Frederick Delius
Encyclopedia
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH
(29 January 186210 June 1934) was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce. He was sent to Florida
in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation, where he neglected his managerial duties; influenced by African-American music, he began composing. After a brief period of formal musical study in Germany beginning in 1886, he embarked on a full-time career as a composer in Paris and then in nearby Grez-sur-Loing
, where he and his wife Jelka
lived (except during the First World War) for the rest of their lives.
Delius's first successes came in Germany, where Hans Haym
and other conductors promoted his music from the late 1890s. In Delius's native Britain, it was 1907 before his music made regular appearances in concert programmes, after Thomas Beecham
took it up. Beecham staged Delius's opera A Village Romeo and Juliet
at Covent Garden
in 1910 and mounted a six-day Delius festival in London in 1929, as well as making gramophone recordings of many of Delius's works. After 1918 Delius began to suffer the effects of syphilis
, contracted during his earlier years in Paris. He became paralysed and blind, but completed some late compositions between 1928 and 1932 with the aid of an amanuensis
, Eric Fenby
.
The lyricism in Delius's early compositions reflected both the music he had heard in America and the influences of European composers such as Edvard Grieg
and Richard Wagner
. As his skills matured, he developed a style uniquely his own, characterised by his individual orchestration and his uses of chromatic harmony
. Delius's music has been only intermittently popular, and often subject to critical attacks. The Delius Society, formed in 1962 by his more dedicated followers, continues to promote knowledge of the composer's life and works, and sponsors the annual Delius Prize competition for young musicians.
Delius was born in Bradford
in Yorkshire
. He was baptised as "Fritz Theodore Albert Delius", and used the forename Fritz until he was about 40. He was the second of four sons (there were also ten daughters) born to Julius Delius (1822–1901) and his wife Elise Pauline, née Krönig (1838–1929). Delius's parents were born in Bielefeld
, Westphalia
, of Dutch origin; the family had for some generations been settled in German lands near the Rhine. Julius's father, Ernst Friedrich Delius, had served under Blücher
in the Napoleonic wars. Julius moved to England to further his career as a wool merchant, and became a naturalised British subject in 1850. He married Elise in 1856.
The Delius household was musical; famous musicians such as Joseph Joachim
and Carlo Alfredo Piatti
were guests, and played for the family. Despite his German parentage, the young Fritz was drawn to the music of Chopin
and Grieg
rather than the Austro-German music of Mozart
and Beethoven
, a preference that endured all his life. The young Delius was first taught the violin by a Mr. Bauerkeller of the Hallé Orchestra
, and had more advanced studies under Mr. Haddock of Leeds
. Although he achieved enough skill as a violinist to set up as a violin teacher in later years, his chief musical joy was to improvise at the piano, and it was a piano piece, a waltz by Chopin, that gave him his first ecstatic encounter with music. From 1874 to 1878, Delius was educated at Bradford Grammar School
, where the singer John Coates
was his slightly older contemporary. He then attended the International College
at Isleworth between 1878 and 1880. As a pupil he was neither especially quick nor diligent, but the college was conveniently close to London for Delius to attend concerts and opera.
Julius Delius assumed that his son would play a part in the family wool business, and for the next three years he tried hard to persuade him to do so. Delius's first job was as the firm's representative in Stroud
in Gloucestershire
, where he did moderately well. After being sent in a similar capacity to Chemnitz
, he neglected his duties in favour of trips to the major musical centres of Germany, and musical studies with Hans Sitt
. His father sent him to Sweden, where he again put his artistic interests ahead of commerce, coming under the influence of the Norwegian dramatists Henrik Ibsen
and Gunnar Heiberg
. Ibsen's denunciations of social conventions further alienated Delius from his commercial background. Delius was then sent to represent the firm in France, but he frequently absented himself from business for excursions to the French Riviera
. After this, Julius Delius recognised that there was no prospect that his son would succeed in the family business, but he remained opposed to music as a profession, and instead sent him to America to manage an orange plantation.
Whether the move to America was Julius's idea or his son's is not known. A leading Florida property firm had branches in several English cities including Bradford; in an article on Delius's time in Florida, William Randel conjectures that either Julius Delius visited the Bradford office and conceived the notion of sending his wayward son to grow oranges in Florida, or that Fritz himself saw it as a way to escape the hated family wool business and suggested the idea to his father. Delius was in Florida from the spring of 1884 to the autumn of 1885, living on a plantation at Solano Grove on the St. Johns River
, near Jacksonville
. He continued to be engrossed in music, and in Jacksonville he met Thomas Ward, who became his teacher in counterpoint
and composition
. Delius later said that Ward's teaching was the only useful music instruction he ever had.
Delius later liked to represent his house at Solano Grove as "a shanty", but it was a substantial cottage of four rooms, with plenty of space for Delius to entertain guests. Ward sometimes stayed there, as did an old Bradford friend, Charles Douglas, and Delius's brother Ernest. Protected from excessive summer heat by river breezes and a canopy of oak trees, the house was an agreeable place to live in. Delius paid little attention to the business of growing oranges, and continued to pursue his musical interests. Jacksonville had a rich, though to a European, unorthodox musical life. Randel notes that in local hotels, the African-American waiters doubled as singers, with daily vocal concerts for patrons and passers-by, giving Delius his introduction to spirituals. Additionally, ship owners encouraged their deckhands to sing as they worked. "Delius never forgot the singing as he heard it, day or night, carried sweet and clear across the water to his verandah at Solano Grove, whenever a steam-ship passed; it is hard to imagine conditions less conducive to cultivating oranges—or more conducive to composing."
While in Florida, Delius had his first composition published, a polka for piano called Zum Carnival. In late 1885 he left a caretaker in charge of Solano Grove and moved to Danville, Virginia
. Thereafter he pursued a wholly musical career. An advertisement in the local paper announced, "Fritz Delius will begin at once giving instruction in Piano, Violin, Theory and Composition. He will give lessons at the residences of his pupils. Terms reasonable." Delius also offered lessons in French and German. Danville had a thriving musical life, and early works of his were publicly performed there.
in Leipzig
, Germany. Leipzig was a major musical centre, where Nikisch and Mahler
were conductors at the Opera House
, and Brahms
and Tchaikovsky
conducted their works at the Gewandhaus. At the conservatoire, Delius made little progress in his piano studies under Carl Reinecke
, but Salomon Jadassohn
praised his hard work and grasp of counterpoint; Delius also resumed studies under Hans Sitt. Delius's early biographer, the composer Patrick Hadley
, observed that no trace of his academic tuition can be found in Delius's mature music "except in certain of the weaker passages". Much more important to Delius's development was meeting the composer Edvard Grieg
in Leipzig. Grieg, like Ward before him, recognised Delius's potential. In the spring of 1888, Sitt conducted Delius's Florida Suite
for an audience of three: Grieg, Christian Sinding
and the composer. Grieg and Sinding were enthusiastic and became warm supporters of Delius. At a dinner party in London in April 1888, Grieg finally convinced Julius Delius that his son's future lay in music.
After leaving Leipzig in 1888, Delius moved to Paris where his uncle, Theodore, took him under his wing and looked after him socially and financially. Over the next eight years, Delius befriended many writers and artists, including August Strindberg
, Edvard Munch
and Paul Gauguin
. He mixed very little with French musicians, although Florent Schmitt
arranged the piano scores of Delius's first two operas, Irmelin and The Magic Fountain (Ravel
later did the same for his verismo
opera Margot la rouge). As a result, his music never became known in France. Delius's biographer Diana McVeagh says of these years that Delius "was found to be attractive, warm-hearted, spontaneous, and amorous." It is generally believed that during this period he contracted the syphilis
that caused the collapse of his health in later years.
Delius's Paris years were musically productive. His symphonic poem Paa Vidderne was performed in Christiania
in 1891 and in Monte Carlo in 1894; Gunnar Heiberg commissioned Delius to provide incidental music
for his play Folkeraadet in 1897; and Delius's second opera, The Magic Fountain, was accepted for staging at Prague
, but the project fell through for unknown reasons. Other works of the period were the fantasy overture Over the Hills and Far Away (1895–97) and orchestral variations, Appalachia (1896, rewritten in 1904 for voices and orchestra).
, known as Jelka (1868–1935), who later became his wife. She was a professional painter, a friend of Auguste Rodin
, and a regular exhibitor at the Salon des Indépendants. Jelka quickly declared her admiration for the young composer's music, and the couple were drawn closer together by a shared passion for the works of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
. Jelka bought a house in Grez-sur-Loing
, a village 40 miles (64.4 km) outside Paris on the edge of Fontainebleau
. Delius visited her there, and after a brief return visit to Florida, he moved in with her. In 1903 they married, and, apart from a short period when the area was threatened by the advancing German army during the First World War, Delius lived in Grez for the rest of his life. The marriage was not conventional: Jelka was, at first, the principal earner; there were no children; and Delius was not a faithful husband. Jelka was often distressed by his affairs, but her devotion did not waver.
In the same year, Delius began a fruitful association with German supporters of his music, the conductors Hans Haym
, Fritz Cassirer
and Alfred Hertz
at Elberfeld
, and Julius Buths
at Düsseldorf
. Haym conducted Over the Hills and Far Away, which he gave under its German title Über die Berge in die Ferne on 13 November 1897, believed to be the first time Delius's music was heard in Germany. In 1899 Hertz gave a Delius concert in St. James's Hall in London, which included Over the Hills and Far Away, a choral piece, Mitternachtslied, and excerpts from the opera Koanga
. This occasion was an unusual opportunity for an unknown composer at a time when any sort of orchestral concert was a rare event in London. In spite of encouraging reviews, Delius's orchestral music was not heard again in an English concert hall until 1907.
The orchestral work, Paris, subtitled "Song of a Great City" was composed in 1899 and dedicated to Haym. He gave the premiere at Elberfeld on 14 December 1901. It provoked some critical comment from the local newspaper, which complained that the composer put his listeners on a bus and shuttled them from one Parisian night-spot to another, "but he does not let us hear the tuneful gypsy melodies in the boulevard cafés, always just cymbals and tambourine and mostly from two cabarets at the same time at that". The work was given under Busoni
in Berlin less than a year later.
