Delius, Frederick (EN)

Delius Frederick (Fritz) Theodore Albert, *29 January 1862 Bradford, †10 June 1934 Grez-sur-Loing (Seine-et-Marne), English composer. Delius’s ancestors came from Germany. He initially studied piano and violin. Between 1884 and 1886, he was an orange grower in Solano Grove, Florida, where he was introduced to African-American music and studied music theory with a local teacher, T. Ward. Between 1886 and 1888, he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with S. Jadassohn and C. Reinecke, among others. During this time, he became friends with E. Grieg, who persuaded him to move to Paris and introduced him to the Parisian art scene. From 1888, Delius settled permanently in France; until 1899, he lived in Paris, where he befriended P. Gauguin and E. Munch, among others, and where he also became involved with Jelka Rosen, a painter who left behind a number of valuable portraits and sculptures of Delius. He moved with her to Grez-sur-Loing in 1899. The onset of an illness brought back from Florida caused paralysis and loss of sight in 1924; despite this, Delius continued to compose, dictating his last few works to his secretary, the English musician E. Fenby. In 1929, thanks to the initiative of T. Beecham, the first Delius music festival was held in London; In 1962, the Delius Society was founded in England by R. Gibson.

The sources of Delius’s creative ideas included African-American folklore and Scandinavian, English, German and French art. The Afro-American intonations that Delius encountered during his stay in Florida are reflected primarily in his early compositions, including the symphonic poem Hiawatha, the opera Koanga, and Appalachia, a set of variations based on the slave song Oh Honey, I Am Coming Down the River in the Morning. Delius’s interest in Scandinavian literature and music dates back to the beginning of his friendship with Grieg; examples of this can be found in On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, in which Delius used a quotation from a Norwegian folk melody, as well as in the symphonic ballad Eventyr, inspired by a collection of Norwegian fairy tales, and above all in numerous vocal-instrumental works and songs, in which Delius eagerly drew on the texts of Norwegian and Danish poets. The composer was also closely associated with the American poet W. Whitman; an example of the strong connection between his poetry and Delius’s music is the vocal-instrumental poem Sea Drift, which faithfully reflects the emotion of the text. The inspiration drawn from English folklore is evident, among other works, in the rhapsody Brigg Fair, where an English folk melody is the subject of variation. Delius also shared the widespread interest in the works of F. Nietzsche that was prevalent at the time, which was most clearly manifested in A Mass of Life. Delius’s work saw a clash between elements stemming from his fascination with the art and poetics of the North (melancholic moodiness resulting from a preference for slow tempos, avoiding sharp contrasts, adhering to uniformity of expression and using muted dynamics) with impulses stemming from his affinity for French impressionism, especially in the field of tonality and the shaping of melody (parallel chord movement, modal scales, short melodic phrases, repetition or variation of a theme). However, Delius did not fully adopt the impressionist orchestral technique, using more saturated sounds. A distinctive feature of Delius’s music is the obsessive occurrence in his works (including Paris, Life’s Dance, A Village Romeo and Juliet, Sea Drift, Violin Concerto) of a melodic formula containing a sequence of two ascending intervals (a step and a leap of a fourth or fifth) and three descending ones (a step, a leap of a fourth or fifth, and again a step). Against the conservatively and academically oriented output of his English contemporaries, such as E. Elgar, J. Ireland, and A. Bax, Delius’s music stands out for its markedly more radical approach to issues of musical language. 

