Originally posted by Serial_Apologist
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Yes, S_A, I do mainly agree with your full summary but I note too that you don't link the hedonism directly with the music. The piece that was played with the Parisian dancing girls did not sound particularly ooh la la to me. What there was in it was the sound of night traffic etc which I thought particularly fascinating given that VW's A London Symphony - arguably my favourite piece of classical music - came afterwards. The latter, even with similar movement, and Big Ben manages to sound bucolic and I feel now that the same to a lesser extent was true of that period of Delius. There was a mixture of things going on there perhaps but the later pieces arguably seem more passionate in the broad sense of that word.
I think too that he was taking in tremendous amounts of colour in all ways which is heard almost overwhelmingly in the music. Who am I to know any more than anybody else living today. We heard a wide range of interpretation. However, I feel that he was carrying some sort of burden in that process rather than simply indulging and being blase. Part of it was meeting a standard as per upbringing. Another was in the formulation - turning all the materials into musical structure.
As for Pink Floyd, the excesses would not have been the problem for him so much as their increasing emphasis on technical ability and dexterity to the detriment of subtlety, nuance and any identifiable positive emotion. Leonard Cohen has never been depressing, whatever is said, but, god, they were. The post Barrett stuff - I can't listen to them.
Caliban - I'm not sure what the date of that clip was but I wonder if Beecham was doing a Churchill.
(I am in no way criticising Beecham for his achievements by the way)
). And his attitude to Black people needed greater teasing out too - aside from his sexual conquests and penchant for 'exotic women', did he have any Black friends?
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