Gerald Finzi

1933–1939: Musical development
Finzi never felt at home in the city and having married the artist Joyce Black settled with her in Aldbourne Wiltshire where he devoted himself to composing and apple-growing saving a number of rare English apple varieties from extinction. From the very beginning most of his music was elegiac in tone. These adversities contributed to Finzi's bleak outlook on life but he found solace in the poetry of Thomas Traherne and his favourite Thomas Hardy whose poems as well as those by Christina Rossetti he began to set to music.

Large-scale compositions by Finzi include the cantata Dies natalis for solo voice and string orchestra and his concertos for cello and clarinet. Finzi is best known as a song-writer but also wrote in other genres. Gerald Raphael Finzi (14 July 1901 – 27 September 1956) was a British composer.