The Pennsylvania State University

The Graduate School

UNDER WAGNER’S SHADOW:

DELIUS’S USE OF WAGNERIAN MODELS IN THE MAGIC FOUNTAIN ​

A Thesis in

Music Theory and History

by

Timothy M. Farrand

© 2020 Timothy M. Farrand

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

December 2020

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The thesis of Timothy M. Farrand was reviewed and approved by the following:

Charles Youmans Professor of Music Thesis Advisor

Eric McKee Professor of Music

David Frego Director of the School of Music

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ABSTRACT

After 1900, Frederick Delius’s unique compositional style bears little resemblance to any singular influence. In the thirty-eight year apprentice period that led to the development of this style, Delius drew upon a wide range of references from the Norwegian mountains, to the

“Negro” spirituals sung by former slaves in Florida, to the dramatic style of Richard Wagner.

Studies have been written detailing the impact that his two years spent in Florida had on Delius as well as the twenty visits that he made to Norway throughout his life, ten of which occurred during his apprentice period. Several scholars have pointed out the similarities between Delius’s early harmonic language and that of Richard Wagner but there has not been a study showing the importance of Wagner’s influence upon the development of Delius’s dramatic style. In the creation of his second opera The Magic Fountain (1894-95), Delius used the operatic works of ​ ​ Richard Wagner, specifically Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal, as musical, dramatic, and ​ ​ ​ ​ philosophical models. The use of Wagner’s works as a model for The Magic Fountain allowed ​ ​ Delius to discover his own artistic voice, which he continued to refine until it was fully formed in

1900. This thesis reveals the overlooked importance of Wagner in Delius’s artistic development.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF EXAMPLES….………………………………………………………………..v ​ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………...vii ​ Introduction………………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter 1 UNDER WAGNER’S SHADOW…………………………………………….3

Frederick Delius Encounters Richard Wagner……………………………………...3 Dramatic Art as Replacement for Religion…………………………………………7 Delius’s Dramatic Ideals…………………………………………………………... 13

Chapter 2 THE MAGIC FOUNTAIN ACT I…………………………………………....20

Act I………………………………………………………………………………....21 Introduction to Act I…………………………………………………………...21 Wagner’s Hirtenreigen………………………………………………………...26 ​ ​ Delius’s Fate Theme and Wagner’s Hirtenreigen…………………………….28 ​ ​ Determination Motif, Fountain Theme, and Ambition Motif………………....29 Layering of the Fate Theme…………………………………………………...31 Act I, Scene 2………………………………………………………………….44

Chapter 3 THE MAGIC FOUNTAIN ACTS II AND III………………………………..46

Watawa’s Theme……………………………………………………….……...46 Amfortas’s Theme……………………………………………………………..48 Act II………………………………………………………………………………..50 Wapanacki and Gurnemanz: Voices of Reason………………………………52 Act II, Scene 2………………………………………………………....……...53 Talum Hadjo and Titurel……………………………………………………...55 Fate Motif’s Association with Watawa……………………………………….56 Act III……………………………………………………………………………....62 Transformation of Fate Motif into the Love Theme…………………………..64

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..77

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LIST OF EXAMPLES

Chapter 2

2.1: The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction mm. 1-16……………………………….....23 ​ ​ ​ 2.2: Fate Theme The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction mm. 17-20………...... 24 ​ ​ ​ 2.3: Fate Theme The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 2 mm. 514-26……………………...25 ​ ​ ​ 2.4: “Hirtenreigen” Tristan und Isolde Act III, Scene 1………………………………....27 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2.5: Determination Motif The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction mm. 28-30………….30 ​ ​ ​ 2.6: Fountain Theme The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction reh. A, mm. 34-41……....30 ​ ​ ​ 2.7: Ambition Motif The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction reh. B, mm. 53…………..30 ​ ​ ​ 2.8: The Magic Fountain Act 1, Scene I reh. C, mm. 74-85…………………………….31 ​ ​ ​ 2.9: The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 1 mm. 114-40…………………………………...35 ​ ​ ​ 2.10: The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 1 mm. 171-93………………………………….41 ​ ​ ​ 2.11: The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 1 reh. N, mm. 298-9…………………………...44 ​ ​ ​ 2.12: The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 1 mm. 309-10………………………………….44 ​ ​ ​

