Delius

[Serial_Apologist]

In the light of discussions on the relationship between composers' lives and their music, if any, it was interesting to hear one of this morning's contributers suggesting that the change in ethos in Delius's music after 1898 could be attributed to his quite possibly having fathered a child whom he never saw.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

EA, message 1. I did a double-take when you referred to Eric Fenby's sister. I knew her as Anne Gardiner, advertising manager at Hansom Books (publishers of Music & Musicians, Books and Bookmen, Plays & Players etc) when I took up my first London job with them in the late 1950s. She came to London more than a decade earlier and joined the chorus of Vivian Ellis's, "Bless the Bride" - a genteel but huge post-war success. Anne used to regale me with the substitute racy lyrics they used at matinees! 'This is my lovely day' invites innuendo. Maddeningly, I only met Dr Fenby, briefly, as he was heading for an appointment. We are now talking about 60+ years ago but sister and brother were totally disparate personalities.

I'm also glad to have a video/DVD transfer of "Song of Farewell - Eric Fenby at 90" on my shelves as a companion to Ken Russell's documentary. This film was shown in April 1996 on Tyne Tees (originally a London Weekend TV production ) and was a repeat screening of the documentary made in 1982 when Dr Fenby returned to the Delius estate and reminisced in the house and garden. He repeated the tensions and near disaster in communication in the early years, compounded by his worldly inexperience as he hadn't really left Scarborough until he was 21 when setting off for France. It was the limit of his horizons; the cliffs and 25 Trafalgar Square. Lots of Edwardian historical footage of the Esplanade and Spa. Neat intercutting between the Spa, in 1982, and stills from 60 years earlier when Alexander Maclean, conductor of the Spa orchestra, from 1912-1935, invited to Fenby to conduct one of his early compositions and pressed him to return with further work. We then saw Fenby on the cliffs reading about the plight of Delius and "I decided to pursue the idea of helping like The Hound of Hell". A quite extraordinary sequence in the Delius garden after his amanuensis was summoned to the spot where Delius dictated his notational ideas for 'The Song of Summer' (or 'Farewell' - can't remember) and surprised Fenby by using not only an image, but an image of the bay at Scarborough, from the clifftop, with a seagull flying overhead. This dovetailed nicely, I thought, with an earlier scene where Dr Fenby spoke to pupils at the Yehudi Menuhin School about the difference between melodic prose and melodic verse when playing Delius. He touched the heart when talking about Delius, cruelly emaciated at the end, dying in his arms. "He was a poet of nature, a poet of life...the common things of everyday."

It's probable, EA, that you already have a tape of this programme but I'll happily send a copy with my compliments as we still have an A64 pony express between York and Scarborough! The fill-up programme is "The Quest for Reggie Goodall" (1995) which is also worth shelf space, together with Ken Russell's, South Bank Show on the Symphonies of RVW, accompanied by Ursula VW. Triple goodies.

Many thanks for such a detailed reply, SS. I do indeed have a tape of that programme (somewhere!), but I appreciate the offer. Re Eric's sister, this one wasn't called Anne, so I presume he had more than one sister. This one was called Marjory Halstead, who sang with the local amateur operatic society

[Quarky]

Having spent a long car journey today travelling from London to Paris, and listening to the Radio, it was impressed on me how grateful I should be for programmes of the calibre of COTW, wonderful music (La Calinda!), and a depth of research that may not be matched by biographers of Delius.

French Radio stations in contrast, although there are tons of them, spaced 0.2MHz apart, just offer trash music in contrast, and I ended up listening to the local arabic music stations, which offered by far the most interesting music.

[antongould]

Have to say the Mackerras/WNOO version of "First Cuckoo" was bar far the slowest I have ever heard; imv this is a piece that suffers from being dawdled.

Also I've never quite understood those who, like today's star presenters, argue that Delius was in no way an English composer in manner. I've always felt that Delius's rude rebuffal of the English music tag as applied to himself was a rhetorical determination not to be typecast. While it is of course true that Delius spent most of his adult life abroad, apart from Vaughan Williams and Holst, virtually all the English composers following immediately in his wake, who are described as being typically English in their idioms, came heavily under the spell of his most prominent characteristic, his harmony, along with his way of setting English folk materials.

S-A

Interestingly, to me at least, there is a short piece into today's Sunday Torygraph ( Lady/Leader Gould's choice!) - sorry can't do the links - saying that Delius is not a good composer and the main reason seems to be that he cannot possibly be considered English! I seem to recall Mr. Heffer in his otherwise excellent Saturday Classics floated a similar view. Should we really be giving this outsider so much exposure at the Proms?

[Barbirollians]

Looking on Amazon it seems Boult never recorded any - is that right ?

[Extended Play]

Looking on Amazon it seems Boult never recorded any - is that right ?

Others will be more qualified to answer that question. But I think it is true to say that, throughout Boult's career, when he conducted on the continent, the Soviet Union and the United States, he tried to include at least one British work in nearly every concert. But Delius seems to have been almost entirely absent from those programmes. Nor is there any entry for Delius in the index of Sir Adrian's memoirs, My Own Trumpet

[antongould]

Vernon Handley recalled that Bould disapproved of Bax and Delius "because they were promiscuous and roustabouts and so on"!!!!!!!

