Finzi, Gerald 07/14/1901 - 09/27/1956

Finzi was born in London, the youngest of five children to an Italian Jewish father and a German Jewish mother. Although he professed to be agnostic, he wrote some inspired and impressive Christian choral music.
Finzi lost his father who was a successful shipbroker, at the age of seven and was raised by his mother. Not long after, three of his brothers died. During World War I, the family settled in Harrogate. Here Finzi was taught composition by Ernest Farrar. The latter's death on the Western Front hit Finzi hard.
These adversities contributed to Finzi's somber outlook on life, which he found in the lyrics of Thomas Traherne and Thomas Hardy. He set their poems to music, along with those of Christina Rossetti. In the poetry of Hardy, Traherne, and later William Wordsworth, Finzi was particularly attracted to the recurring motif of childlike innocence corrupted by adult experience. From the beginning, his works had an elegiac tone.
Source: Gerald Finzi – Wikipedia

Note: Translated from the German version of Wikipedia into English