Most of Delius's premieres of this period were given by Haym and his fellow German conductors. In 1904 Cassirer premiered Koanga, and in the same year the Piano Concerto was given in Elberfeld, and Lebenstanz in Düsseldorf. Appalachia (choral orchestral variations on an old slave song, also inspired by Florida) followed there in 1905. Sea Drift (a cantata with words taken from a poem by Walt Whitman
) was premiered at Essen
in 1906, and A Village Romeo and Juliet
in Berlin in 1907. Delius's reputation in Germany remained high until the First World War; in 1910 his rhapsody Brigg Fair
was given by 36 different German orchestras.
premiered the revised version of Delius's Piano Concerto. In 1908, Beecham introduced Brigg Fair to London audiences, and Fernández Arbós
presented Lebenstanz.
In 1909, Beecham conducted the first complete performance of A Mass of Life, the largest and most ambitious of Delius's concert works, written for four soloists, a double choir, and a large orchestra. Although the work was based on the same Nietzsche work as Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra
, Delius distanced himself from the Strauss work, which he considered a complete failure. Nor was Strauss an admirer of Delius, as he was of Elgar
; he told Delius that he did not wish to conduct Paris: "the symphonic development seems to me to be too scant, and it seems moreover to be an imitation of Charpentier
".
In early years of the 20th century, Delius composed some of his most popular works, including Brigg Fair (1907), In a Summer Garden
(1908, revised 1911), Summer Night on the River (1911), and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
(1912), of which McVeagh comments, "These exquisite idylls, for all their composer's German descent and French domicile, spell 'England' for most listeners." In 1910, Beecham put on an opera season at the Royal Opera House
in London. Having access to the Beecham family's considerable fortune, he ignored commercial considerations and programmed several works of limited box-office appeal, including A Village Romeo and Juliet. The reviews were polite, but The Times
, having praised the orchestral aspects of the score, commented, "Mr. Delius seems to have remarkably little sense of dramatic writing for the voice". Other reviewers agreed that the score contained passages of great beauty, but was ineffective as drama.
published a profile of him by his admirer, the composer Philip Heseltine
(known as "Peter Warlock"), who commented:
Heseltine depicted Delius as a composer uncompromisingly focused on his own music. "There can be no superficial view of Delius's music: either one feels it in the very depths of one's being, or not at all. This may be a part of the reason why one so seldom hears a really first-rate performance of Delius's work, save under Mr. Beecham".
One of Delius's major war-time works was his Requiem, dedicated "to the memory of all young artists fallen in the war". As in the Mass of Life, he took his text from Nietzsche. The work owes nothing to the traditional Christian liturgy, eschewing notions of an afterlife and celebrating instead a pantheistic renewal of Nature. When Albert Coates
presented the work in London in 1922, its atheism offended some believers. In Germany, the regular presentation of Delius's works ceased at the outbreak of the war, and never resumed. Nevertheless, his standing with some continental musicians was unaffected; Beecham records that Bartók
and Kodály
were admirers of Delius, and the former grew into the habit of sending his compositions to Delius for comment and tried to interest him in both Hungarian and Rumanian popular music.
By the end of the war, Delius and Jelka had returned to Grez. He had begun to show symptoms of syphilis that he had probably contracted in the 1880s. He took treatment at clinics across Europe, but by 1922 he was walking with two sticks, and by 1928 he was paralysed and blind. There was no return to the prosperity of pre-war years: Delius's medical treatment was an additional expense, his blindness prevented him from composing, and his royalties were curtailed by the lack of continental performances of his music. Beecham gave discreet financial help, and the composer and musical benefactor Henry Balfour Gardiner
bought the house at Grez and allowed Delius and Jelka to live there rent-free.
Beecham was temporarily absent from the concert hall and opera house between 1920 and 1923, but Coates gave the first performance of The Song of the High Hills in 1920, and Henry Wood and Hamilton Harty
programmed Delius's music with the Queen's Hall
and Hallé
Orchestras. Wood gave the British première of the Double Concerto for violin and cello in 1920, and of A Song Before Sunrise and the Dance Rhapsody No. 2 in 1923. Delius had a financial and artistic success with his incidental music for James Elroy Flecker
's play Hassan (1923) with 281 performances at His Majesty's Theatre
. With Beecham's return the composer became, in Hadley's words, "what his most fervent admirers had never envisaged—a genuine popular success." Hadley cites, in particular, the six-day Delius festival at the Queen's Hall in 1929 under Beecham in the presence of the composer in his bath-chair. "[T]he cream of his orchestral output with and without soli and chorus was included," and the hall was filled. The festival included chamber music and songs, an excerpt from A Village Romeo and Juliet, the Piano and Violin Concertos, and premières of Cynara and A Late Lark, concluding with A Mass of Life.
The Manchester Guardians music critic, Neville Cardus
, met Delius during the festival. He describes the wreck of the composer's physique, yet "there was nothing pitiable about him ... his face was strong and disdainful, every line graven on it by intrepid living". Delius, Cardus says, spoke with a noticeable Yorkshire accent as he dismissed most English music as paper music that should never be heard, written by people "afraid of their feelin's".
, learning that Delius was trying to compose by dictating to Jelka, volunteered his services as unpaid amanuensis. For five years, from 1928, he worked with Delius, taking down his new compositions from dictation, and helping him revise earlier works. Together they produced Cynara (a setting of words by Ernest Dowson
), A Late Lark (a setting of W. E. Henley
), A Song of Summer
, a third violin sonata, the Irmelin prelude, and Idyll (1932), which reused music from Delius's short opera Margot la rouge, composed thirty years earlier. McVeagh rates their greatest joint production as The Songs of Farewell, settings of Walt Whitman
poems for chorus and orchestra, which were dedicated to Jelka. Other works produced in this period include a Caprice and Elegy for cello and orchestra written for the distinguished British cellist Beatrice Harrison
, and a short orchestral piece, Fantastic Dance, which Delius dedicated to Fenby. The violin sonata incorporates the first, incomprehensible, melody that Delius had attempted to dictate to Fenby before their modus operandi had been worked out. Fenby's initial failure to pick up the tune led Delius to the view that "[the] boy is no good ... he cannot even take down a simple melody". Fenby later wrote a book about his experiences of working with Delius. Among other details, Fenby reveals Delius's love of cricket. The pair followed the 1930 Test series
between England and Australia with great interest, and regaled a bemused Jelka with accounts of their boyhood exploits in the game.
In 1933, the year before both composers died, Sir Edward Elgar
, who had flown to Paris to conduct a performance of his Violin Concerto
, visited Delius at Grez. Delius was not on the whole an admirer of Elgar's music, but the two men took to each other, and there followed a warm correspondence until Elgar's death in February 1934. Elgar described Delius as "a poet and a visionary".
Delius died at Grez on 10 June 1934, aged 72. He had wished to be buried in his own garden, but the French authorities forbade it. His alternative wish was to be buried "in some country churchyard in the south of England, where people could place wild flowers". At the time of his death, Jelka was too ill to make the journey across the Channel
, and Delius’s body was temporarily interred in the cemetery at Grez. It was taken to England in May 1935 and buried at St Peter's Church, Limpsfield
, Surrey
, on 26 May. The ceremony took place at midnight; the headline in the Sunday Dispatch was "Sixty People Under Flickering Lamps In A Surrey Churchyard". In spite of Delius's atheism, the vicar offered a prayer: "May the souls of the departed through the mercy of God rest in peace." Jelka died a few days later, and was buried beside Delius.
from Nashville, Tennessee
, toured Britain and Europe, giving several well-received concerts in Bradford. When Delius wrote to Elgar in 1933 of the "beautiful four-part harmonies" of the black plantation workers, he may have been unconsciously alluding to the spirituals sung by the Fisk group.
At Leipzig
, Delius became a fervent disciple of Wagner
, whose technique of continuous music he sought to master. An ability to construct long musical paragraphs is, according to the Delius scholar Christopher Palmer, Delius's lasting debt to Wagner, from whom he also acquired a knowledge of chromatic harmonic teachnique, "an endlessly proliferating sensuousness of sound". Grieg, however, was perhaps the composer who influenced him more than any other. The Norwegian composer, like Delius, found his primary inspiration in nature and in folk-melodies, and was the stimulus for the Norwegian flavour that characterises much of Delius's early music. Music writer Anthony Payne
observes that Grieg's "airy texture and non-developing use of chromaticism showed [Delius] how to lighten the Wagnerian load". Early in his career Delius drew inspiration from Chopin, later from his own contemporaries Ravel and Richard Strauss, and from the much younger Percy Grainger
, who first brought the tune of Brigg Fair to Delius's notice.
According to Palmer, it is arguable that Delius gained his sense of direction as a composer from his French contemporary Claude Debussy
. Palmer identifies aesthetic similarities between the two, and points to several parallel characteristics and enthusiasms. Both were inspired early in their careers by Grieg, both admired Chopin; they are also linked in their musical depictions of the sea, and in their uses of the wordless voice. The opening of Brigg Fair is described by Palmer as "perhaps the most Debussian moment in Delius". Debussy, in a review of Delius's Two Danish Songs for soprano and orchestra given in a concert on 16 March 1901, wrote: "They are very sweet, very pale - music to soothe convalescents in well-to-do neighbourhoods". Delius admired the French composer's orchestration, but thought his works lacking in melody—the latter a comment frequently directed against Delius's own music. Fenby, however, draws attention to Delius's "flights of melodic poetic-prose", while conceding that the composer was contemptuous of public taste, of "giving the public what they wanted" in the form of pretty tunes.
, the Oxford University Press
's musical editor during the 1920s and 1930s, writes that rather than creating his music from the known possibilities of instruments, Delius "thought the sounds first" and then sought the means for producing these particular sounds. Delius's full stylistic maturity dates from around 1907, when he began to write the series of works on which his main reputation rests. In the more mature works Foss observes Delius's increasing rejection of conventional forms such as sonata
or concerto; Delius's music, he comments, is "certainly not architectural; nearer to painting, especially to the pointilliste
style of design". The painting analogy is echoed by Cardus.
(1887, revised 1889) is "an expertly crafted synthesis of Grieg and Negroid Americana", while Delius's first opera Irmelin (1890–92) lacks any identifiably Delian passages. Its harmony and modulation are conventional, and the work bears the clear fingerprints of Wagner and Grieg. Payne asserts that none of the works prior to 1895 are of lasting interest. The first noticeable stylistic advance is evident in Koanga
(1895–97), with richer chords and faster harmonic rhythms; here we find Delius "feeling his way towards the vein that he was soon to tap so surely". In Paris (1899), the orchestration owes a debt to Richard Strauss
; its passages of quiet beauty, says Payne, nevertheless lack the deep personal involvement of the later works. Paris, the final work of Delius's apprentice years, is described by Foss as "one of the most complete, if not the greatest, of Delius's musical paintings".
