Frederick Delius: Romantic Music Master

Frederick Delius                                                            Jelka Rosen Delius, 1912

Many years ago I had the opportunity to sit alone on a dock immersed in a Florida sunset across the St Johns River not far from Solano Grove. The following music was in my head. 

I'd be perfectly honest saying that all the beauty of La Florida was in my heart that day. The sensations were obvious; the music of Frederick Delius made them sublime. A century earlier, he had likely walked that very shoreline, watched the same sun glistening on the water, heard the insects and the wind rustling the reeds and nearby palmettos, and felt the evening move over the landscape.

Frederick Delius was born on this day in Yorkshire, England, in 1862. At 24, he lived the classic story of breaking away from the family business - wool, no less - to pursue a love for the arts, in this case, music. The break was interesting for it took him first to Solano Grove and an orange plantation on the banks of the St. Johns River south of Jacksonville, Florida. Later, he would teach music in Danville, Virginia, before returning to Europe for formal education in Germany. He took the sounds of American culture with him. In 1888, he settled in Paris, later married the painter, Jelka Rosen, and devoted his life to composition. In his last sixteen years he was tortured by the pain of a slow death from syphilis contracted during his early years in Paris. In the four years before his death in 1934, he was blind and essentially paralyzed from the neck down. He composed and completed some of his most significant work during this period, all of it reaching paper through the notations of his loyal amanuensis, Eric Fenby.

Delius patterned much of his music after that of his friend and fellow composer, Edvard Grieg, but tempered it with English impressionism, his love of naturalism, and folk themes he heard among African Americans working on his father's grapefruit plantation near Solano Grove. The result was a unique and demanding music for performer and listener alike and one that almost demands an acquired appreciation. From his death until the 1970's many in the classical music industry thought his compositions were "too sweet" and trapped in immature cliches. Today, his popularity continues to grow wherever classical music is performed and appreciated. 

In 1968, Ken Russell directed a biography of Frederick Delius for the BBC. I saw the program purely by chance in its U.S. premier during the summer of the following year. I was in full cultural rebellion at that time having renounced much of western culture but the unique lyric quality of this English composer's music was like a magnet. Eventually I outgrew my bitterness over the lost decade (1964-74) of the Johnson-Nixon years, but never outgrew my fondness for the music of Delius. There was no escape from the compelling soundscapes with such rich, complex imagery and depth.

Today, with renewed interest in his music the Delius recording catalog has never been larger in spite of the music being some of the most difficult to realize in performance. Here is a fine Telegraph article by the cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber, about Delius and the current revival.

Almost fifty years have passed since that first sunset near Solano Grove. That's a long time to explore and mature in one man's music. It remains a most satisfactory experience - brushstrokes of sound. Different, immersive, and timeless.

In 1929 The New York Times wrote this about the composer:

Delius belongs to no school, follows no tradition and is like no other composer in the form, content, or style of his music.

Almost a century later the quote remains very much intact.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Delius portrait, by his wife, Jelka Rosen, painted in Grez-sur-Loing, France, 1912. Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne, Australia

Text:
The Delius Society, website and Facebook page
Mary E. Greene,  Before the Champions: Frederick Delius' Florida Suite for Orchestra, M.A. Thesis, University of Miami, 2011
Radio Swiss Classic, Frederick Delius
wikipedia.org,, Frederick Delius