Chapter 3

3.1: Watawa’s Theme The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 2 reh. Aa, mm. 557-59……….47 ​ ​ ​ ​ 3.2: Solano Motif The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 2 mm. 651-2……………………...49 ​ ​ ​ 3.3: Amfortas Motif Parsifal Act I mm. 151-4…………………………………………..50 ​ ​ ​ 3.4: Solemn Theme The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 1 reh. B, mm. 45-52…………...52 ​ ​ ​ 3.5: Grail Motif Parsifal Act I mm. 39-43………………………………………………52 ​ ​ ​ 3.6: Solano’s Theme The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 2 mm. 641-3…………………..56 ​ ​ ​ ​ 3.7: The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 545-6……………………………………59 ​ ​ ​ 3.8: Tender Motif The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 605-7……………………..60 ​ ​ ​

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3.9: The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 668-9……………………………………61 ​ ​ ​ 3.10: Variation of Ambition Motif The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 681-2…...61 ​ ​ ​ 3.11: The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 682-89…………………………………62 ​ ​ ​ 3.12: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 26-31…………………………………………...65 ​ ​ ​ 3.13: Love Theme The Magic Fountain Act III reh. F, mm. 77-83……………………...66 ​ ​ ​ ​ 3.14: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 134-5…………………………………………...67 ​ ​ ​ 3.15: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 158-9…………………………………………...68 ​ ​ ​ 3.16: Kiss Theme The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 251-4……………………………...70 ​ ​ ​ 3.17: The Magic Fountain Act III reh. S, mm. 287-8……………………………………70 ​ ​ ​ 3.18: The Magic Fountain Act III m. 314………………………………………………..71 ​ ​ ​ 3.19: The Magic Fountain Act III reh. Aa, mm. 421-2………………………………….71 ​ ​ ​ 3.20: The Magic Fountain Act III reh. Ee, mm. 489-91…………………………………72 ​ ​ ​ 3.21: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 539-40………………………………………….73 ​ ​ ​ 3.22: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 553-5…………………………………………...73 ​ ​ ​ 3.23: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 579-91………………………………………….74 ​ ​ ​

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my thesis advisor Dr. Charles Youmans for his continued support in the research and construction of this thesis. From the long conversations in his office to Zoom meetings when speaking in person was no longer an option, his positivity and excitement have always inspired me to follow my curiosity and explore every avenue. His commitment to excellence and his skillful editing have made me a better writer and his abundant knowledge of 19th century philosophy and music have been an invaluable resource. Throughout this entire process he has made himself available to give guidance when I needed it as well as allowing me the freedom and flexibility to change and adapt along the way as I uncovered new ideas. He has been a mentor since the first class I had with him and his encouragement has played a large role in bringing me to where I am today. I will always be grateful for his support and the many lessons I have learned over the last six years.

I am grateful to Dr. Eric McKee who not only served as my second reader but also helped me discover additional connections between Delius and Wagner. His support has allowed me the opportunity to teach Music Theory these last two years which has been the experience that I have most cherished during my time at Penn State. I would like to thank Dr. Taylor Greer for the many spirited hallway conversations we have had about music and teaching throughout the last six years. His tireless efforts on behalf of his students have been an inspiration to me and something that I aspire to emulate with my own students.

viii I would like to sincerely thank Dr. Maureen Carr for the encouragement she has given me over the last few years. It is due to her urgings that I decided to pursue this degree and for that I am extremely grateful. I had the wonderful opportunity to serve as her TA for two years and the lessons I have learned from her as a teacher, writer, researcher, and person are innumerable. She has always been supportive of me and it is because of her efforts that this thesis has come into being. I would like to thank Dr. Mark

Ferraguto, Dr. Marica Tacconi, Dr. Vincent Benitez, and Prof. Tom Cody for their instruction over the last six years as well as Prof. Gerardo Edelstein whose joy for life and dedication to his students has inspired me to enjoy every opportunity I have been given.

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their continued love and support throughout my academic and musical adventures. I am grateful to my mom and brother for picking up the phone whenever I needed someone to talk to. To Tara Kelly, your love and support have been the driving factor behind everything I do. Thank you for your encouragement and your willingness to listen as it was our conversations that lit the spark that became this thesis.

