Intimations of Immortality

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Intimations of Immortality, Op. 29, an ode for tenor, chorus, and orchestra, is one of the best-known works by English composer Gerald Finzi. It is a setting of nine of the eleven stanzas (all but the seventh and eighth) of William Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality", 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 with Herbert Sumsion conducting.

Music critics and historians have pointed out there are obvious stylistic similarities between portions of Intimations and William Walton's oratorio Belshazzar's Feast:

"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."^[1]