Frederick Delius

[mjwal]

Well, I disagree violently with the ideologically based dismissal of so-called "pantheistic twaddle"! Nietzsche was not a pantheist.... And I happen to find the end of the work particularly moving - it is on the same level as Mahler in Symphony 3's Nietzsche setting, IMO. But of course there is no argument about what moves one most - take it or leave it.
Now for more recommendations:  I endorse the great recording of Cynara by Shirley Quirk and the latter's Sea Drift (I don't know the Terfel version). Other masterpieces:The Song of the High Hills, so near to and yet so far from Strauss's Alpensymphonie (RPO/Fenby on Unicorn); An Arabesque (of which there is a good if not essential version by Beecham in the original Danish on Sony, not so well sung as the version by John S-Q with Groves) This is pantheistic, by the way...The Groves double disc on EMI with a good MoL (better recorded than Beecham but less powerful), AA and the Songs of Sunset with Janet Baker and J S-Q is a pretty irreplaceable set for me. I don't know the Hickox MoL. Also essential is the Beecham/RPO Sony disc with Hassan, Sea Drift and AA, especially for the Hassan music, not just the two popular excerpts but 11 tracks. Here one must say: read the play, then the music will mean so much more to you. Flecker was a very gifted poet at his best, and this play is an amazing pre-echo of the théatre de cruauté propagated by Artaud, though obviously also participating in what has come to be called Orientalism (Said) and it really needs a new production with video installations and Delius's music to make its full effect. The Fenby disc mentioned above with the SotHH also contains some of the most ravishing fin de siècle orchestral songs ever written, sung by F Lott, S Walker and A R Johnson. I don't know how available these discs are.

[knight66]

Well, I disagree violently with the ideologically based dismissal of so-called "pantheistic twaddle"! Nietzsche was not a pantheist.... And I happen to find the end of the work particularly moving - it is on the same level as Mahler in Symphony 3's Nietzsche setting, IMO. But of course there is no argument about what moves one most - take it or leave it.

I don't have the libretto in front of me; I junked the discs. I have had a look to see what it was about. You are right, not pantheistic, but twaddle nevertheless. I sang the piece and the more I had to sing it in rehearsal, the less I liked it, especially the words. I agree though the ending is great.

Your mention of the Songs of Sunset has sent me back to the disc, lovely.

Mike

[mjwal]

especially the words

Mike, have you taken a look at the texts of Bach's cantatas recently? Just wondering... (I won't even mention Italian opera or The Dream of Gerontius etc...)

[knight66]

Mike, have you taken a look at the texts of Bach's cantatas recently? Just wondering... (I won't even mention Italian opera or The Dream of Gerontius etc...)

I don't know what you mean. 

Mike

[mjwal]

Oh, quite...

[Mirror Image]

I was talking with Teresa and it's funny she (of all people) called Delius' music "boring." I think it's obvious she hasn't spent any time with Delius' music, because his music is far from boring. If you have ears, then you'll find something enjoyable in his output. What a joker she is! 

I mean just listen to the "Sunset" movement from Florida Suite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3zahvTPpU8

There's nothing remotely "boring" about this movement. The climax is particularly powerful. To call this "boring," is totally ignorant. At 5:00 the work becomes extroverted and furious. Delius at his best!

[mjwal]

To jump to Teresa's defence here, I must say that "boring" is a category solely dependent on a person's temperament and sensorium at a given time. Thus, though I enjoyed Dvorak in my youth, I now almost always start to get bored when I try to listen to him. I can hear what might delight other people, but it doesn't affect me. I am not putting Dvorak down, it would be absurd, he is a major composer. I love garlic and I hate Brussels sprouts. De gustibus & all that. I love Delius but can very well perceive why others find his music boring. To be frank, all music can bore at the wrong moment - it is a great gift to be able to enter into the magic of great music.

[Mirror Image]

To jump to Teresa's defence here, I must say that "boring" is a category solely dependent on a person's temperament and sensorium at a given time. Thus, though I enjoyed Dvorak in my youth, I now almost always start to get bored when I try to listen to him. I can hear what might delight other people, but it doesn't affect me. I am not putting Dvorak down, it would be absurd, he is a major composer. I love garlic and I hate Brussels sprouts. De gustibus & all that. I love Delius but can very well perceive why others find his music boring. To be frank, all music can bore at the wrong moment - it is a great gift to be able to enter into the magic of great music.

