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Frederick Delius
1862 - 1934 Delius’ life was a battle - he fought his parents to be a musician, struggled with syphilis, and was neglected in his adoptive France - but against all the odds, he became one of England's greatest composers.
• Delius enjoyed exposure to music from an early age, and had both piano and violin lessons, but his parents didn’t want him to become a professional musician and he dutifully spent three years working at his father’s wool company. This at least allowed him to travel, and he fostered a love for France and Norway, a country to which he became deeply attached, both musically and emotionally.
• In 1884 Delius was sent to Florida to supervise an orange plantation that his father had agreed to finance. He spent much of his time there filling the gaps in his music education, and composed his Florida Suite.
• Following Delius’ stay in Florida, his father grudgingly allowed him to enrol on an 18-month course at the Leipzig Conservatoire. There Delius befriended Grieg, who helped persuade Delius’ parents that he should make music his career.
• In 1897 Delius moved to Grez-sur-Loing, a village 40 miles southeast of Paris. He was based there for the rest of his life, apart from a brief period during the First World War when he sheltered in England and in Norway. Meanwhile, he had formed a relationship with German artist Jelka Rosen and they married in 1903. Inspired by his new surroundings, Delius’ creative facility went into overdrive, beginning with the sublime opera A Village Romeo and Juliet.
• Delius was one of music’s great originals, his work sounding quite unlike any other. Though he had little time for the fads and fashions of his time, he forged his own way with his unique suppleness of harmony and rhythm.
• He manages to conjure up an unmistakable mood or atmosphere in just a few moments. Sometimes even a single chord is enough to send the listener on a nostalgic emotional journey, as at the very opening of the beautiful Summer Night on a River.
• Delius’ music invariably carries illustrative titles, almost always in some way connected with the power of nature, but these are intended more as a guide to the music than an indication of a particular story line. When asked for a programme note on his orchestral work In a Summer Garden, Delius stated: ‘I do not much care for analytical programmes as they are generally done, and for modern impressionistic music they are totally useless. Besides, I wish the audience to concentrate their attention entirely on listening to the music and not to have their attention drawn away by musical examples.’
• Given the sensual and subtle nuances of his music, it is perhaps surprising that Delius’ big early successes were in Germany rather than Britain or France where he lived.
• The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham did much to support Delius’ music in England, organising and directing a festival of six concerts devoted entirely to Delius’ music in 1929. This at long last confirmed Delius as one of England’s most important composers, although by then he had become severely immobilised and sat in the audience almost totally paralysed and blind as a result of the syphilis he had contracted during his time in Florida.
• In 1934, Delius’ condition rapidly worsened and he relied on morphine to ease his suffering. He died in June 1934, within four months of the two other great British composers of the period, Elgar and Holst.