[Pabmusic]

Looking on Amazon it seems Boult never recorded any - is that right ?

Almost. He recorded the March Caprice in 1973 for Lyrita.

Vernon Handley recalled that Boult disapproved of Bax and Delius "because they were promiscuous and roustabouts and so on"!!!!!!!

That sounds very Boult-like, although I'd be careful in assuming it's a reason for not conducting their music. Boult did conduct Bax a fair amount (Tintagel mostly) and recorded several works, including the violin concerto, of which he conducted the first performance. He also gave the first performance of Delius's violin concerto and Fantastic Dance. He certainly gave Paris and Brigg Fair as well (see post 26).

I spent half a day with Sir Adrian in 1978 (a memorable event indeed) at his London home, and I asked him why he never seemed interested in Delius. I recall he said that he never could get "below the surface. It's entirely my own fault, of course; Beecham, Sargent and Barbirolli never seemed to have the slightest difficulty." Had I been more mature, or skilled in interviewing (not at all the reason for the meeting) I'd have explored a bit further - perhaps.

[Pabmusic]

Others will be more qualified to answer that question. But I think it is true to say that, throughout Boult's career, when he conducted on the continent, the Soviet Union and the United States, he tried to include at least one British work in nearly every concert. But Delius seems to have been almost entirely absent from those programmes. Nor is there any entry for Delius in the index of Sir Adrian's memoirs, My Own Trumpet

My Own Trumpet is good, but the list of first performances given at the back is limited to the BBC years. Boult gave the first performance of the violin concerto in 1919 with Albert Sammons - and in the composer’s presence. In 1963, Boult recalled in a Third Programme interview that:

“… as the composer was living in London then, we had a good many rehearsals at his home. At one of the last of them we were all horrified to learn that Albert Sammons, who was still in the Guards’ Band, had been detailed for duty all night at a Royal Albert Hall Victory Ball on the very night before the important premiere. Delius nearly went mad, and of course couldn’t understand at all that in the England of 1919 a concert was of quite secondary importance to a grand ball at which, I think, royalty was to be present. We all felt powerless until, some hours later, I remembered that I knew that one of the royal Ladies-in-Waiting was fond of music, and I had actually had the honour of meeting her. So I thereupon telephoned to Sandringham, and I believe that a word to Albert’s Colonel did the trick, and overweighed the jealousy of his bandmaster, who, it was said, had greatly enjoyed refusing leave to the upstart bandsman.”

There exist letters from Delius praising performances of Paris and Brigg Fair, and from Boult, describing the double concerto as a “lovely work”. So (as so often) the truth may lie somewhere between the extremes of sycophancy and antipathy. I suspect that, if he wasn't exactly smitten, it was easier to leave BBC performances of Delius to Beecham, Sargent or Barbirolli as guest conductors.

[amateur51]

I spent half a day with Sir Adrian in 1978 (a memorable event indeed) at his London home, and I asked him why he never seemed interested in Delius. I recall he said that he never could get "below the surface. It's entirely my own fault, of course; Beecham, Sargent and Barbirolli never seemed to have the slightest difficulty." Had I been more mature, or skilled in interviewing (not at all the reason for the meeting) I'd have explored a bit further - perhaps.

Gosh, Pabs - many thanks for sharing these wonderful memories

[BBMmk2]

Gosh, Pabs - many thanks for sharing these wonderful memories

Indeed. These lifes experiences with great people are awe inspiring, to say the least. Thank you from me as well Pabnusic.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Gosh, Pabs - many thanks for sharing these wonderful memories

[Extended Play]

#25 and 26: Thank you, Pabmusic, for shedding much more light on the subject than I was able to do.

I'd actually been looking through the second list of performances at the end of Boult's book. This covers concerts abroad from 1912 to 1966. Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Holst, Bliss and others are there in abundance, of course, but I spotted only two performances of Delius -- Song Before Sunrise in 1947, and the Piano Concerto in 1956.

Like the others above, may I say thank you for sharing that recollection of your conversation with the great man. Lucky you! I can't begin to match that: but I do have a clear memory of seeing him display a perhaps unexpected skill in the main street of West Hampstead one day in the early 1970s. All of a sudden, the straight-backed figure, elegantly attired, shot into the road and leapt nimbly on to the open platform of a moving 159 bus.

[salymap]

Thanks pabmusic, wonderful posts from you.

I often saw Sir Adrian but only had a good chat with him once,not at home but in his BBC office, with his faithful secretary, Gwen Beckett [sp?]

He was charming to a nervous young person who was trying to interest him in Augener's orchestral catalogues, actually ordered something, talked free2ly about all sorts of things, including his leading double-bass player's son, who was his godson," he has my name but I don't like his music", and struck me as a man of very fixed ideas and views on music.

I'm sure as can be that he didn't dislike Bax or Delius on moral or any grounds than that their music just wasn't to his taste, as he would have put it.

Re buses, Malcolm Sargent, when criticised by Boult in the early days, for always taking a taxi everywhere,
said, "Well Adrian, it's toleave more room on the bus for you.

[Barbirollians]

Splendid stuff - thanks such a lot Pabmusic.