In each of the major works written in the years after Paris, Delius combined orchestral and vocal forces. The first of these works was A Village Romeo and Juliet
, a music drama which departs from the normal operatic structure of acts and scenes and tells its story of tragic love in a series of tableaux. Musically it shows a considerable advance in style from the early operas of the apprentice years. The entr'acte known as "The Walk to the Paradise Garden" is described by Heseltine as showing "all the tragic beauty of mortality ... concentrated and poured forth in music of overwhelming, almost intolerable poignancy". In this work Delius begins to achieve the texture of sound that would characterise all his later compositions. Delius's music is often assumed to lack melody and form. Cardus argues that melody, while not a primary factor, is there abundantly, "floating and weaving itself into the texture of shifting harmony" – a characteristic which Cardus believes is shared only by Debussy.
Delius's next work, Appalachia, introduces a further feature that would recur in later pieces—the use of the voice instrumentally in wordless singing, in this case depicting the distant plantation songs that had inspired Delius at Solano Grove. Although Payne argues that Appalachia shows only a limited advance in technique, Fenby identifies one orchestral passage as the first expression of Delius's idea of "the transitoriness of all mortal things mirrored in nature". Hereafter, whole works rather than brief passages would be informed by this idea. The transitional phase of the composer's career concludes with three further vocal pieces: Sea Drift
(1903), A Mass of Life (1904–05), and Songs of Sunset (1906–07). Payne salutes each of these as masterpieces, in which the Delian style struggles to emerge in its full ripeness. Fenby describes A Mass of Life as standing outside the general progression of Delius's work, "a vast parenthesis", unlike anything else he wrote, but nevertheless an essential ingredient in his development.
(1908), Life's Dance (1911), Summer Night on the River (1911) and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
(1912). The critic R.W.S. Mendl described this sequence as "exquisite nature studies", with a unity and shape lacking in the earlier formal tone poems. These works became part of the standard English concert repertory, and helped to establish the character of Delius's music in the English concert-goer's mind, although according to Ernest Newman
, the concentration on these works to the neglect of his wider output may have done Delius as much harm as good. The typical mature Delian orchestral sound is apparent in these works, through the division of the strings into ten or more sections, punctuated by woodwind comments and decorations. In the North Country Sketches of 1913–14, Delius divides the strings into 12 parts, and harps, horns, clarinets and bassoons evoke a lifeless winter scene. In Payne's view, the Sketches are the high water mark of Delius's compositional skill, though Fenby awards the accolade to the later Eventyr
(1917).
During this period Delius did not confine himself to purely orchestral works; he produced his final opera, Fennimore and Gerda
(1908–10), like A Village Romeo and Juliet written in tableau form, but in his mature style. His choral works of the period, notably An Arabesque (1911) and A Song of the High Hills
(1911) are among the most radical of Delius's writings in their juxtapositions of unrelated chords. The latter work, entirely wordless, contains some of the most difficult choral music in existence, according to Heseltine. After 1915, Delius turned his attention to traditional sonata, chamber and concerto forms, which he had largely left alone since his apprentice days. Of these pieces Payne highlights two: the Violin Concerto (1916), as an example of how, writing in unfamiliar genres, Delius remained stylistically true to himself; and the Cello Sonata of 1917 which, lacking the familiarity of an orchestral palate, becomes a melodic triumph. Cardus's verdict, however, is that Delius's chamber and concerto works are largely failures. After 1917, according to Payne, there was a general deterioration both in the quantity and quality of Delius's output as illness took hold, though Payne exempts the incidental music to Hassan (1920–23) from condemnation, believing that it contains some of Delius's best work.
, based on sketches that Delius had previously collected under the title of A Poem of Life and Love. In dictating the new beginning of this work, Delius asked Fenby to "imagine that we are sitting on the cliffs in the heather, looking out over the sea". This does not, says Fenby, indicate that the dictation process was calm and leisurely; the mood was usually frenzied and nerve-wracking. The other major work, a setting of Walt Whitman
poems with the title Songs of Farewell, was an even more alarming prospect to Fenby: "the complexity of thinking in so many strands, often all at once; the problems of orchestral and vocal balance; the wider area of possible misunderstandings..." combined to leave Delius and his helper exhausted after each session of work—yet both these works were ready for performance in 1932. Of the music in this final choral work, Beecham wrote of its "hard, masculine vigour, reminiscent in mood and fibre of some of the great choral passages in The Mass of Life". Payne describes the work as "bracing and exultant, with in places an almost Holstian
clarity".
, but this did not lead to demands for further performances of this or other Delius works. Some of his individual songs (he wrote more than 60) were occasionally included in vocal recitals; referring to "the strange songs of Fritz Delius", The Times
critic expressed regret "that the powers the composer undoubtedly possesses should not be turned to better account or undergo proper development at the hands of some musician competent to train them".
Of the May 1899 concert at St. James's Hall, London, The Musical Times reviewer remarked on the rawness of some of the music, but praised the "boldness of conception and virile strength that command and hold attention." Beecham, however, records that despite this "fair show of acclaim", for all the impetus it gave to future performances of Delius's work the event might never have happened; none of the music was heard again in England for many years. Delius was much better received in Germany, where a series of successful performances of his works led to what Beecham describes as a Delius vogue there, "second only to that of Richard Strauss".
In England, a performance of the Piano Concerto on 22 October 1907 at the Queen's Hall was praised for the brilliance of the soloist, Theodor Szánto, and for the power of the music itself. From that point onwards the music of Delius became increasingly familiar to both British and European audiences, as performances of his works proliferated. Beecham's presentation of A Mass of Life at the Queen's Hall in June 1909 did not inspire Hans Haym, who had come from Elberfeld for the concert, though Beecham says that many professional and amateur musicians thought it "the most impressive and original achievement of its genre written in the last fifty years" Some reviewers, nevertheless, doubted the popular appeal of Delius's music, while others were more specifically hostile.
From 1910, Delius's works began to be heard in America: Brigg Fair and In a Summer Garden were performed in 1910–11 by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Walter Damrosch. In November 1915 Grainger gave the first American performance of the Piano Concerto, again with the New York Philharmonic. The New York Times critic described the work as uneven; richly harmonious, but combining colour and beauty with effects "of an almost crass unskillfulness and ugliness".
For the rest of his lifetime Delius's more popular pieces were performed in England and abroad, often under the sponsorship of Beecham, who was primarily responsible for the Delius festival in October–November 1929. In a retrospective comment on the festival The Times critic wrote of full houses and an apparent enthusiasm for "music which hitherto has enjoyed no exceptional vogue", but wondered whether this new acceptance was based on a solid foundation. After Delius's death Beecham continued to promote his works; a second festival was held in 1946, and a third (after Beecham's death) at Bradford in 1962, to celebrate the centenary of Delius's birth. These occasions were in the face of a general indifference to the music; writing in the centenary year, musicologist Deryck Cooke
opined that at that time, "to declare oneself a confirmed Delian is hardly less self-defamatory than to admit to being an addict of cocaine and marihuana".
Beecham had died in 1961, and Fenby writes that it "seemed to many then that nothing could save Delius's music from extinction", such was the conductor's unique mastery over the music. However, other conductors have continued to advocate Delius, and since the centenary year, the Delius Society has pursued the aim of "develop[ing] a greater knowledge of the life and works of Delius". The music has never become fashionable, however, a fact often acknowledged by promoters and critics. To suggestions that Delius's music is an "acquired taste", Fenby answers: "The music of Delius is not an acquired taste. One either likes it the moment one first hears it, or the sound of it is once and for ever distasteful to one. It is an art which will never enjoy an appeal to the many, but one which will always be loved, and dearly loved, by the few." Writing in 2004 on the 70th anniversary of Delius's death, Guardian journalist Martin Kettle recalls Cardus arguing in 1934 that Delius as a composer was unique, both in his technique and in his emotionalism. Although he eschewed classical formalism it was wrong, Cardus believed, to regard Delius merely as "a tone-painter, an impressionist or a maker of programme music". His music's abiding feature is, Cardus wrote, that it "recollects emotion in tranquillity ... Delius is always reminding us that beauty is born by contemplation after the event".
. Over the years the Trust's objectives have been extended so that it can promote the music of other composers who were Delius's contemporaries. The Trust is a co-sponsor of the 2010 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize for young composers.
In 1946, Herbert Stothart
arranged Delius's music for the score of the film The Yearling.
In 1962, enthusiasts for Delius's music who had gone to Bradford for the centenary festival formed the Delius Society; Fenby became its first president. With around 400 members, the Society is independent from the Trust, but works closely with it. Its general objectives are the furtherance of knowledge of Delius's life and works, and the encouragement of performances and recordings. In 2004, as a stimulus for young musicians to study and perform Delius's music, the Society established an annual Delius Prize competition, with a prize of £1,000 to the winner. In June 1984, at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, the Delius Trust sponsored a commemorative production of A Village Romeo and Juliet by Opera North
, to mark the 50th anniversary of Delius's death.
Public interest in Delius's life was stimulated in the UK in 1968, with the showing of the Ken Russell
film Song of Summer
on BBC Television. The film depicted the years of the Delius–Fenby collaboration; Fenby co-scripted with Russell. Max Adrian
played Delius, with Christopher Gable
as Fenby and Maureen Pryor
as Jelka.
In America, a small memorial to Delius stands in Solano Grove. The Delius Association of Florida has for many years organised an annual festival at Jacksonville, to mark the composer's birthday. At Jacksonville University, the Music Faculty awards an annual Delius Composition Prize.
Beecham stresses Delius's role as an innovator: "The best of Delius is undoubtedly to be found in those works where he disregarded classical traditions and created his own forms". Fenby echoes this: "the people who really count are those who discover new ways of making our lives more beautiful. Frederick Delius was such a man". Palmer writes that Delius's true legacy is the ability of his music to inspire the creative urge in its listeners and to enhance their awareness of the wonders of life. Palmer concludes by invoking George Eliot
's poem The Choir Invisible: "Frederick Delius ... belongs to the company of those true artists for whose life and work the world is a better place to live in, and of whom surely is composed, in a literal sense, 'the choir invisible/Whose music is the gladness of the world'".
in 1929–30 recorded Brigg Fair, In a Summer Garden, Summer Night on the River and the "Walk to the Paradise Garden". Fenby recounts that on his first day in Grez, Jelka played Beecham's First Cuckoo recording. In May 1934, when Delius was close to death, Fenby played him Toye's In a Summer Garden, the last music, Fenby says, that Delius ever heard. By the end of the 1930s Beecham had issued versions for Columbia of most of the main orchestral and choral works, together with several songs in which he accompanied the soprano Dora Labbette
on the piano. By 1936 Columbia and HMV had issued recordings of Violin Sonatas 1 and 2, the Elegy and Caprice, and of some of the shorter works.
