In the Finzi centenary year it is good to welcome an excellent bargain version of his Cello Concerto‚ arguably his finest work‚ written at the very end of his life under the stress of knowing he was terminally ill. Naxos adds to its growing store of fine cello concerto recordings with what many will regard as an ideal coupling: two movements originally designed for a projected Piano Concerto. At just under 40 minutes the Cello Concerto is planned on a massive scale. The first movement brings the darkest music‚ an extended tutti establishing a brooding tone of voice‚ a passage which in this performance reveals echoes of the Elgar Cello Concerto‚ noble and stoic‚ a quality which Tim Hugh reinforces. The slow movement finds Finzi more characteristically in tender pastoral vein with a poignant tinge of melancholy‚ music originally conceived many years before its actual completion in 1951. The rest of the concerto dates from four years later‚ with the finale determinedly more cheerful in a vigorous polonaise rhythm. In this challenging work Tim Hugh gives a masterful performance‚ even though having the solo instrument balanced rather farther back than usual reduces his impact. The Northern Sinfonia cannot be faulted either‚ though one would have welcomed a greater weight of string tone at times. The compensation is that pianissimos are magically gentle. The Eclogue for piano and orchestra‚ written as early as 1929‚ was discovered and performed only after the composer’s death in 1956‚ a hauntingly beautiful piece very like the slow movement of the Cello Concerto both in mood and even thematic material. Donohoe faithfully observes the marking semplice (simple) in his expressive playing‚ even if he is dangerously muscular at climaxes. He launches at full force into the Bachian figuration of the Grand Fantasia‚ originally conceived in 1927­28‚ to which Finzi added a vigorous Toccata with jazzy rhythms 25 years later. The Chandos disc brings a recoupling at full price of Raphael Wallfisch’s powerful‚ deeply emotional reading of the Finzi Cello Concerto‚ with Leighton’s almost equally ambitious Cello Concerto. The original coupling to the Finzi was another Leighton piece for cello and orchestra‚ Veris gratia‚ an early work in four movements‚ less individual but closer in style to Finzi’s Concerto. As it is‚ the fine Leighton Concerto makes a more substantial coupling. The Finzi receives a performance bigger and bolder than the Naxos‚ helped by full‚ warm Chandos sound. With a closer balance for the soloist‚ the panache of Wallfisch’s playing comes over the more forcefully‚ and the tenderness of the slow movement is reinforced too at a more spacious speed. On balance he is even more compelling than Tim Hugh‚ but no one is likely to be disappointed with that fine bargain issue. Admirers of Finzi will be glad that the study score of the Cello Concerto is now available from Boosey & Hawkes in a single volume also containing the Clarinet Concerto and the newly restored Violin Concerto for £19.99.