Frederick Delius

 A Drowsy Walk Through the Garden

Frederick Delius
(1862-1934)

When I first heard the music of Delius as a youngster, to say I was impatient is an understatement. Nowadays, I delight in the composer's slow-moving, unhurried manner, yet I have to be in a certain frame of mind for his music to find ultimate success.

Delius is a British composer where I hear more influences from Germany and France. His later music was highly chromatic, yet affably so, and his earlier works were rather Romantic sounding, my preference from him. The names of Debussy and Wagner easily comes to mind listening to his style.

In his orchestral works, the dreaminess quotient is enhanced. To describe them as a snoozy afternoon sitting in a garden is both accurate, after all he loved nothing more than sitting in his garden, and an unfair assessment. Delius does enjoy visualized musical landscapes however, and perhaps they are the most famous of his output. In Delius' choral music, his style almost sounds jazzy to my ears.

Delius was championed by Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Charles Groves, and Sir John Barbirolli. There is quite the output of mono recordings from Beecham, and more recently, the late Sir Andrew Davis put down some of his music on Chandos.

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