Full recordings of the operas were not available until after the Second World War. Once again Beecham, now with the HMV label, led the way, with A Village Romeo and Juliet in 1948, performed by the new Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. Later versions of this work include those of Meredith Davies for EMI in 1971, Charles Mackerras
for Argo in 1989, and a German-language version conducted by Klauspeter Seibel in 1995. Beecham's former protégé Norman Del Mar
recorded a complete Irmelin for BBC Digital in 1985. In 1997 EMI reissued Meredith Davies's 1976 recording of Fennimore and Gerda, which Richard Hickox conducted in German the same year for Chandos. Recordings of all the major works, and of many of the individual songs, have been issued at regular intervals since the Second World War. Many of these recordings have been issued in conjunction with The Delius Society, which has prepared various discographies of Delius's recorded music. The complete songs were recorded for the first time by Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow for Stone Records
in 2011.
" was published by Bodley Head in 1952 (in USA by Greenwood Press, 1974: ISBN 978-0-8371-7292-7)
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry or religion....
(29 January 186210 June 1934) was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce. He was sent to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation, where he neglected his managerial duties; influenced by African-American music, he began composing. After a brief period of formal musical study in Germany beginning in 1886, he embarked on a full-time career as a composer in Paris and then in nearby Grez-sur-Loing
Grez-sur-Loing
Grez-sur-Loing is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France.-People:It is located 70 km south of Paris and is notable for the artists and musicians who have lived or stayed there...
, where he and his wife Jelka
Jelka Rosen
Helena Sophie Emilie "Jelka" Delius was a painter, and wife of composer Frederick Delius.-Life and work:...
lived (except during the First World War) for the rest of their lives.
Delius's first successes came in Germany, where Hans Haym
Hans Haym
Hans Haym was a German conductor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As musical director in the town of Elberfeld he championed the works of the then unknown English composer Frederick Delius before that composer's works were heard in his native country.-Biography:Haym was born...
and other conductors promoted his music from the late 1890s. In Delius's native Britain, it was 1907 before his music made regular appearances in concert programmes, after Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
took it up. Beecham staged Delius's opera A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet is an opera by Frederick Delius, the fourth of his six operas. The composer himself, with his wife Jelka, wrote the English-language libretto based on the short story Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller. The first performance was at the...
at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in 1910 and mounted a six-day Delius festival in London in 1929, as well as making gramophone recordings of many of Delius's works. After 1918 Delius began to suffer the effects of syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
, contracted during his earlier years in Paris. He became paralysed and blind, but completed some late compositions between 1928 and 1932 with the aid of an amanuensis
Amanuensis
Amanuensis is a Latin word adopted in various languages, including English, for certain persons performing a function by hand, either writing down the words of another or performing manual labour...
, Eric Fenby
Eric Fenby
Eric William Fenby OBE was an English composer and teacher who is best known for being Frederick Delius's amanuensis from 1928 to 1934. He helped Delius realise a number of works that would not otherwise have been forthcoming....
.
The lyricism in Delius's early compositions reflected both the music he had heard in America and the influences of European composers such as Edvard Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
and Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
. As his skills matured, he developed a style uniquely his own, characterised by his individual orchestration and his uses of chromatic harmony
Diatonic and chromatic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony...
. Delius's music has been only intermittently popular, and often subject to critical attacks. The Delius Society, formed in 1962 by his more dedicated followers, continues to promote knowledge of the composer's life and works, and sponsors the annual Delius Prize competition for young musicians.
Early years
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
. He was baptised as "Fritz Theodore Albert Delius", and used the forename Fritz until he was about 40. He was the second of four sons (there were also ten daughters) born to Julius Delius (1822–1901) and his wife Elise Pauline, née Krönig (1838–1929). Delius's parents were born in Bielefeld
Bielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
, Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
, of Dutch origin; the family had for some generations been settled in German lands near the Rhine. Julius's father, Ernst Friedrich Delius, had served under Blücher
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst von Wahlstatt , Graf , later elevated to Fürst von Wahlstatt, was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall who led his army against Napoleon I at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 and at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 with the Duke of Wellington.He is...
in the Napoleonic wars. Julius moved to England to further his career as a wool merchant, and became a naturalised British subject in 1850. He married Elise in 1856.
The Delius household was musical; famous musicians such as Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
and Carlo Alfredo Piatti
Carlo Alfredo Piatti
Carlo Alfredo Piatti was an Italian cellist. He was born at via Borgo Canale, in Bergamo and died in Mozzo, 4 miles from Bergamo....
were guests, and played for the family. Despite his German parentage, the young Fritz was drawn to the music of Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
and Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
rather than the Austro-German music of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
and Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, a preference that endured all his life. The young Delius was first taught the violin by a Mr. Bauerkeller of the Hallé Orchestra
The Hallé
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...
, and had more advanced studies under Mr. Haddock of Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. Although he achieved enough skill as a violinist to set up as a violin teacher in later years, his chief musical joy was to improvise at the piano, and it was a piano piece, a waltz by Chopin, that gave him his first ecstatic encounter with music. From 1874 to 1878, Delius was educated at Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School
Bradford Grammar School is a co-educational, independent school in Frizinghall, Bradford, West Yorkshire. Headmaster, Stephen Davidson is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference . The school was founded in 1548 and granted its Charter by King Charles II in 1662...
, where the singer John Coates
John Coates (tenor)
John Coates was a leading English tenor, who sang in opera and oratorio and on the concert platform. His repertoire ranged from Bach and Purcell to contemporary works, and embraced the major heldentenor roles in Richard Wagner's operas...
was his slightly older contemporary. He then attended the International College
London International College
The International College in London was an early attempt at international education, operating from 1867 to 1889. It enrolled secondary-school students from a number of countries in a program aimed at fostering internationalist sentiments in its pupils...
at Isleworth between 1878 and 1880. As a pupil he was neither especially quick nor diligent, but the college was conveniently close to London for Delius to attend concerts and opera.
Julius Delius assumed that his son would play a part in the family wool business, and for the next three years he tried hard to persuade him to do so. Delius's first job was as the firm's representative in Stroud
Stroud
Stroud a town and civil parish in the county of Gloucestershire, England.Stroud may also refer to:*Stroud, New South Wales, Australia*Stroud, Ontario, Canada*Stroud , Gloucestershire, UK*Stroud...
in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, where he did moderately well. After being sent in a similar capacity to Chemnitz
Chemnitz
Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...
, he neglected his duties in favour of trips to the major musical centres of Germany, and musical studies with Hans Sitt
Hans Sitt
Jan Hanuš Sitt, known as Hans Sitt, , was a Bohemian-German violinist, violist, teacher, and composer. During his lifetime, he was regarded as one of the foremost teachers of violin...
. His father sent him to Sweden, where he again put his artistic interests ahead of commerce, coming under the influence of the Norwegian dramatists Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
and Gunnar Heiberg
Gunnar Heiberg
Gunnar Edvard Rode Heiberg was a Norwegian poet, playwright, journalist and theatre critic.-Personal life:...
. Ibsen's denunciations of social conventions further alienated Delius from his commercial background. Delius was then sent to represent the firm in France, but he frequently absented himself from business for excursions to the French Riviera
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
. After this, Julius Delius recognised that there was no prospect that his son would succeed in the family business, but he remained opposed to music as a profession, and instead sent him to America to manage an orange plantation.
Florida
St. Johns River
The St. Johns River is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant for commercial and recreational use. At long, it winds through or borders twelve counties, three of which are the state's largest. The drop in elevation from the headwaters to the mouth is less than ;...
, near Jacksonville
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
. He continued to be engrossed in music, and in Jacksonville he met Thomas Ward, who became his teacher in counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
and composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
. Delius later said that Ward's teaching was the only useful music instruction he ever had.
Delius later liked to represent his house at Solano Grove as "a shanty", but it was a substantial cottage of four rooms, with plenty of space for Delius to entertain guests. Ward sometimes stayed there, as did an old Bradford friend, Charles Douglas, and Delius's brother Ernest. Protected from excessive summer heat by river breezes and a canopy of oak trees, the house was an agreeable place to live in. Delius paid little attention to the business of growing oranges, and continued to pursue his musical interests. Jacksonville had a rich, though to a European, unorthodox musical life. Randel notes that in local hotels, the African-American waiters doubled as singers, with daily vocal concerts for patrons and passers-by, giving Delius his introduction to spirituals. Additionally, ship owners encouraged their deckhands to sing as they worked. "Delius never forgot the singing as he heard it, day or night, carried sweet and clear across the water to his verandah at Solano Grove, whenever a steam-ship passed; it is hard to imagine conditions less conducive to cultivating oranges—or more conducive to composing."
While in Florida, Delius had his first composition published, a polka for piano called Zum Carnival. In late 1885 he left a caretaker in charge of Solano Grove and moved to Danville, Virginia
Danville, Virginia
Danville is an independent city in Virginia, United States, bounded by Pittsylvania County, Virginia and Caswell County, North Carolina. It was the last capital of the Confederate States of America. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Danville with Pittsylvania county for...
. Thereafter he pursued a wholly musical career. An advertisement in the local paper announced, "Fritz Delius will begin at once giving instruction in Piano, Violin, Theory and Composition. He will give lessons at the residences of his pupils. Terms reasonable." Delius also offered lessons in French and German. Danville had a thriving musical life, and early works of his were publicly performed there.
Leipzig and Paris
In 1886 Julius Delius agreed to allow his son to pursue a musical career, and paid for him to study music formally. Delius left Danville and returned to Europe via New York, where he paused briefly to give a few lessons. Back in Europe he enrolled at the conservatoireFelix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre
The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig is a public university in Leipzig . Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn as the Conservatory of Music, it is the oldest university school of music in Germany....
in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany. Leipzig was a major musical centre, where Nikisch and Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
were conductors at the Opera House
Semperoper
The Semperoper is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden and the concert hall of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden . It is located near the Elbe River in the historic center of Dresden, Germany.The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841...
, and Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
and Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
conducted their works at the Gewandhaus. At the conservatoire, Delius made little progress in his piano studies under Carl Reinecke
Carl Reinecke
Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist.-Biography:Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher...
, but Salomon Jadassohn
Salomon Jadassohn
Salomon Jadassohn was a German composer and a renowned teacher of piano and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory.-Life:...
praised his hard work and grasp of counterpoint; Delius also resumed studies under Hans Sitt. Delius's early biographer, the composer Patrick Hadley
Patrick Hadley
Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley was a British composer.-Biography:Patrick Sheldon Hadley was born on 5 March 1899 in Cambridge. His father, William Sheldon Hadley, was at that time a fellow of Pembroke College...