Please don't defend Teresa. She's not the kind of person that needs to be defended. Her attitude about music is disgusting and juvenile.

Anyway, getting back to Delius, I have acquired a great recording of Richard Hickox's first go at Sea Drift on Decca Eloquence and it is beautiful. This recording also contains a great performance of the seldom-heard Appalachia.

[J]

Anyway, getting back to Delius, I have acquired a great recording of Richard Hickox's first go at Sea Drift on Decca Eloquence and it is beautiful. This recording also contains a great performance of the seldom-heard Appalachia.

Appalachia is my very favorite Delius work - "ecstatic melancholy" is how I might describe its character - and the Hickox recording just perfect (I find Barbirolli's reading unlistenable by comparison - so leaden and ponderous).
The 6th movement (I think) "lento" is simply one of the most achingly beautiful pieces of music there is.

[Mirror Image]

Appalachia is my very favorite Delius work - "ecstatic melancholy" is how I might describe its character - and the Hickox recording just perfect (I find Barbirolli's reading unlistenable by comparison - so leaden and ponderous).
The 6th movement (I think) "lento" is simply one of the most achingly beautiful pieces of music there is.

Good to meet another Delius fan. I have this Hickox recording, but I haven't listened to it yet. Good to know that Appalachia is well-performed. I'm sure by comparison it is better than the Barbirolli. While I enjoy Barbirolli's Delius, he isn't one of my favorite conductors.

[Mirror Image]

BUMP!!!!

It's sad that so many people neglect Delius and fail to try and comprehend his music. His music is lovely on the surface, but deep down there's a man in constant turmoil. He hides this side of him quite well I think by making his music so beautiful and lyrically expressive.

People deride his music for being too meandering or whatever, but these are the same people that claim that composers like Tristan Murail or Morton Feldman are musical geniuses. Delius was very much the Morton Feldman of his day. Composing very textural music that you either "get" or don't.

[mjwal]

An interesting little piece of information I came across yesterday on line: back before WW1, Delius, whose work was then successful in Germany, became friends with Heinrich Simon, the proprietor cum editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung, who at Delius's request compiled the literary collage that was set by D in his (unreligious) Requiem. They were also friends with the great artist Max Beckmann, who made drawings of both that were recently displayed in Cincinnati, I believe - did anybody see this exhibition? I have unfortunately never heard the Requiem - the Meredith Davies recording is oop so I would have to buy Hickox 's Mass of Life as well, and somehow I balk at this. -
Personally, I cannot agree about Delius being the "Morton Feldman of his day" - D's music is always associated with a very powerful complex of affects (bright-eyed melancholy yearning, proud tristesse of deliquescence?) whereas Feldman's work (which I admire and appreciate immensely) doesn't exactly propose itself as "expression".

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

An interesting little piece of information I came across yesterday on line: back before WW1, Delius, whose work was then successful in Germany, became friends with Heinrich Simon, the proprietor cum editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung, who at Delius's request compiled the literary collage that was set by D in his (unreligious) Requiem. They were also friends with the great artist Max Beckmann, who made drawings of both that were recently displayed in Cincinnati, I believe - did anybody see this exhibition? I have unfortunately never heard the Requiem - the Meredith Davies recording is oop so I would have to buy Hickox 's Mass of Life as well, and somehow I balk at this. -
Personally, I cannot agree about Delius being the "Morton Feldman of his day" - D's music is always associated with a very powerful complex of affects (bright-eyed melancholy yearning, proud tristesse of deliquescence?) whereas Feldman's work (which I admire and appreciate immensely) doesn't exactly propose itself as "expression".

I have the Requiem under Meredith Davies. I can upload it, if you like. Great piece!

[mjwal]

That would be very kind of you, J.Z., thank you. I am all agog!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Expect it later today. And I am Johan...

[Mirror Image]

An interesting little piece of information I came across yesterday on line: back before WW1, Delius, whose work was then successful in Germany, became friends with Heinrich Simon, the proprietor cum editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung, who at Delius's request compiled the literary collage that was set by D in his (unreligious) Requiem. They were also friends with the great artist Max Beckmann, who made drawings of both that were recently displayed in Cincinnati, I believe - did anybody see this exhibition? I have unfortunately never heard the Requiem - the Meredith Davies recording is oop so I would have to buy Hickox 's Mass of Life as well, and somehow I balk at this. -
Personally, I cannot agree about Delius being the "Morton Feldman of his day" - D's music is always associated with a very powerful complex of affects (bright-eyed melancholy yearning, proud tristesse of deliquescence?) whereas Feldman's work (which I admire and appreciate immensely) doesn't exactly propose itself as "expression".

