Delius

[cloughie]

Yes, cloughie, that'sthe one!

Is Delius, like Tippett, out of fashion, or is British Music out of fashion, as far as Radio 3 is concerned?

Unfortunately, replaced by phone-ins, celebrities, wittering and baroque concertos.

[Don Petter]

Since seeing the Ken Russell Delius film i've had FD's music in my mind and just found (on Spotify) the original Beecham recordings of Brigg Fair, On Cooking the First Hero and The Walk to the Paradise Garden - such eloquent and inspired playing, the years just drop away. Lets hope the Proms include a good selection of FD's music in performances of comparable quality.

I notice that in the February Gramophone anniversary article about Delius none of the twenty suggested CDs are by Beecham! While this suggests that good interpretations abound in the later generations of conductors, it does seem a strange omission. Probably says more about the current magazine than any dimming of his pioneering work and matchless artistry.

[Tony Halstead]

I too noticed that.
I simply assumed that there was a brief to exclude Beecham ( 'too old-fashioned') in favour of modern, 'up-to-date sound' CDs. VERY wrong-headed IMV.
Many of those justifiably legendary Beecham recordings have never been equalled, let alone surpassed.

[Maclintick]

Yes, cloughie, that'sthe one!

Is De3lius, like Tippett, out of fashion, or is British Music out of fashion, as far as Radio 3 is concerned?

It's a strange omission for Radio 3 to have ignored the Delius 150th, with the single exception of the estimable Martin Handley, whose unseasonal introduction of the cuckoo to his Sunday morning programme remains the only offering in this anniversary week. What makes it more puzzling is that the BBC as an organisation suffers from chronic anniversary-itis, so I can only assume that they think poor old Fred D has had his day, along with most of the conductors who championed his works. Does anyone know if there were any celebrations in Bradford this week ?

[Chris Newman]

Many of Tommy's wonderful earlier recordings have been cleaned up on issued on Naxos. Some tracks sound as new as fresh bread when you tap its bottom straight from the oven and surprise the ear when you see that they were indeed recorded in the 1920s. Of course some of the Naxos recordings are from the 50s.

[BBMmk2]

Oh Chris Newman!! I wish I hadn't seen your post!! :)

[salymap]

I too noticed that.
I simply assumed that there was a brief to exclude Beecham ( 'too old-fashioned') in favour of modern, 'up-to-date sound' CDs. VERY wrong-headed IMV.
Many of those justifiably legendary Beecham recordings have never been equalled, let alone surpassed.

I quite agree Waldhorn. I treasure all my Delius/Beecham cassettes and memories of Beecham concerts.

[cloughie]

I quite agree Waldhorn. I treasure all my Delius/Beecham cassettes and memories of Beecham concerts.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sir-Thomas-Beecham-English-Bantock/dp/B004FKMHM0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1328197789&sr=1-1

for a penny short of a tenner - value or not?

[Don Petter]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sir-Thomas-B...8197789&sr=1-1

for a penny short of a tenner - value or not?

If you don't have them on earlier issues (as I have) - jump right in, you can't go wrong.

[cloughie]

If you don't have them on earlier issues (as I have) - jump right in, you can't go wrong.

I actually purchased just before Christmas, trading those I had duplicated. The 'French Music' and 'Later traditions' are also well worth having, again depending on your previous!

[Stanfordian]

I do think his most popular works are always appealing. I do think too, that these works are of high quality (even if we don't know how much Fenby is in it). But I beg to differ regarding all his music being of "consistently high quality".



Wholeheartedly agree with this (though I am not an opera man).
I have heard most, and seen nearly all of his scores.
Hence my reluctance to say that his output is consistently of high quality.

You say, “Hence my reluctance to say that his output is consistently of high quality”. Well you are welcome to your opinion. I still maintain that Delius’s output is of consistently quality. I cannot think of any works of his that I cannot bear to play; I enjoy all of them. Which of course is only my opinion. I would like to know which are these Delius works do you not consider to be of high quality?