, observed that no trace of his academic tuition can be found in Delius's mature music "except in certain of the weaker passages". Much more important to Delius's development was meeting the composer Edvard Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
in Leipzig. Grieg, like Ward before him, recognised Delius's potential. In the spring of 1888, Sitt conducted Delius's Florida Suite
Florida Suite
The Florida Suite is an orchestral suite by English composer Frederick Delius. Delius composed the work in 1887 at Leipzig, after his time as manager of an orange grove in Florida, inspired by its landscape and culture, mainly centred around the St. Johns River. During this time, Delius also...
for an audience of three: Grieg, Christian Sinding
Christian Sinding
Christian August Sinding was a Norwegian composer.-Personal life:He was born in Kongsberg as a son of mine superindendent Matthias Wilhelm Sinding and Cecilie Marie Mejdell . He was a brother of the painter Otto Sinding and the sculptor Stephan Sinding...
and the composer. Grieg and Sinding were enthusiastic and became warm supporters of Delius. At a dinner party in London in April 1888, Grieg finally convinced Julius Delius that his son's future lay in music.
After leaving Leipzig in 1888, Delius moved to Paris where his uncle, Theodore, took him under his wing and looked after him socially and financially. Over the next eight years, Delius befriended many writers and artists, including August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
, Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
and Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
. He mixed very little with French musicians, although Florent Schmitt
Florent Schmitt
Florent Schmitt was a French composer.-Early life:A Lorrainer, born in Meurthe-et-Moselle, Schmitt originally took music lessons in Nancy with the local composer Gustave Sandré. Subsequently he entered the Paris Conservatoire. There he studied with Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet, Théodore Dubois,...
arranged the piano scores of Delius's first two operas, Irmelin and The Magic Fountain (Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
later did the same for his verismo
Verismo
Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
opera Margot la rouge). As a result, his music never became known in France. Delius's biographer Diana McVeagh says of these years that Delius "was found to be attractive, warm-hearted, spontaneous, and amorous." It is generally believed that during this period he contracted the syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
that caused the collapse of his health in later years.
Delius's Paris years were musically productive. His symphonic poem Paa Vidderne was performed in Christiania
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
in 1891 and in Monte Carlo in 1894; Gunnar Heiberg commissioned Delius to provide incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for his play Folkeraadet in 1897; and Delius's second opera, The Magic Fountain, was accepted for staging at Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, but the project fell through for unknown reasons. Other works of the period were the fantasy overture Over the Hills and Far Away (1895–97) and orchestral variations, Appalachia (1896, rewritten in 1904 for voices and orchestra).
First successes
In 1897, Delius met the artist Helena Sophie Emilie RosenJelka Rosen
Helena Sophie Emilie "Jelka" Delius was a painter, and wife of composer Frederick Delius.-Life and work:...
, known as Jelka (1868–1935), who later became his wife. She was a professional painter, a friend of Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
, and a regular exhibitor at the Salon des Indépendants. Jelka quickly declared her admiration for the young composer's music, and the couple were drawn closer together by a shared passion for the works of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. Jelka bought a house in Grez-sur-Loing
Grez-sur-Loing
Grez-sur-Loing is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France.-People:It is located 70 km south of Paris and is notable for the artists and musicians who have lived or stayed there...
, a village 40 miles (64.4 km) outside Paris on the edge of Fontainebleau
Forest of Fontainebleau
The forest of Fontainebleau is a mixed deciduous forest lying sixty kilometres southeast of Paris, France. It is located primarily in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau in the southwestern part of the department of Seine-et-Marne...
. Delius visited her there, and after a brief return visit to Florida, he moved in with her. In 1903 they married, and, apart from a short period when the area was threatened by the advancing German army during the First World War, Delius lived in Grez for the rest of his life. The marriage was not conventional: Jelka was, at first, the principal earner; there were no children; and Delius was not a faithful husband. Jelka was often distressed by his affairs, but her devotion did not waver.
In the same year, Delius began a fruitful association with German supporters of his music, the conductors Hans Haym
Hans Haym
Hans Haym was a German conductor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As musical director in the town of Elberfeld he championed the works of the then unknown English composer Frederick Delius before that composer's works were heard in his native country.-Biography:Haym was born...
, Fritz Cassirer
Fritz Cassirer
Friedrich Leopold Cassirer, was a German conductor. He was one of the early proponents of the music of Frederick Delius, and conducted the premiere of Delius's first opera.-Biography:Cassirer was born in Breslau...
and Alfred Hertz
Alfred Hertz
Alfred Hertz , a German conductor born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As a child, he contracted infantile paralysis and walked with a cane after that....
at Elberfeld
Elberfeld
Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.-History:The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161...
, and Julius Buths
Julius Buths
Julius Buths was a German pianist, conductor and minor composer. He was particularly notable in his early championing of the works of Edward Elgar in Germany. He conducted the continental European premieres of both the Enigma Variations and The Dream of Gerontius...
at Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
. Haym conducted Over the Hills and Far Away, which he gave under its German title Über die Berge in die Ferne on 13 November 1897, believed to be the first time Delius's music was heard in Germany. In 1899 Hertz gave a Delius concert in St. James's Hall in London, which included Over the Hills and Far Away, a choral piece, Mitternachtslied, and excerpts from the opera Koanga
Koanga
Koanga is an opera with music by Frederick Delius, his third opera, written between 1896 and 1897, and a libretto by Charles F. Keary, inspired partly by The Grandissimes of George Washington Cable. Inspiration also came from Delius' own experiences as a young man when his family sent him to work...
. This occasion was an unusual opportunity for an unknown composer at a time when any sort of orchestral concert was a rare event in London. In spite of encouraging reviews, Delius's orchestral music was not heard again in an English concert hall until 1907.
The orchestral work, Paris, subtitled "Song of a Great City" was composed in 1899 and dedicated to Haym. He gave the premiere at Elberfeld on 14 December 1901. It provoked some critical comment from the local newspaper, which complained that the composer put his listeners on a bus and shuttled them from one Parisian night-spot to another, "but he does not let us hear the tuneful gypsy melodies in the boulevard cafés, always just cymbals and tambourine and mostly from two cabarets at the same time at that". The work was given under Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...
in Berlin less than a year later.
Most of Delius's premieres of this period were given by Haym and his fellow German conductors. In 1904 Cassirer premiered Koanga, and in the same year the Piano Concerto was given in Elberfeld, and Lebenstanz in Düsseldorf. Appalachia (choral orchestral variations on an old slave song, also inspired by Florida) followed there in 1905. Sea Drift (a cantata with words taken from a poem by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
) was premiered at Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
in 1906, and A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet is an opera by Frederick Delius, the fourth of his six operas. The composer himself, with his wife Jelka, wrote the English-language libretto based on the short story Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller. The first performance was at the...
in Berlin in 1907. Delius's reputation in Germany remained high until the First World War; in 1910 his rhapsody Brigg Fair
Brigg Fair
"Brigg Fair" is an English folk song. It is best known in a choral arrangement by Percy Grainger and a subsequent set of orchestral variations by Frederick Delius....
was given by 36 different German orchestras.
Growing reputation
By 1907, thanks to performances of his works in many German cities, Delius was, as Thomas Beecham said, "floating safely on a wave of prosperity which increased as the year went on". In that year, Cassirer conducted some concerts in London, at one of which, with Beecham's New Symphony Orchestra, he presented Appalachia. Beecham, who had hitherto known nothing of Delius's music, expressed his "wonderment" and became a lifelong devotee of the composer's works. In the same year, Henry WoodHenry Wood
Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...
premiered the revised version of Delius's Piano Concerto. In 1908, Beecham introduced Brigg Fair to London audiences, and Fernández Arbós
Enrique Fernandez Arbos
Enrique Fernández Arbós was a Spanish violinist, composer and conductor who divided much of his career between Madrid and London. He originally made his name as a virtuoso violinist and later as one of Spain’s greatest conductors.Fernández Arbós was born in Madrid...
presented Lebenstanz.
In 1909, Beecham conducted the first complete performance of A Mass of Life, the largest and most ambitious of Delius's concert works, written for four soloists, a double choir, and a large orchestra. Although the work was based on the same Nietzsche work as Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra
Also sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical treatise of the same name. The composer conducted its first performance on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt...
, Delius distanced himself from the Strauss work, which he considered a complete failure. Nor was Strauss an admirer of Delius, as he was of Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
; he told Delius that he did not wish to conduct Paris: "the symphonic development seems to me to be too scant, and it seems moreover to be an imitation of Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier, , born in Dieuze, Moselle on 25 June 1860, died Paris, 18 February 1956) was a French composer, best known for his opera Louise.-Life and career:...
".
In early years of the 20th century, Delius composed some of his most popular works, including Brigg Fair (1907), In a Summer Garden
In a Summer Garden
In a Summer Garden is a fantasy for orchestra composed in 1908 by Frederick Delius; it was first performed in London under the composer's baton on December 11 of that year. The piece is built around several distinct themes...
(1908, revised 1911), Summer Night on the River (1911), and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is a tone poem composed in 1912 by Frederick Delius; it was first performed in Leipzig on October 2, 1913....
(1912), of which McVeagh comments, "These exquisite idylls, for all their composer's German descent and French domicile, spell 'England' for most listeners." In 1910, Beecham put on an opera season at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in London. Having access to the Beecham family's considerable fortune, he ignored commercial considerations and programmed several works of limited box-office appeal, including A Village Romeo and Juliet. The reviews were polite, but The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, having praised the orchestral aspects of the score, commented, "Mr. Delius seems to have remarkably little sense of dramatic writing for the voice". Other reviewers agreed that the score contained passages of great beauty, but was ineffective as drama.
War and post-war
During the First World War, Delius and Jelka moved from Grez to avoid the hostilities. They took up temporary residence in the south of England, where Delius continued to compose. In 1915, The Musical TimesThe Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
published a profile of him by his admirer, the composer Philip Heseltine
Peter Warlock
Peter Warlock was a pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine , an Anglo-Welsh composer and music critic. He used the pseudonym when composing, and is now better known by this name....
(known as "Peter Warlock"), who commented:
[H]e holds no official position in the musical life of the country [i.e. Britain]; he does not teach in any of the academies, he is not even an honorary professor or doctor of music. He never gives concerts or makes propaganda for his music; he never conducts an orchestra, or plays an instrument in public (even BerliozHector BerliozHector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
played the tambourine!)