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Introduction

The musicologist Deryck Cooke writes that "to declare oneself a confirmed Delian is

1 hardly less self-defamatory than to admit to being an addict of cocaine and marihuana." ​ Eric ​ Fenby, explaining Delius’s appeal, states: "The music of Delius is not an acquired taste. One either likes it the moment one first hears it, or the sound of it is once and forever distasteful to one. It is an art which will never enjoy an appeal to the many, but one which will always be

2 loved, and dearly loved, by the few." ​ Delius’s style is unique, being described as “the cutting ​ 3 edge of Romanticism and early twentieth-century modernism yet . . . beholden to neither.” ​ His ​ style was gradually developed by the variety of influences he encountered during what Anthony

Payne calls his long “apprentice period.”4 ​ Delius was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire and quickly became an associate of his father’s wool business. Impatient with professional errands that sent him to Denmark, Norway,

Germany, and Paris, Delius eventually freed himself. He ventured on his own to Florida where he oversaw an orange grove at the age of twenty-two, and there he came into contact with his first major musical influence: the “Negro” spiritual. After two years in America, Delius returned to Europe to pursue a musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory where he first encountered the music of Richard Wagner and met Edvard Grieg. The importance of “Negro” spirituals and

Edvard Grieg on his development have been outlined in several studies. What has largely been overlooked is the importance of Richard Wagner on Delius’s stylistic development.

1 Deryck Cooke, “Delius the Unknown,” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 89th Sess. (1962-63): 17. ​ ​ 2 Eric Fenby, Delius as I Knew Him, 3rd rev. ed. (Raincliffe Books, 2019), 208. ​ ​ 3 Daniel M. Grimley, Delius and the Sound of Place (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 1. ​ ​ 4 Anthony Payne, “Delius’s Stylistic Development,” Tempo, no. 60 (Winter 1961-62): 7. This period contains the ​ ​ first 38 years of Delius’s life. It was not until 1900 that Delius’s style was fully developed, resulting in the breaking away from his earlier influences.

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This thesis aims to reveal how Delius used Wagner as a musical and philosophical model in the construction of his second opera, The Magic Fountain (1894-95), and the importance of ​ ​ this process in the development of Delius’s dramatic style. The Magic Fountain draws more ​ ​ directly on Wagnerian models than any other work in Delius’s output. By immersing himself in

Wagner’s dramatic works, Delius laid the foundation for his own artistic voice to emerge.

Chapter 1 discusses Delius’s first encounters with the music of Wagner and Delius’s pledge to

5 “[follow] in Wagner’s footsteps” as he began to form his own artistic vision. ​ Chapters 2 and 3 ​ examine the various ways in which Delius used Wagner as a model in The Magic Fountain, ​ ​ tracking elements from Tristan und Isolde and Parsfial in order to highlight Delius’s reliance on ​ ​ ​ ​ Wagner in the shaping of the unique style that has never been universally accepted but survives thanks to a few ardent admirers.

5 Frederick Delius to Jutta Bell, May 29th, 1894. Lionel Carley, Delius: A Life in Letters, I: 1862-1908 (Cambridge, ​ ​ ​ ​ MA.: Harvard University Press, 1984), 86.

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Chapter 1

Under Wagner’s Shadow

Frederick Delius Encounters Richard Wagner

In the summer of 1894, Frederick Delius traveled to Bayreuth and then on to Munich to immerse himself in the works of Richard Wagner. “I am really very glad I came here, it will no

6 doubt be of great benefit to me.” ​ This pilgrimage was the culmination of Delius's fascination ​ with Wagner, which had begun when he had the "great thrill" of hearing "the Walküren" as a

7 boy. ​ While studying at the Leipzig Conservatory (1886-1888), Delius attended numerous ​ performances of Wagner’s operas, accompanied by his friend and mentor Edvard Grieg. The works most often performed were "Nibelungen, Tristan, and Meistersinger" with Delius noting that he and Grieg "never missed a performance."8 ​ These were "red-letter days" as Sir Thomas Beecham pointed out in his biography of

Delius, highlighting that Arthur Nikisch’s performances of Tristan und Isolde would have been ​ ​

9 particularly illuminating for the young composer. ​ Delius also heard performances conducted by ​ Nikisch's assistant Gustav Mahler, whom Delius considered "the finest conductor in the world."10 ​

