This is a highly attractive cycle of Shakespeare texts, dealing with love and the passage of time by Gerald Finzi, who is regarded as one of the finer British vocal composers of his time. The long gestation period of these poems—which take only about 15 minutes to sing through—is typical of the composer, who worked on many compositions over the same period. He would typically work out a piece, then put it aside to return to it over time for serious editing, or perhaps waiting for an idea for a needed additional touch, until the music became highly polished, direct, sincere, and high-minded.

The five poems are:

1. Come away, come away, death. The tempo and initial feeling of the song are dirge-like, but when the narrator proclaims "I am slain by a fair cruel maid," the mood of the song lightens—still sad in tone, but the listener realizes from the music as well as the words that this is the kind of being slain that future love will likely cure.

2. Who is Silvia? This song is the opposite in mood, an admiring portrait of a beloved beautiful woman. The final line of the song provides the title for the song cycle, "To her let us garlands bring." The song is faster, with a lightly dancing lilt.

3. Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun. This is a gentle song in a compound meter that states the attractions that the grave holds, that promises an end to the fears and worries of life. The gentle sarabande-like motion of the song continues until a striking change takes place in the final verse: Its first four lines are a kind of recitative in even note values over a static, pulseless chord. In the end, on the lines "Quiet consummation have; and renowned be thy grave," the voice gently takes up the rocking rhythm of the first parts, but the accompaniment remains nearly still, and without rhythmic life.

4. O Mistress Mine. This song is a call for a kiss, now, rather than waiting and losing the opportunity to life's uncertainties. The mood of the song is light and carefree.

5. It was a lover and his lass. One of Shakespeare's best-known and lightest verses inspires a joyful dancing verse, exultant in the very idea of love.

The cycle, for baritone and piano (or string orchestra), had its premiere on October 12, 1942, at the famous series of National Gallery Lunchtime Concerts in London (a program devised to use the building for morale purposes after all the pictures had been taken out during the German bombing of London). The date was the 70th birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Finzi dedicated the cycle to that composer, who called "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" one of the loveliest songs he had ever heard. The cycle has become one of Finzi's best-known works.

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