Heseltine depicted Delius as a composer uncompromisingly focused on his own music. "There can be no superficial view of Delius's music: either one feels it in the very depths of one's being, or not at all. This may be a part of the reason why one so seldom hears a really first-rate performance of Delius's work, save under Mr. Beecham".
One of Delius's major war-time works was his Requiem, dedicated "to the memory of all young artists fallen in the war". As in the Mass of Life, he took his text from Nietzsche. The work owes nothing to the traditional Christian liturgy, eschewing notions of an afterlife and celebrating instead a pantheistic renewal of Nature. When Albert Coates
Albert Coates (musician)
Albert Coates was an English conductor and composer. Born in Saint Petersburg where his English father was a successful businessman, he studied in Russia, England and Germany, before beginning his career as a conductor in a series of German opera houses...
presented the work in London in 1922, its atheism offended some believers. In Germany, the regular presentation of Delius's works ceased at the outbreak of the war, and never resumed. Nevertheless, his standing with some continental musicians was unaffected; Beecham records that Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
and Kodály
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....
were admirers of Delius, and the former grew into the habit of sending his compositions to Delius for comment and tried to interest him in both Hungarian and Rumanian popular music.
By the end of the war, Delius and Jelka had returned to Grez. He had begun to show symptoms of syphilis that he had probably contracted in the 1880s. He took treatment at clinics across Europe, but by 1922 he was walking with two sticks, and by 1928 he was paralysed and blind. There was no return to the prosperity of pre-war years: Delius's medical treatment was an additional expense, his blindness prevented him from composing, and his royalties were curtailed by the lack of continental performances of his music. Beecham gave discreet financial help, and the composer and musical benefactor Henry Balfour Gardiner
Henry Balfour Gardiner
Henry Balfour Gardiner was an English musician, composer, and teacher. Between his conventional education at Charterhouse School and New College, Oxford, where he obtained only a pass degree, Gardiner was a piano student at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main where he was taught by Knorr...
bought the house at Grez and allowed Delius and Jelka to live there rent-free.
Beecham was temporarily absent from the concert hall and opera house between 1920 and 1923, but Coates gave the first performance of The Song of the High Hills in 1920, and Henry Wood and Hamilton Harty
Hamilton Harty
Sir Hamilton Harty was an Irish and British composer, conductor, pianist and organist. In his capacity as a conductor, he was particularly noted as an interpreter of the music of Berlioz and he was much respected as a piano accompanist of exceptional prowess...
programmed Delius's music with the Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...
and Hallé
The Hallé
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...
Orchestras. Wood gave the British première of the Double Concerto for violin and cello in 1920, and of A Song Before Sunrise and the Dance Rhapsody No. 2 in 1923. Delius had a financial and artistic success with his incidental music for James Elroy Flecker
James Elroy Flecker
James Elroy Flecker was an English poet, novelist and playwright. As a poet he was most influenced by the Parnassian poets.-Biography:...
's play Hassan (1923) with 281 performances at His Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
. With Beecham's return the composer became, in Hadley's words, "what his most fervent admirers had never envisaged—a genuine popular success." Hadley cites, in particular, the six-day Delius festival at the Queen's Hall in 1929 under Beecham in the presence of the composer in his bath-chair. "[T]he cream of his orchestral output with and without soli and chorus was included," and the hall was filled. The festival included chamber music and songs, an excerpt from A Village Romeo and Juliet, the Piano and Violin Concertos, and premières of Cynara and A Late Lark, concluding with A Mass of Life.
The Manchester Guardians music critic, Neville Cardus
Neville Cardus
Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus CBE was an English writer and critic, best known for his writing on music and cricket. For many years, he wrote for The Manchester Guardian. He was untrained in music, and his style of criticism was subjective, romantic and personal, in contrast with his critical...
, met Delius during the festival. He describes the wreck of the composer's physique, yet "there was nothing pitiable about him ... his face was strong and disdainful, every line graven on it by intrepid living". Delius, Cardus says, spoke with a noticeable Yorkshire accent as he dismissed most English music as paper music that should never be heard, written by people "afraid of their feelin's".
Last years
A young English admirer, Eric FenbyEric Fenby
Eric William Fenby OBE was an English composer and teacher who is best known for being Frederick Delius's amanuensis from 1928 to 1934. He helped Delius realise a number of works that would not otherwise have been forthcoming....
, learning that Delius was trying to compose by dictating to Jelka, volunteered his services as unpaid amanuensis. For five years, from 1928, he worked with Delius, taking down his new compositions from dictation, and helping him revise earlier works. Together they produced Cynara (a setting of words by Ernest Dowson
Ernest Dowson
Ernest Christopher Dowson , born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement.- Biography :...
), A Late Lark (a setting of W. E. Henley
William Ernest Henley
William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus".-Life and career:...
), A Song of Summer
A Song of Summer
A Song of Summer is a tone poem for orchestra by Frederick Delius, completed in 1931.A Song of Summer derived from an unpublished 1918 symphonic work, originally called Poem of Life and Love. In 1921, Delius told Peter Warlock that he had misplaced most of that score...
, a third violin sonata, the Irmelin prelude, and Idyll (1932), which reused music from Delius's short opera Margot la rouge, composed thirty years earlier. McVeagh rates their greatest joint production as The Songs of Farewell, settings of Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
poems for chorus and orchestra, which were dedicated to Jelka. Other works produced in this period include a Caprice and Elegy for cello and orchestra written for the distinguished British cellist Beatrice Harrison
Beatrice Harrison
Beatrice Harrison was a British cellist active in the first half of the 20th century. She gave first performances of several important English works, especially those of Frederick Delius, and made the first or standard recordings of others.-Early training:Beatrice Harrison was born in Roorkee,...
, and a short orchestral piece, Fantastic Dance, which Delius dedicated to Fenby. The violin sonata incorporates the first, incomprehensible, melody that Delius had attempted to dictate to Fenby before their modus operandi had been worked out. Fenby's initial failure to pick up the tune led Delius to the view that "[the] boy is no good ... he cannot even take down a simple melody". Fenby later wrote a book about his experiences of working with Delius. Among other details, Fenby reveals Delius's love of cricket. The pair followed the 1930 Test series
Australian cricket team in England in 1930
Australia won the 1930 Ashes series against England, winning two of the matches and losing one, with the other two tests drawn:*1st Test — England won by 93 runs - *2nd Test — Australia won by 7 wickets -...
between England and Australia with great interest, and regaled a bemused Jelka with accounts of their boyhood exploits in the game.
In 1933, the year before both composers died, Sir Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, who had flown to Paris to conduct a performance of his Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto (Elgar)
Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61, is one of his longest orchestral compositions, and the last of his works to gain immediate popular success....
, visited Delius at Grez. Delius was not on the whole an admirer of Elgar's music, but the two men took to each other, and there followed a warm correspondence until Elgar's death in February 1934. Elgar described Delius as "a poet and a visionary".
Delius died at Grez on 10 June 1934, aged 72. He had wished to be buried in his own garden, but the French authorities forbade it. His alternative wish was to be buried "in some country churchyard in the south of England, where people could place wild flowers". At the time of his death, Jelka was too ill to make the journey across the Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
, and Delius’s body was temporarily interred in the cemetery at Grez. It was taken to England in May 1935 and buried at St Peter's Church, Limpsfield
Limpsfield
Limpsfield is a village and parish in the east of the county of Surrey, England near Oxted at the foot of the North Downs. It lies between the A25 to the south and the M25 motorway to the north, near the Clackett Lane service station...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, on 26 May. The ceremony took place at midnight; the headline in the Sunday Dispatch was "Sixty People Under Flickering Lamps In A Surrey Churchyard". In spite of Delius's atheism, the vicar offered a prayer: "May the souls of the departed through the mercy of God rest in peace." Jelka died a few days later, and was buried beside Delius.
Influences
After the 1929 London festival The Times music critic wrote that Delius "belongs to no school, follows no tradition and is like no other composer in the form, content or style of his music". This "extremely individual and personal idiom" was, however, the product of a long musical apprenticeship, during which the composer absorbed many influences. The earliest significant experiences in his artistic development came, Delius later asserted, from the sounds of the plantation songs carried down the river to him at Solano Grove. It was this singing, he told Fenby, that first gave him the urge to express himself in music; thus, writes Fenby, many of Delius's early works are "redolent of Negro hymnology and folk-song", a sound "not heard before in the orchestra, and seldom since". Delius's familiarity with "black" music possibly predates his American adventures; during the 1870s a popular singing group, the Fisk Jubilee SingersFisk Jubilee Singers
The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for their college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditional spirituals, but included some Stephen Foster songs...
from Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, toured Britain and Europe, giving several well-received concerts in Bradford. When Delius wrote to Elgar in 1933 of the "beautiful four-part harmonies" of the black plantation workers, he may have been unconsciously alluding to the spirituals sung by the Fisk group.
At Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Delius became a fervent disciple of Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, whose technique of continuous music he sought to master. An ability to construct long musical paragraphs is, according to the Delius scholar Christopher Palmer, Delius's lasting debt to Wagner, from whom he also acquired a knowledge of chromatic harmonic teachnique, "an endlessly proliferating sensuousness of sound". Grieg, however, was perhaps the composer who influenced him more than any other. The Norwegian composer, like Delius, found his primary inspiration in nature and in folk-melodies, and was the stimulus for the Norwegian flavour that characterises much of Delius's early music. Music writer Anthony Payne
Anthony Payne
Anthony Payne is an English composer, most famous for the work published as Edward Elgar: The Sketches for Symphony No. 3 Elaborated by Anthony Payne...
observes that Grieg's "airy texture and non-developing use of chromaticism showed [Delius] how to lighten the Wagnerian load". Early in his career Delius drew inspiration from Chopin, later from his own contemporaries Ravel and Richard Strauss, and from the much younger Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
, who first brought the tune of Brigg Fair to Delius's notice.
According to Palmer, it is arguable that Delius gained his sense of direction as a composer from his French contemporary Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
. Palmer identifies aesthetic similarities between the two, and points to several parallel characteristics and enthusiasms. Both were inspired early in their careers by Grieg, both admired Chopin; they are also linked in their musical depictions of the sea, and in their uses of the wordless voice. The opening of Brigg Fair is described by Palmer as "perhaps the most Debussian moment in Delius". Debussy, in a review of Delius's Two Danish Songs for soprano and orchestra given in a concert on 16 March 1901, wrote: "They are very sweet, very pale - music to soothe convalescents in well-to-do neighbourhoods". Delius admired the French composer's orchestration, but thought his works lacking in melody—the latter a comment frequently directed against Delius's own music. Fenby, however, draws attention to Delius's "flights of melodic poetic-prose", while conceding that the composer was contemptuous of public taste, of "giving the public what they wanted" in the form of pretty tunes.
