Intimations of Immortality, Op. 29, an ode

Ode

Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...

 for tenor, chorus, and orchestra, is one of the best-known works by English composer Gerald Finzi

Gerald Finzi

Gerald Raphael Finzi was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a song-writer, but also wrote in other genres...

. It is a setting of nine of the eleven stanzas (all but the seventh and eighth) of William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality

Ode: Intimations of Immortality

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood is a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in Poems, in Two Volumes . The poem was completed in two parts, with the first four stanzas written among a series of poems composed in 1802 about childhood...

", cast as a single continuous movement. Finzi began composing the work in the late 1930s, but did not complete it until 1950, when it was performed at the Three Choirs Festival

Three Choirs Festival

The Three Choirs Festival is a music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of the Three Counties and originally featuring their three choirs, which remain central to the week-long programme...

 with Herbert Sumsion

Herbert Sumsion

Herbert Whitton Sumsion was an English musician who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967...

 conducting.

Music critics and historians have pointed out there are obvious stylistic similarities between portions of Intimations and William Walton

William Walton

Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...

's oratorio Belshazzar's Feast

Belshazzar's Feast

Belshazzar's Feast is described in the Book of Daniel. The Babylonian king Belshazzar profanes the sacred vessels of the enslaved Israelites. As prophesied by the writing on the wall, and interpreted by Daniel, Belshazzar is killed and Darius the Mede succeeds to his kingdom.There are many...

:

"On hearing the Intimations of Immortality again, I find the Waltonisms (obvious Belshazzar) puzzling in the “Now while the birds” section and its recapitulation. Is it deliberately allusive or simply an influence running round in his head at the [time]? The latter is hard to believe, but the former seems more puzzling still as the reference (if such it be) can hardly be seen as apt."

Recordings

• Intimations of Immortality. James Gilchrist, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, David Hill. Naxos 8.557863