For St Cecilia

For St Cecilia, Ceremonial Ode for tenor solo, chorus & orchestra; words by Edmund Blunden. The original work was commissioned by the St Cecilia’s Day Festival Committee for the 1947 celebration of music’s patron saint. The ceremonial mood is established with fanfares, and the sonorous sweep of the choral writing reflects Finzi’s admiration for Parry and Elgar. The ‘catalogue’ of saints, shared between the soloist and chorus, are deftly delineated: St Valentine, St George, St Dunstan, St Swithin and St Cecilia herself. In rapt stillness, the English composers of the past – Merbecke, Byrd, Dowland and Purcell – are summoned. To close, Finzi creates a festal summation with exultant counterpoint and the saint’s name pealing around the chorus.