Stylistic development
From the conventional forms of his early music, over the course of his creative career Delius developed a style easily recognisable and "unlike the work of any other", according to Payne. As he gradually found his voice, Delius replaced the methods developed during his creative infancy with a more mature style in which Payne discerns "an increasing richness of chord structure, bearing with it its own subtle means of contrast and development". Hubert FossHubert J. Foss
Hubert James Foss was an English pianist, composer, and first Musical Editor for Oxford University Press at Amen House in London. His work at the Press was a major factor in promoting music and musicians in England between the world wars, most notably Ralph Vaughan Williams, through publishing...
, the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
's musical editor during the 1920s and 1930s, writes that rather than creating his music from the known possibilities of instruments, Delius "thought the sounds first" and then sought the means for producing these particular sounds. Delius's full stylistic maturity dates from around 1907, when he began to write the series of works on which his main reputation rests. In the more mature works Foss observes Delius's increasing rejection of conventional forms such as sonata
Sonata
Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
or concerto; Delius's music, he comments, is "certainly not architectural; nearer to painting, especially to the pointilliste
Pointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
style of design". The painting analogy is echoed by Cardus.
Towards recognition
Delius's first orchestral compositions were, in Palmer's words, the work of "an insipid if charming water-colourist". The Florida SuiteFlorida Suite
The Florida Suite is an orchestral suite by English composer Frederick Delius. Delius composed the work in 1887 at Leipzig, after his time as manager of an orange grove in Florida, inspired by its landscape and culture, mainly centred around the St. Johns River. During this time, Delius also...
(1887, revised 1889) is "an expertly crafted synthesis of Grieg and Negroid Americana", while Delius's first opera Irmelin (1890–92) lacks any identifiably Delian passages. Its harmony and modulation are conventional, and the work bears the clear fingerprints of Wagner and Grieg. Payne asserts that none of the works prior to 1895 are of lasting interest. The first noticeable stylistic advance is evident in Koanga
Koanga
Koanga is an opera with music by Frederick Delius, his third opera, written between 1896 and 1897, and a libretto by Charles F. Keary, inspired partly by The Grandissimes of George Washington Cable. Inspiration also came from Delius' own experiences as a young man when his family sent him to work...
(1895–97), with richer chords and faster harmonic rhythms; here we find Delius "feeling his way towards the vein that he was soon to tap so surely". In Paris (1899), the orchestration owes a debt to Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
; its passages of quiet beauty, says Payne, nevertheless lack the deep personal involvement of the later works. Paris, the final work of Delius's apprentice years, is described by Foss as "one of the most complete, if not the greatest, of Delius's musical paintings".
In each of the major works written in the years after Paris, Delius combined orchestral and vocal forces. The first of these works was A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet is an opera by Frederick Delius, the fourth of his six operas. The composer himself, with his wife Jelka, wrote the English-language libretto based on the short story Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller. The first performance was at the...
, a music drama which departs from the normal operatic structure of acts and scenes and tells its story of tragic love in a series of tableaux. Musically it shows a considerable advance in style from the early operas of the apprentice years. The entr'acte known as "The Walk to the Paradise Garden" is described by Heseltine as showing "all the tragic beauty of mortality ... concentrated and poured forth in music of overwhelming, almost intolerable poignancy". In this work Delius begins to achieve the texture of sound that would characterise all his later compositions. Delius's music is often assumed to lack melody and form. Cardus argues that melody, while not a primary factor, is there abundantly, "floating and weaving itself into the texture of shifting harmony" – a characteristic which Cardus believes is shared only by Debussy.
Delius's next work, Appalachia, introduces a further feature that would recur in later pieces—the use of the voice instrumentally in wordless singing, in this case depicting the distant plantation songs that had inspired Delius at Solano Grove. Although Payne argues that Appalachia shows only a limited advance in technique, Fenby identifies one orchestral passage as the first expression of Delius's idea of "the transitoriness of all mortal things mirrored in nature". Hereafter, whole works rather than brief passages would be informed by this idea. The transitional phase of the composer's career concludes with three further vocal pieces: Sea Drift
Sea Drift (Delius)
Sea Drift is among the larger-scale musical works by the composer Frederick Delius. Completed in 1903-1904 and first performed in 1906, it is a setting for baritone, chorus and orchestra of words by Walt Whitman.- The poem adaptation :...
(1903), A Mass of Life (1904–05), and Songs of Sunset (1906–07). Payne salutes each of these as masterpieces, in which the Delian style struggles to emerge in its full ripeness. Fenby describes A Mass of Life as standing outside the general progression of Delius's work, "a vast parenthesis", unlike anything else he wrote, but nevertheless an essential ingredient in his development.
Full flowering
Brigg Fair (1907) announced the composer's full stylistic maturity, the first of the pieces for small orchestra which confirm Delius's status as a musical poet, with the influences of Wagner and Grieg almost entirely absent. The work was followed in the next few years by In a Summer GardenIn a Summer Garden
In a Summer Garden is a fantasy for orchestra composed in 1908 by Frederick Delius; it was first performed in London under the composer's baton on December 11 of that year. The piece is built around several distinct themes...
(1908), Life's Dance (1911), Summer Night on the River (1911) and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is a tone poem composed in 1912 by Frederick Delius; it was first performed in Leipzig on October 2, 1913....
(1912). The critic R.W.S. Mendl described this sequence as "exquisite nature studies", with a unity and shape lacking in the earlier formal tone poems. These works became part of the standard English concert repertory, and helped to establish the character of Delius's music in the English concert-goer's mind, although according to Ernest Newman
Ernest Newman
Ernest Newman was an English music critic and musicologist. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most celebrated British music critic in the first half of the 20th century." His style of criticism, aiming at intellectual objectivity in contrast to the more subjective...
, the concentration on these works to the neglect of his wider output may have done Delius as much harm as good. The typical mature Delian orchestral sound is apparent in these works, through the division of the strings into ten or more sections, punctuated by woodwind comments and decorations. In the North Country Sketches of 1913–14, Delius divides the strings into 12 parts, and harps, horns, clarinets and bassoons evoke a lifeless winter scene. In Payne's view, the Sketches are the high water mark of Delius's compositional skill, though Fenby awards the accolade to the later Eventyr
Eventyr (Once Upon a Time)
Eventyr or Once Upon a Time is a tone poem for orchestra composed by Frederick Delius in 1917. It was given its premiere in London on 11 January 1919, under the direction of Henry J. Wood. "Eventyr" means "adventure", and the inspiration for the piece was a fairy tale from Norway...
(1917).
During this period Delius did not confine himself to purely orchestral works; he produced his final opera, Fennimore and Gerda
Fennimore and Gerda
Fennimore und Gerda is a German-language opera in 11 "pictures," with four interludes, by the English composer Frederick Delius. It is usually performed and recorded in English, as "Fennimore and Gerda," in a translation by Philip Heseltine. The German libretto, by the composer himself, is based on...
(1908–10), like A Village Romeo and Juliet written in tableau form, but in his mature style. His choral works of the period, notably An Arabesque (1911) and A Song of the High Hills
A Song of the High Hills
A Song of the High Hills is a work for tenor, soprano, chorus and orchestra by Frederick Delius. Composed in 1911, it was first performed under the direction of Albert Coates, at the Queen's Hall in London on February 26, 1920...
(1911) are among the most radical of Delius's writings in their juxtapositions of unrelated chords. The latter work, entirely wordless, contains some of the most difficult choral music in existence, according to Heseltine. After 1915, Delius turned his attention to traditional sonata, chamber and concerto forms, which he had largely left alone since his apprentice days. Of these pieces Payne highlights two: the Violin Concerto (1916), as an example of how, writing in unfamiliar genres, Delius remained stylistically true to himself; and the Cello Sonata of 1917 which, lacking the familiarity of an orchestral palate, becomes a melodic triumph. Cardus's verdict, however, is that Delius's chamber and concerto works are largely failures. After 1917, according to Payne, there was a general deterioration both in the quantity and quality of Delius's output as illness took hold, though Payne exempts the incidental music to Hassan (1920–23) from condemnation, believing that it contains some of Delius's best work.
Final phase
The four-year association with Fenby from 1929 produced two major works, and several smaller pieces often drawn from unpublished music from Delius's early career. The first of the major works was the orchestral A Song of SummerA Song of Summer
A Song of Summer is a tone poem for orchestra by Frederick Delius, completed in 1931.A Song of Summer derived from an unpublished 1918 symphonic work, originally called Poem of Life and Love. In 1921, Delius told Peter Warlock that he had misplaced most of that score...
, based on sketches that Delius had previously collected under the title of A Poem of Life and Love. In dictating the new beginning of this work, Delius asked Fenby to "imagine that we are sitting on the cliffs in the heather, looking out over the sea". This does not, says Fenby, indicate that the dictation process was calm and leisurely; the mood was usually frenzied and nerve-wracking. The other major work, a setting of Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
poems with the title Songs of Farewell, was an even more alarming prospect to Fenby: "the complexity of thinking in so many strands, often all at once; the problems of orchestral and vocal balance; the wider area of possible misunderstandings..." combined to leave Delius and his helper exhausted after each session of work—yet both these works were ready for performance in 1932. Of the music in this final choral work, Beecham wrote of its "hard, masculine vigour, reminiscent in mood and fibre of some of the great choral passages in The Mass of Life". Payne describes the work as "bracing and exultant, with in places an almost Holstian
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
clarity".
Reception
Recognition came late to Delius; before 1899, when he was already 37, his works were largely unpublished and unknown to the public. When the symphonic poem Paa Vidderne was performed at Monte Carlo on 25 February 1894 in a programme of works from British composers, the Musical Times listed the composers as "...Balfe, Mackenzie, Oakeley, Sullivan ... and one Delius, whoever he may be". The work was well received in Monte Carlo, and brought the composer a congratulatory letter from Princess Alice of MonacoAlice Heine
Alice Heine , styled HSH The Princess of Monaco, and also The Duchess of Richelieu, was the American-born second wife of Prince Albert I of Monaco, a great-grandfather of Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Marcel Proust used her as a model for the Princesse de Luxembourg in In Search of Lost Time...
, but this did not lead to demands for further performances of this or other Delius works. Some of his individual songs (he wrote more than 60) were occasionally included in vocal recitals; referring to "the strange songs of Fritz Delius", The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
critic expressed regret "that the powers the composer undoubtedly possesses should not be turned to better account or undergo proper development at the hands of some musician competent to train them".