The rarely recorded, early Delius score ‘Idylle de Printemps’ has been recorded by the Halle Orchestra /Sir Mark Elder and released last year. One might infer from this that such a neglected score is of poor quality and maybe not worth hearing. I was at the performance of it when it was recorded in Oct 2010. Sir Mark knows a thing or two about Delius and I consider him to be a excellent judge. Although I make no claims for it to be masterwork; I loved it. And how about the ‘Florida Suite’ not bad for a so called ‘apprentice work’; quite wonderful. Personal taste can be strange thing as the ‘Violin Concerto’ seems to be much loved by many Delians but it doesn’t speak to me in the same way others of his works do. Recently I’ve gained lots of pleasure playing ‘The Songs of Farewell’ and the ‘Songs of Sunset’ and ‘Appalachia’.

[Roehre]

You say, “Hence my reluctance to say that his output is consistently of high quality”. Well you are welcome to your opinion. I still maintain that Delius’s output is of consistently quality. I cannot think of any works of his that I cannot bear to play; I enjoy all of them. Which of course is only my opinion. I would like to know which are these Delius works do you not consider to be of high quality?

It seems to be difficult to differentiate a work's qualities from one own's appreciation of a work.

I do like Delius' work generally (I am not very enthousiastic about some of his songs, but I must add that I am not really a song/lied person). That doesn't mean however that all of his works are also really excellent or even good ones.
It is statistically unlikely too, that all of his 114 or so survived works would be of consistently high quality.

To mention some of which "high quality" is disputable:
-Any of his solo piano works
-Zanoni
-the magic Fountain
-Folkeraadet
-Margot la Rouge
-Zarathustras Mitternachtlied (compare that one with Mahler's of R.Strauss renditions e.g.)
-Paa Vidderne (the melodrama, not the orchestral work of that name)
-Sakuntala
-Rhapsodische Variationen
-the 2 Suites d'Orchestre
-La Ronde de déroule
-Eventyr (not convinced of its quality, but for me the jury is still out)
-Suite for violin and orchestra
-Sagen for piano and orchestra (and is the piano concerto really that good?)
-string quartets no.1 and 2 (nice music, but very, very derivative, don't you think?)
-violin sonata in b (the pre-first sonata)
I am not so sure about some of his purely choral works either, btw.

Nearly all of the music listed here is nice music, but qualitatively at the same level as others?
Are these "masterworks"?

Just as Idylle de Printemps isn't such a masterwork, these mentioned here aren't either.

Ergo: there is a difference in quality between the works in Delius' output.
“Hence my reluctance to say that his output is consistently of high quality”
Q.E.D.

[Stanfordian]

It seems to be difficult to differentiate a work's qualities from one own's appreciation of a work.

I do like Delius' work generally (I am not very enthousiastic about some of his songs, but I must add that I am not really a song/lied person). That doesn't mean however that all of his works are also really excellent or even good ones.
It is statistically unlikely too, that all of his 114 or so survived works would be of consistently high quality.

To mention some of which "high quality" is disputable:
-Any of his solo piano works
-Zanoni
-the magic Fountain
-Folkeraadet
-Margot la Rouge
-Zarathustras Mitternachtlied (compare that one with Mahler's of R.Strauss renditions e.g.)
-Paa Vidderne (the melodrama, not the orchestral work of that name)
-Sakuntala
-Rhapsodische Variationen
-the 2 Suites d'Orchestre
-La Ronde de déroule
-Eventyr (not convinced of its quality, but for me the jury is still out)
-Suite for violin and orchestra
-Sagen for piano and orchestra (and is the piano concerto really that good?)
-string quartets no.1 and 2 (nice music, but very, very derivative, don't you think?)
-violin sonata in b (the pre-first sonata)
I am not so sure about some of his purely choral works either, btw.

Nearly all of the music listed here is nice music, but qualitatively at the same level as others?
Are these "masterworks"?

Just as Idylle de Printemps isn't such a masterwork, these mentioned here aren't either.

Ergo: there is a difference in quality between the works in Delius' output.
“Hence my reluctance to say that his output is consistently of high quality”
Q.E.D.

That's quite a list. There cannot be many people that have heard that entire list. About half of them I have enjoyed hearing. There are several on the list that have not heard. I will have to beg to differ with your viewpoint as I still feel that Delius wrote consistently high quality music.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Delius

A real must for me. Having lived in the Scarborough area for 26 years and having repeatedly kicked myself for passing up the opportunity of meeting Eric Fenby (I knew his sister) I have since become more familiar with Delius's music, changing my former dismissive opinion of it.

[BBMmk2]

Well done for doing that EA! A great oppurtunity missed there, for which i would give my eye's teeth for!!

I saw this and thought, goodness! R3 doing something worthwile!!