Several other Finzi issues available include the Clarinet Concerto. Alan Hacker, however, encompasses all his colleagues' virtues, providing special insights and revelling in the brilliant writing.
He also adds something extra – an almost mystical realisation of the music's poetic vision which is deeply moving. This is in spite of the fact that the string playing sometimes lacks polish and precision. Finzi wrote incidental music for a BBC production of Love's Labour's Lost and expanded it for a later open-air production. It's tuneful, graceful music, but one can't feel that the stage was Finzi's world. The disc is completed by two interesting early pieces for strings, the Prelude and Romance, both wholly characteristic of the composer and very well played.