Of the May 1899 concert at St. James's Hall, London, The Musical Times reviewer remarked on the rawness of some of the music, but praised the "boldness of conception and virile strength that command and hold attention." Beecham, however, records that despite this "fair show of acclaim", for all the impetus it gave to future performances of Delius's work the event might never have happened; none of the music was heard again in England for many years. Delius was much better received in Germany, where a series of successful performances of his works led to what Beecham describes as a Delius vogue there, "second only to that of Richard Strauss".
In England, a performance of the Piano Concerto on 22 October 1907 at the Queen's Hall was praised for the brilliance of the soloist, Theodor Szánto, and for the power of the music itself. From that point onwards the music of Delius became increasingly familiar to both British and European audiences, as performances of his works proliferated. Beecham's presentation of A Mass of Life at the Queen's Hall in June 1909 did not inspire Hans Haym, who had come from Elberfeld for the concert, though Beecham says that many professional and amateur musicians thought it "the most impressive and original achievement of its genre written in the last fifty years" Some reviewers, nevertheless, doubted the popular appeal of Delius's music, while others were more specifically hostile.
From 1910, Delius's works began to be heard in America: Brigg Fair and In a Summer Garden were performed in 1910–11 by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Walter Damrosch. In November 1915 Grainger gave the first American performance of the Piano Concerto, again with the New York Philharmonic. The New York Times critic described the work as uneven; richly harmonious, but combining colour and beauty with effects "of an almost crass unskillfulness and ugliness".
For the rest of his lifetime Delius's more popular pieces were performed in England and abroad, often under the sponsorship of Beecham, who was primarily responsible for the Delius festival in October–November 1929. In a retrospective comment on the festival The Times critic wrote of full houses and an apparent enthusiasm for "music which hitherto has enjoyed no exceptional vogue", but wondered whether this new acceptance was based on a solid foundation. After Delius's death Beecham continued to promote his works; a second festival was held in 1946, and a third (after Beecham's death) at Bradford in 1962, to celebrate the centenary of Delius's birth. These occasions were in the face of a general indifference to the music; writing in the centenary year, musicologist Deryck Cooke
Deryck Cooke
Deryck Cooke was a British musician, musicologist and broadcaster.-Life:Cooke was born in Leicester to a poor and working class family; his father died when he was a child, but his mother was able to afford piano lessons. Cooke acquired a brilliant technique and began to compose...
opined that at that time, "to declare oneself a confirmed Delian is hardly less self-defamatory than to admit to being an addict of cocaine and marihuana".
Beecham had died in 1961, and Fenby writes that it "seemed to many then that nothing could save Delius's music from extinction", such was the conductor's unique mastery over the music. However, other conductors have continued to advocate Delius, and since the centenary year, the Delius Society has pursued the aim of "develop[ing] a greater knowledge of the life and works of Delius". The music has never become fashionable, however, a fact often acknowledged by promoters and critics. To suggestions that Delius's music is an "acquired taste", Fenby answers: "The music of Delius is not an acquired taste. One either likes it the moment one first hears it, or the sound of it is once and for ever distasteful to one. It is an art which will never enjoy an appeal to the many, but one which will always be loved, and dearly loved, by the few." Writing in 2004 on the 70th anniversary of Delius's death, Guardian journalist Martin Kettle recalls Cardus arguing in 1934 that Delius as a composer was unique, both in his technique and in his emotionalism. Although he eschewed classical formalism it was wrong, Cardus believed, to regard Delius merely as "a tone-painter, an impressionist or a maker of programme music". His music's abiding feature is, Cardus wrote, that it "recollects emotion in tranquillity ... Delius is always reminding us that beauty is born by contemplation after the event".
Memorials and legacy
Just before his death, Delius prepared a codicil to his will whereby the royalties on future performances of his music would be used to support an annual concert of works by young composers. Delius died before this provision could be legally effected; according to Fenby, Beecham then persuaded Jelka in her own will to abandon the concerts idea and apply the royalties towards the editing and recording of Delius's main works. After Jelka's death in 1935 the Delius Trust was established, to supervise this task. As stipulated in Jelka's will, the Trust operated largely under Beecham's direction. After Beecham's death in 1961 advisers were appointed to assist the trustees, and in 1979 its administration was taken over by the Musicians' Benevolent FundMusicians' Benevolent Fund
The Musicians' Benevolent Fund is a United Kingdom charity offering help and support to working and retired musicians, other professionals in the music industry, and their dependants....
. Over the years the Trust's objectives have been extended so that it can promote the music of other composers who were Delius's contemporaries. The Trust is a co-sponsor of the 2010 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize for young composers.
In 1946, Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart was a song writer, arranger, conductor, and composer. He was also nominated for nine Oscars, winning Best Original Score for The Wizard of Oz.-Biography:...
arranged Delius's music for the score of the film The Yearling.
In 1962, enthusiasts for Delius's music who had gone to Bradford for the centenary festival formed the Delius Society; Fenby became its first president. With around 400 members, the Society is independent from the Trust, but works closely with it. Its general objectives are the furtherance of knowledge of Delius's life and works, and the encouragement of performances and recordings. In 2004, as a stimulus for young musicians to study and perform Delius's music, the Society established an annual Delius Prize competition, with a prize of £1,000 to the winner. In June 1984, at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, the Delius Trust sponsored a commemorative production of A Village Romeo and Juliet by Opera North
Opera North
Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle...
, to mark the 50th anniversary of Delius's death.
Public interest in Delius's life was stimulated in the UK in 1968, with the showing of the Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
film Song of Summer
Song of Summer
Song of Summer is a 1968 black-and-white film written, produced and directed by Ken Russell, who also plays a cameo role as a philandering priest. It portrays the final six years of the life of Frederick Delius, when he was blind and paralysed, and when Eric Fenby lived with the composer and his...
on BBC Television. The film depicted the years of the Delius–Fenby collaboration; Fenby co-scripted with Russell. Max Adrian
Max Adrian
Max Adrian was a Northern Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre....
played Delius, with Christopher Gable
Christopher Gable
Christopher Gable, CBE was an English ballet dancer, choreographer, and actor.Born in London, Gable studied at the Royal Ballet School, joining the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1957...
as Fenby and Maureen Pryor
Maureen Pryor
Maureen Pryor was an Irish-born English character actress. She appeared on stage, screen and television.-Early life:Maureen Pryor was born Maureen Pook in 1922 in Limerick, Ireland, to a Cockney father and an Irish mother...
as Jelka.
In America, a small memorial to Delius stands in Solano Grove. The Delius Association of Florida has for many years organised an annual festival at Jacksonville, to mark the composer's birthday. At Jacksonville University, the Music Faculty awards an annual Delius Composition Prize.
Beecham stresses Delius's role as an innovator: "The best of Delius is undoubtedly to be found in those works where he disregarded classical traditions and created his own forms". Fenby echoes this: "the people who really count are those who discover new ways of making our lives more beautiful. Frederick Delius was such a man". Palmer writes that Delius's true legacy is the ability of his music to inspire the creative urge in its listeners and to enhance their awareness of the wonders of life. Palmer concludes by invoking George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
's poem The Choir Invisible: "Frederick Delius ... belongs to the company of those true artists for whose life and work the world is a better place to live in, and of whom surely is composed, in a literal sense, 'the choir invisible/Whose music is the gladness of the world'".
Recordings
The first recordings of Delius's works, in 1927, were conducted by Beecham for the Columbia label: the "Walk to the Paradise Garden" interlude from A Village Romeo and Juliet, and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, performed by the orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society. These began a long series of Delius recordings under Beecham that continued for the rest of the conductor's life. He was not alone, however; Geoffrey ToyeGeoffrey Toye
Edward Geoffrey Toye , better known as Geoffrey Toye, was an English conductor, composer and opera producer....
in 1929–30 recorded Brigg Fair, In a Summer Garden, Summer Night on the River and the "Walk to the Paradise Garden". Fenby recounts that on his first day in Grez, Jelka played Beecham's First Cuckoo recording. In May 1934, when Delius was close to death, Fenby played him Toye's In a Summer Garden, the last music, Fenby says, that Delius ever heard. By the end of the 1930s Beecham had issued versions for Columbia of most of the main orchestral and choral works, together with several songs in which he accompanied the soprano Dora Labbette
Dora Labbette
Dora Labbette was an English soprano. Her career spanned the concert hall and the opera house. She conspired with Sir Thomas Beecham to appear at the Royal Opera House masquerading as an Italian singer by the name of Lisa Perli...
on the piano. By 1936 Columbia and HMV had issued recordings of Violin Sonatas 1 and 2, the Elegy and Caprice, and of some of the shorter works.
Full recordings of the operas were not available until after the Second World War. Once again Beecham, now with the HMV label, led the way, with A Village Romeo and Juliet in 1948, performed by the new Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. Later versions of this work include those of Meredith Davies for EMI in 1971, Charles Mackerras
Charles Mackerras
Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
for Argo in 1989, and a German-language version conducted by Klauspeter Seibel in 1995. Beecham's former protégé Norman Del Mar
Norman Del Mar
Norman Del Mar CBE was a British conductor, horn player, and biographer. As a conductor, he specialized in the music of late romantic composers; including Edward Elgar, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Strauss. He left a great legacy of recordings of British music, in particular Elgar, Vaughan Williams,...
recorded a complete Irmelin for BBC Digital in 1985. In 1997 EMI reissued Meredith Davies's 1976 recording of Fennimore and Gerda, which Richard Hickox conducted in German the same year for Chandos. Recordings of all the major works, and of many of the individual songs, have been issued at regular intervals since the Second World War. Many of these recordings have been issued in conjunction with The Delius Society, which has prepared various discographies of Delius's recorded music. The complete songs were recorded for the first time by Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow for Stone Records
Stone Records
Stone Records is a British, independent, classical record label, founded in 2008 by opera singer Mark Stone. It started by producing recordings of English song but has since widened its repertoire to include instrumental, choral and orchestral works....
in 2011.
Further reading
A revised edition, a reprint of the original "with additions, annotations, and comments by Hubert FossHubert J. Foss
Hubert James Foss was an English pianist, composer, and first Musical Editor for Oxford University Press at Amen House in London. His work at the Press was a major factor in promoting music and musicians in England between the world wars, most notably Ralph Vaughan Williams, through publishing...
" was published by Bodley Head in 1952 (in USA by Greenwood Press, 1974: ISBN 978-0-8371-7292-7)