Editing Gerald Finzi (section)

===1939–56: Growth of reputation===
The outbreak of [[World War II]] delayed the first performance of ''Dies natalis'' at the [[Three Choirs Festival]], an event that could have established Finzi as a major composer. He was directed to work at the [[Ministry of War Transport]] and lodged German and Czech refugees in his home. After the war, he became somewhat more productive than before, writing several choral works as well as the Clarinet Concerto (1949), perhaps his most popular work today.

By then, Finzi's works were being performed frequently at the Three Choirs Festival and elsewhere. But that happiness was not to last. In 1951, he learned that he was suffering from the then incurable [[Hodgkin lymphoma|Hodgkin's disease]] and had ten years to live, at most. His feelings after that revelation are probably reflected in the agonized first movement of his [[Cello Concerto (Finzi)|Cello Concerto]] (1955), Finzi's last major work. However its second movement, originally intended as a musical portrait of his wife, is more serene.

In 1956, following an excursion near [[Gloucester]] with Vaughan Williams, Finzi developed [[shingles]], probably as a result of [[immunosuppression|immune suppression]] caused by Hodgkin's disease. Biographies refer to him subsequently developing [[chickenpox]], which developed into a "severe brain [[inflammation]]". That probably means that his shingles developed into [[Shingles#Disseminated_shingles|disseminated shingles]], which resembles chickenpox, and was complicated by [[encephalitis]]. He died soon afterwards, aged 55, in the [[Radcliffe Infirmary]], Oxford, the first performance of his Cello Concerto having been given on the radio the night before. His ashes were scattered on [[May Hill, Gloucestershire|May Hill]] near Gloucester in 1973.<ref>Diana M. McVeagh: ''Gerald Finzi: his life and music'' (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2005), p. 251.</ref>