Eclogue

An eclogue, according to the dictionary, is a poem in classical style on a pastoral subject. It’s a perfect title for this short, reflective work for solo piano and string orchestra—a surviving movement from the piano concerto that the British composer Gerald Finzi attempted to write between 1928 and 1939, before abandoning the project and breaking it into separate works. It remained unheard until a year after Finzi’s death in 1956, when the publisher Boosey & Hawkes issued it under the name it carries to this day. Still, what could be more perfect? Finzi was a modest and intensely self-critical man who loved Bach, loved the English Baroque, and loved the idea of taking something from the past and nurturing it for a future generation. His Eclogue plants a cutting from the spirit of Bach in very English soil, and gently, unhurriedly, lets it unfurl and blossom. Finzi could never have imagined the popularity that it has acquired in the 21st century, decades after his early death.