Finzi had long contemplated writing a concerto for the cello and it has been suggested that he may have conceived it as a musical portrait of his wife. Sketches for the slow movement exist from the mid 1930s, and he took them up again and composed it in the autumn of 1951 in the months immediately following the diagnosis of his illness. The spur to finishing the concerto was due to a request in September 1954 from Sir John Barbirolli for a major work that he and the Halle could performed at the Cheltenham Festival the following year. Finzi wrote the other movements in the first half of 1955, completing the finale at breakneck speed. The soloist at the premiere was Christopher Bunting who had a considerable input into the writing of the solo passage-work and the first movement cadenza.

It is difficult not to think that the character of the concerto’s first movement welled up out of Finzi’s desperate personal circumstances. From the outset of the extended orchestral e