Obviously, Delius and Morton Feldman are different composers with a totally different view on composition and more importantly they both came from different times. My point is that Delius' music, much like that of Feldman's, is atmospheric and more concerned with shape, color, and texture, but both composers were obviously able to think outside of their own boxes on numerous occasions. The context in Delius' music is coming from a transitional Romantic expression and incorporating more modern techniques like those found in the Impressionism of Debussy. Feldman, on the other hand, was coming from a post-Modernistic viewpoint. Taking into account, also, are the developments that had been made with electronic music and the serialism of Boulez and Stockhausen, but not to mention the innovations made from Cage (a big influence on his own music), Babbitt, Varese, among others.

So sonically both composers are quite different and have different ideals about music, but both are coming from a more textural point-of-view about music and this is the point I was trying to make.

[mjwal]

Obviously, Delius and Morton Feldman are different composers with a totally different view on composition and more importantly they both came from different times. My point is that Delius' music, much like that of Feldman's, is atmospheric and more concerned with shape, color, and texture, but both composers were obviously able to think outside of their own boxes on numerous occasions. The context in Delius' music is coming from a transitional Romantic expression and incorporating more modern techniques like those found in the Impressionism of Debussy. Feldman, on the other hand, was coming from a post-Modernistic viewpoint. Taking into account, also, are the developments that had been made with electronic music and the serialism of Boulez and Stockhausen, but not to mention the innovations made from Cage (a big influence on his own music), Babbitt, Varese, among others.

So sonically both composers are quite different and have different ideals about music, but both are coming from a more textural point-of-view about music and this is the point I was trying to make.

Well, yes, I can accept that - to a degree  - and I appreciate what you say about Feldman. But in listening to Delius I, for one, have very strong "fin-de-siècle" associations: the content of the images, like the "content" of the music - definable melodies, for argument's sake - is not very vividly defined, but the feeling of recognition is very strong. With Feldman's music there are few if any associations, the sense of attaining understanding is connected with a meditative stance that has nothing to do with memory (as with Scelsi, for me). - As I say, I for one. I just cannot myself get very much out of the analogy between the two.
I have just listened to almost all the Delius (A Village Romeo and Juliet still to come) in EMI's Beecham edition - "English Music" box (6 CDs). I knew the later recordings, Brigg Fair and so on, but of the performances I have never heard before I have been especially taken by the Violin Concerto and the Song of the High Hills, which is tremendous (and a 1946 recording!) and captures the colours and all the affective content mirrored in them which I find slightly lacking in the very good Fenby recording. I found myself wanting to relate it to Strauss's Alpensinfonie and consider both composers' feeling for and use of Nietzsche (going from there, one would end up in the middle of Mahler 3 with a setting of a Nietzsche text that was also set by Delius in the Mass of Life). I have not heard any other recordings of this like that by Mackerras.
I would also recommend this box for the 6th disc containing a fine Garden of Fand and a superb Fifine at the Fair, new to me both as a recording and as a work. It made me return to the Browning poem, which I have always held in high regard.

[cilgwyn]

I remember thinking Delius was boring when I was a teenager. How times change. I recently stocked up with a pile of Delius cd's. The emi Groves cd used to be a favourite, (Eventyr,Lifes Dance,etc,now deleted). I read recently that 'North Country Sketches' was Delius for people who don't usually like Delius. That was one that got played allot! Delius can seem like allot of fey impressionistic nature painting,but underneath that quiet,seemingly unenventful surface there's a hell of allot going on.
Regarding 'Sea Drift'. The one recording I can't stand is the one with Bryn Terfel. He blusters his way through the piece like the proverbial bull in a china shop. Can't stand his singing!

[cilgwyn]

To any Terfel fans. I just think he's better on stage. Each to his own.

[Lethevich]

A new release from Dutton:



I wasn't aware of any suite for these operas (whether from the pen of the composer, or - as here - other musicians), only the usual bleeding chunks.