Literatura: M. Walker, S. Upton Delius Discography, London 1973; R. Threlfall A Catalogue of the Compositions of Frederick Delius, London 1977, 2nd edition with supplement 1984; C. Delius Frederick Delius. Memories of my Brother, London 1935; E. Fenby Delius as I knew him, London 1936, 2nd edition 1948 (reprint 1975), 3rd edition 1966; M. Chop Frederick Delius, Berlin 1907; P. Heseltine (P. Warlock) Frederick Delius, London 1923, 2nd revised edition 1952 (reprint 1974); R.H. Hull Delius, London 1928; A. Hutchings Delius, London 1948; Th. Beecham Frederick Delius, London 1959, 2nd edition 1975; G. Jahoda The Road to Samarkand: Frederick Delius and His Music, New York 1969; E. Fenby Delius, London 1971; L. Carley, R. Threlfall Delius and America, London 1972; A. Jefferson Delius, London 1972; L. Carley Delius. The Paris Years, London 1975; C. Palmer Delius. Portrait of Cosmopolitan, London 1976; A Delius Companion: A 70th birthday tribute to Eric Fenby, ed. Ch. Redwood. London 1976; F. Tomlinson Warlock and Delius, London 1976; L. Carley, R. Threlfall Delius. A Life in Pictures, London 1977; R. Threlfàll Frederick Delius. A Supplementary Catalogue, London 1986; Delius. A Life in Letters, vol. 1: 1862–1908, vol. 2: 1909–1934, ed. L. Carley, London 1983, 1988; R. Threlfàll Delius’ss Unknown Opera “The Magic Fountain”, “Studies in Music” XI, 1977 (Australia); D. Redwood Flecker and Delius. The Making of “Hassan”, London 1978; J. Boulton Smith, Frederick Delius & Edvard Munch – Their Friendship and Their Correspondence, Rickmansworth 1983; The Published Writings of Philip Heseltine on Delius with foreword by E. Fenby, “The Delius Society Journal” XCIV (1987) pp. 1–62; J. Wilson, C.W. Orr The Unknown Song-Writer (contains correspondence between Delius and Orr), London 1989; U. Frandsen Frederick Delius (1862–1934). Ein Verzeichnis der in öffentlichen Musikbibliotheken der Bundesrepublik Deutchland (Alte Bundesländer) vorhandenen Werke, “Forum Musikbibliothek” IV, 1992; M. Pilkington English Solo Song, vol. 3 Delius, Bridge and Somervell, London 1993; Grieg and Delius: A Chronicle of Their Friendship in Letters, ed. L. Carley, London 1993; R. Threlfàll Delius’s Musical Apprenticeship. Incorporating a Survey of the Leipzig Notebooks, London 1994; L. Carley, Frederick Delius: Music, Art, and Literature, Farnham 1998; B. Smith Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock. A Friendship Revealed, Oxford 2000; M. Chop, Ph. Jones The collected writings of the German musicologist Max Chop on the composer Frederick Delius, “Studies in the History & Interpretation of Music” vol. 76, New York 2002; D. Healey The influence of African-American music on the works of Frederick Delius, Philadelphia 2003; M. Christison Huismann Frederick Delius: A Guide to Research, New York/London 2004 (contains a bibliography), 2nd revised edition titled Frederick Delius : A Research and Information Guide, London 2009; L. Jenkins While spring and summer sang: Thomas Beecham and the music of Frederick Delius, Aldershot (Hampshire) 2005; U. Tadday Frederick Delius, Munich 2008; H. Gottlob Frederick Delius, der vergessene Kosmopolit: die Rezeption des englischen Komponisten im deutschsprachigen Kulturraum, Bielefeld 2012; M. Lee-Browne, P. Guinery, M. Elder Delius and his music, Woodbridge (Suffolk) 2014; R.J. Lederman Frederick Delius: controversies regarding his neurological disorder and its impact on his compositional output, in: Music, Neurology, and Neuroscience: Historical Connections and Perspectives, ed. E. Altenmüller, S. Finger, F. Boller, Amsterdam 2015, pp. 217–232; A.J. Boyle Delius and Norway, Melton (Leicestershire) 2017, e-book 2017; C. I. Critchett Proportion and the esoteric: Frederick Delius and his music, Doctoral thesis, The Royal Northern College of Music in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University 2017, on line e-space (mmu.ac.uk); J. Dibble The music of Frederick Delius : style, form, and ethos, Woodbridge (Suffolk) 2021, e-book 2021; “The Delius Society Journal”, 1961–1973 as Newsletter, from 1974 as Journal, ed. Ch. Barnard 1964–1966, J. White 1966-1973, Ch. Redwood 1973-1980, S. Lloyd 1980–1996, R. Buckley 1996–2000, J. Armour-Chélu 2000–2004, M. Lee-Browne 2005–2008, P. Chennell 2005–2013, K. Richman 2013–.