Delius: Paris / Brigg Fair / Eventyr / Irmelin / La Calinda

Description

Frederick Delius (1862 - 1934)Paris: Nocturne, The Song of a Great CityBrigg Fair: An English RhapsodyEventyr (Once Upon a Time), ballad after Asbj?©rnsenIrmelin PreludeLa CalindaFrederick Delius was born in the Northern English industrial city of Bradfordin 1862 into a family of German extraction, and joined his father's business,once his schooling was over. Unsuited to the career his father had intended forhim, he borrowed from his father enough money to set himself up in a business ofhis own, as an orange plantation owner in Florida. Here he was able to furtherhis musical interests, notably with lessons from Thomas Ward in Jacksonville andby contact with the various musicians either living there or visiting the townin the winter months. He later moved to Danville in Virginia, abandoning hisplantation and seeking now to earn a living as a musician. It was at this timethat his father agreed to allow him to train as a musician at LeipzigConservatory, which Delius entered in the summer of 1886, studying with Reinecke,Jadassohn and Sitte and forming an important friendship with Grieg. It wasthrough the latter that paternal support was extended to Delius, allowing him tomove to Paris and settle there as a composer. His meeting with the young painterJelka Rosen led to a liaison. In 1897 they set up house together inGrez-sur-Loing and married in 1903.Much of the rest of the life of Delius was spent at Grez-sur-Loing. Duringthe war years it was necessary to take refuge in England, a time of somedifficulty in the absence of the usual royalty payments from Germany. After thewar he returned to France, but gradually succumbed to the effects of syphilis,possibly contracted in America, suffering blindness and paralysis. For the lastsix years of his life he was assisted in his composition by the youngYorkshire musician Eric Fen by, who served as his amanuensis. He died in 1934.As a composer Delius won considerable support from influential musicians,among whom the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was of great importance. Three ofhis early operas were performed in Germany in the years before 1914 andorchestral works, in a very personal idiom that owed something to Wagner andeven more to Grieg, first found an audience there, largely through the advocacyof Hans Haym, the young Music Director in Elberfeld (Wuppertal). Beecham proveda strong ally in England, where at first Delius was relatively neglected.Nevertheless the Concerto for Violin and Cello for May and BeatriceHarrison had its first performance at the Queen's Hall in London in 1920,conducted by Henry Wood, while Albert Sammons had already, in 1919, introducedthe Violin Concerto to the London public in the same concert hall, withAdrian Boult. It is paradoxical that much of his earlier reputation had beenbuilt in Germany, although his music seems, for whatever reason, essentiallyEnglish in feeling, as his wife later maintained. As English a work as BriggFair, however, was first heard in Basle in 1907, Sea Drift