In liturgical terms, we have seen Finzi’s music (as represented here by Dies natalis) advance in our times from the status of Collect to Gospel. He has become a figure of musical faith, standing for what we would be hard-pressed to put into words; but, his music being ever more clearly present, happily we have no need to. And, without insistence, he stands strong.

Hard, then, to admit that during the course of this hour’s listening, I wished for something that was not quite continuous confirmation. These pieces are very much in the same mode of sober exaltation, apprehensive blessedness: I am trying to put into words (after all) what the music conveys of a face that looks into radiance but sees time and mortality out of the corner of his eye. It’s there in the orchestral pieces, the Prelude, Elegy and Nocturne, as surely as in the settings of Traherne, Milton and the remarkably co-joined poets of Farewell to Arms. There are six works here, and, in a sense, they are all one.

James Gilchrist’s singing is guided by a refined (yet passionate) sensibility, just right for Finzi, and his voice has substantial reserves of resonance and power (though some of the vowel sounds may seem to come to us as from another age). Personally, for Dies natalis I’m still wedded to the old recording by Wilfred Brown with Christopher Finzi conducting (EMI, 5/92R). But it’s possible that Gilchrist may have that in mind too: they sing within the same tradition.