Delius

[pilamenon]

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.

A must for me, too. The previous COTW on Delius was movingly done by Donald McLeod, but this looks like new material. Tasmin Little's recordings of the violin sonatas are amongst my favourite recordings, so am looking forward to hearing her in the concerto.

[BBMmk2]

I havn't looked at the schedule, but TLs recordings of Delius are always worth a listen!!

[Roehre]

I havn't looked at the schedule, but TLs recordings of Delius are always worth a listen!!

A pity they weren't bothered yet to publish the playlists properly

[Pabmusic]

I'm pleased. I've never taken to Delius - why, I don't know, because he superficially 'ticks all the boxes'. Appalachia is probably my favourite, but even there I find myself tiring (for which read 'getting bored') as often as not. I quite accept that it's my problem, not Delius's, so I shall listen each day in the hope that I can expand my mental repertoire.

Incidentally, the only time I had a musical mutiny was with an (amateur) orchestra who had the First Cuckoo on their stands. The strings just refused to play it. Shameful - I suspect they detected my ambivalence.

[Tony Halstead]

Tasmin Little's recordings of the violin sonatas are amongst my favourite recordings, so am looking forward to hearing her in the concerto.

Hmmm... if you can put up with the sickly wobble that passes for a vibrato

[Serial_Apologist]

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

[Flosshilde]

Incidentally, the only time I had a musical mutiny was with an (amateur) orchestra who had the First Cuckoo on their stands. The strings just refused to play it. Shameful - I suspect they detected my ambivalence.

Did they play something else while the rest of the orchestra played 'First cuckoo'?

[Pabmusic]

Did they play something else while the rest of the orchestra played 'First cuckoo'?

That could have worked, couldn't it, in the right programme? No, it happened at rehearsal

[salymap]

I have mixed feelings over Delius. I grew up with the Beecham live performances and recordings and still feel that he got to the heart of the music more than most.
I do find my attention wanders sometimes in certain works though.
My personal memory of Delius is seeing his grave in Limpsfield, Surrey, also taking his own mss score of the Violin Concerto from London to the printing works in Norfolk where it was to be lodged. I managed to have a good look at it on the car journey, signed 'Fritz Delius' of course. I don't know where it is now, that firm being taken over by someone else, a thing that happened constantly in music publishing in my day.

[Lancashire Lass]

I love Delius and am listening to the programme now.

But oh no, the dreaded accessibility question: "So, Tasmin and Julian, how did you first become interested in Delius?"

Why don't they just say "We're professional musicians, it's our b****y job"??

[Nick Armstrong]

Tasmin and Julian

Oh God...

[Nick Armstrong]

Hmmm... if you can put up with the sickly wobble that passes for a vibrato

[Stanley Stewart]

Saly, Do you remember Timothy West's gutsy performance as "Beecham" at the Apollo Theatre(?), Shaftesbury Ave, in the autumn of 1979? He captured the mischievous streak so well and was strangely moving when he mounted the conductor's podium and pointed his baton at a young lad, adding, "And Mozart composed this symphony when he was just your age." I also recorded the performance on video when it was shown on the telly and it is now on my transfer to DVD list.

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.

[salymap]

Saly, Do you remember Timothy West's gutsy performance as "Beecham" at the Apollo Theatre(?), Shaftesbury Ave, in the autumn of 1979? He captured the mischievous streak so well and was strangely moving when he mounted the conductor's podium and pointed his baton at a young lad, adding, "And Mozart composed this symphony when he was just your age." I also recorded the performance on video when it was shown on the telly and it is now on my transfer to DVD list.

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.

Fascinating post from you Stanley. Sorry I remember reading about the Beecham/Timothy West show but didn't see it.

Best wishes

[Panjandrum]

Turning into a bit of a Julian Lloyd Webber benefit this week. I'm half expecting DM to give details of where to buy his Delius arrangements before the end of the week.