Finzi's music was influenced by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and other British composers of the earlier generation. The majority of his music is vocal, perhaps because he had a wide knowledge of English poetry and enjoyed it greatly. However, he is best known today for his clarinet concerto from the late 1940s. Finzi’s output is not large, and his life was cut short when he was diagnosed with a fatal disease when he was about 50 and died a few years later.

The Clarinet Concerto is Finzi’s best-known piece. It is a masterpiece of the clarinet repertoire, worthy of standing beside the handful of other clarinet concerti including Mozart and Weber. It dates from the late 1940s.

The work runs approximately 30 minutes, is cast in the usual three movements, and is scored for strings and solo clarinet. Within the smaller-scaled orchestration, Finzi pours highly personal and intense emotions that are resolved over the course of the work.

The first two movements are filled with melancholy and even anguish that wells up above a sometimes placid exterior. These emotions are resolved in a joyous, sunny, and “hummable” finale filled with good spirits that are only briefly marred by a return to the emotions of the first two movements.