward 1955

I Said to Love op 19b

I need not go before 1936 [1'34]
At Middle-Field Gate in February 1956 [3'25]
Two Lips 1928 [0'50]
In five-score summers 1956 [1'36]
For life I had never cared greatly [2'07]
I said to Love 1956 [3'01]

A Young Man's Exhortation op 14

A Young Man's Exhortation (1926)
Ditty (1925)
Budmouth Dears (1929)
Her Temple (1927)
The Comet at Yell'ham (1927)
Shortening Days (1928)
The Sigh (1928)
Former Beauties (1927)
Transformations (1929)
The Dance Continued

76
Hardy Settings by Gerald Finzi for Voice and Piano (cont.)

Before and After Summer op 16

Childhood among the ferns (1947)
Before and after summer
The Self-Unseeing 1949
Overlooking the River before 1940
Channel Firing 1940
In the Mind's Eye
The Too Short Time (1949)
Epeisodia
Amabel (1932)
He abjures love (1931)

Hardy Settings by John Ireland for Voice and Piano

Five Poems by Thomas Hardy

Beckon to me to come
In my sage moments
It was what you bore with you, woman
The tragedy of that moment
Dear, think not that they will forget you (Her Temple)

Three Songs to Poems by Thomas Hardy

Summer Schemes
Her Song
Weathers

Works (Songs) Published Separately

Great Things

77
APPENDIX C
A SELECT DISCOGRAPHY OF SONGS BY JOHN IRELAND AND
GERALD FINZI

Songs of Gerald Finzi

Before and After Summer

Stephen Varcoe/Cliftord Benson
Hyperion CDA66161

Dies natalis
William Brown/English Chamber Orchestra/Christopher Finzi
EMI CDM7 63372

Earth and Air and Rain

Stephen Varcoe/Clifford Benson
Hyperion CDA66161

I Said to Love
Stephen Varcoe/Clifford Benson
Hyperion CDA66161

Let Us Garlands Bring

Stephen Varcoe/City of London Sinfonia/Richard Hickox
Chandos CHAN 8743

Oh Fair to See
Ian Partridge/Clifford Benson
Hyperion CDA66015

Till Earth Outwears

Martyn Hill/Clifford Benson
Hyperion CDA66161

To a Poet
Stephen Roberts/Clifford Benson
Hyperion CDA66015

A Young Man's Exhortation

Martyn Hill/Clifford Benson
Hyperion CDA66161

78
Songs of John Ireland for Voice and Piano
The complete songs of Ireland are available on The Hyperion Label and
Tracks are performed by various artisits including: Lisa Milne, John Mark Ainsley,
Christopher Maltman, and Graham Johnson. Below are each of Ireland’s songs listed next to
most titles is the poet’s name that authored the words. Hyperion: CDA67261/2

Songs Sacred and Profane

The Advent (Alice Meynell)
Hymn for a Child (Sylvia Townsend Warner)
My Fair (Alice Meynell)
The Salley Gardens (W B Yeats)
The Soldier's Return (Sylvia Townsend Warner)
The Scapegoat (Sylvia Townsend Warner)
Santa Chiara (Palm Sunday: Naples) (Arthur Symons)
Tryst (In Fountain Court) (Arthur Symons)

Three Songs (Arthur Symons)

The Adoration
The Rat
Rest

Two Songs
The Trellis (Aldous Huxley)
My true love hath my heart (Sir Philip Sidney)

Five Songs to Poems by Thomas Hardy

Beckon to me to come
In my sage moments
It was what you bore with you, woman
The tragedy of that moment
Dear, think not that they will forget you (Her Temple)

Three Songs to Poems by Thomas Hardy

Summer Schemes
Her Song
Weathers

Songs of a Wayfarer
Memory (William Blake)
When daffodils begin to peer (William Shakespeare)
English May (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
I was not sorrowful (Spleen) (Ernest Dowson)
I will walk on the earth (James Vila Blake)
Ladslove (A E Housman)
The Heart's Desire (A E Housman)
When I am dead, my dearest (Christina Rossetti)
What art thou thinking of? (Christina Rossetti)
During Music (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

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Mother and Child (Christina Rossetti)
Newborn
The Only Child
Hope
Skylark and Nightingale
The Blind Boy
Baby
Death-parting
The Garland

Five XVIth-Century Poems

A Thanksgiving (William Cornish)
All in a garden green (Thomas Howell)
An Aside (anonymous)
A Report Song (Nicholas Breton)
The Sweet Season (Richard Edwardes)

Three Songs
Love and Friendship (Emily Brontë)
Friendship in Misfortune (anonymous)
The One Hope (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

We’ll To the Woods No Moore

We'll to the woods no more (A E Housman)
In Boyhood (A E Housman)
Spring will not wait (piano solo)
When lights go rolling round the sky (James Vila Blake)

Various Songs (published separately)

The Vagabond (John Masefield)
The Bells of San Marie (John Masefield)
Sea Fever (John Masefield)
The Journey (Ernest Blake)
Bed in Summer (Robert Louis Stevenson)
I have twelve oxen (anonymous, early English)
Great Things (Thomas Hardy)
Earth's Call (A Sylvan Rhapsody) (Harold Monro)
Hope the Hornblower (Sir Henry Newbolt)
The Sacred Flame (Mary Coleridge)
Remember (Mary Coleridge)
When I am old (Ernest Dowson)
Spleen (Ernest Dowson, after Paul Verlaine)
Love is a sickness full of woes (Samuel Daniel)
If there were dreams to sell (Thomas Lovell Beddoes)
If we must part (Ernest Dowson)
Tutto è sciolto (James Joyce)
Spring Sorrow (Rupert Brooke)

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APPENDIX D
PERMISSIONS

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VITA

Richard Jupin holds a Master of Music in vocal performance from The Boston

Conservatory and a Bachelor of Music in music education from the Crane School of Music.

Mr. Jupin, a baritone, has enjoyed solo engagements and opera roles in Boston, Syracuse,

Baton Rouge, and Dallas. Aside from performing, Mr. Jupin has a strong commitment to

teaching and vocal pedagogy. He has studied voice science extensively under Stephen

Austin and has worked with vocal pedagogues Dale Moore, Richard Miller and Oren Brown.

Mr. Jupin’s interest in vocal pedagogy and teaching stem from his many years as a public

school music educator.

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