The composer Gerald Finzi (1901-56) was shy, modest and sensitive. Descended on his father’s side from Italian Jews, the Finzis were otherwise a typical middle-class English family until a series of childhood tragedies contributed to Gerald’s extreme introversion. He lost his father when he was eight, and his three elder brothers died before he had reached adulthood. His grief was compounded by the loss of his first composition teacher, Ernest Farrar, killed in the trenches in 1918.
These misfortunes turned Finzi into a committed pacifist and agnostic, finding spiritual comfort in poetry and music. His own musical works would convey a profound longing for peace and knowledge of the divine, restoring the listener to a prelapsarian state through a childlike sensibility. Yet, despite his lack of belief, Finzi was an undogmatic Christian apologist, writing music for the Anglican liturgy and contemplating the world around him with Christ-like compassion.