6 Delius to Jutta Bell, August 12th, 1894. Lionel Carley, Delius: A Life in Letters, I: 1862-1908 (Cambridge, MA.: ​ ​ ​ ​ Harvard University Press, 1984), 90. 7 Carley, Delius (I), 380. “The next great thrill I got was when I heard Wagner's music. It was the Walküren Ritt ​ ​ ​ ​ played by the Hallé orchestra. I must have been seven or eight." 8 Lionel Carley, Grieg and Delius: A Chronicle of Their Friendship in Letters (London: M. Boyars, 1993), 32. ​ ​ Delius wrote on his days in Leipzig: "We also very often went to the Opera together, for "Nibelungen', 'Tristan' and 'Meistersinger' were constantly given and of course we never missed a performance." 9 Sir Thomas Beecham, Frederick Delius (London: Hutchinson, 1959), 35. ​ ​ 10 Delius to Granville Bantock, November 21st, 1908. Carley, Delius (I), 374-5. "I think I could also get Gustav ​ ​ ​ ​ Mahler – the finest conductor in the world – to come & conduct one of his symphonies – or Choral Symphonies" While he considered him a great conductor, he did not seem to care for him as a composer: "They play a good deal of Mahler in Germany at present & we have already heard 3 Symphonies – I find them dull pretentious & unoriginal" Delius to C. W. Orr, February 7th, 1921. Lionel Carley, Delius: A Life in Letters, II: 1909-1934 ​ ​ ​ (London: Scholar Press, 1988), 242.

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Percy Pitt, Delius's peer at the Leipzig Conservatory, gave a description of student life in the city at that time. The opera season "flowed in one rich and constant stream; everything by everybody, except Parsifal, which was still copyright and confined to Bayreuth. The conductors were Arthur ​ ​ Nikisch and Gustav Mahler, founts of joy and inspiration." After the performances, the students,

"young and hopeful and wild with enthusiasm," would go to "supper at Helbig's. . . to talk and argue and laugh and drink the light German beer. . ."11 ​ Delius also heard composers such as Johannes Brahms and Pyotr Tchaikovsky conduct their own works, but these did not have the same effect on him as Wagner's operas. Writing to

Philip Heseltine in 1912, Delius commented, "Brahms I never liked much & never shall – it is philistin music – altho' some of the chamber music is good – But to have to get accustomed to music is a fearfully bad sign – The sort of people who get accustomed to music are the unmusical

12 & when once accustomed to it they will hear no other. . .." ​ Of all the composers Delius ​ encountered growing up it was only Frédéric Chopin, Edvard Grieg, Johann Sebastian Bach, and

13 Richard Wagner that he identified as a positive influence on his early development. ​ And as ​

11 Carley, Delius (I), 6-7. There is a long description of Leipzig, here is a paragraph on the opera: "And as for opera, ​ ​ municipal of course, it flowed in one rich and constant stream; everything by everybody, except Parsifal, which was ​ ​ still copyright and confined to Bayreuth. The conductors were Arthur Nikisch and Gustav Mahler, founts of joy and inspiration. . . . And all this was to be enjoyed in the company of kindred spirits, young and hopeful and wild with enthusiasm. 'Kneipen', it was called – to go and hear the opera, and then on to supper at Helbig's with a dozen ​ ​ fellows who had been there too, to talk and argue and laugh and drink the light German beer. . ." 12 Delius to Phillip Heseltine, September 24th, 1912. Barry Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock: A ​ Friendship Revealed (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 56. Philip Hesletine was known professionally as Peter ​ Warlock. 13 There are two main instances where Delius describes his earliest encounters with music and the effect they had on him. The first is in a letter to Philip Heseltine, September 24th, 1912, that reads: "When I first heard Chopin as a little boy of 6 or 7, I thought heaven had been opened to me – When also as a little boy I first heard the Humoresken of Grieg – a new world was opened to me again – When at the age of 23 I heard Tristan – I was perfectly overcome – also when I heard Lohengrin as a schoolboy. Beethoven always left me cold & reserved – Bach I always loved more – it seemed to me more spontaneous – Brahms I never liked much & never shall – it is philistin music – altho' some of the chamber music is good – But to have to get accustomed to music is a fearfully bad sign – The sort of people who get accustomed to music are the unmusical & when once accustomed to it they will hear no other. . ." Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 56. ​ ​ The second account is in a description of his life as a child which is included as Appendix I in Carley, Delius (I), ​ ​ 379-80: "As a child I had only heard music of Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and shall never forget the thrill I got when I first heard someone play the posthumous waltz of Chopin, which seemed as if an entirely new world had opened to me. My attempts to play it by ear must have been curious to listeners, but still I managed to do

5

Beecham observed, the most significant work of any composer for Delius was Tristan und ​ Isolde, which left him "perfectly overcome" when he first heard a performance at the age of ​ twenty-three.14 ​ Upon Delius's graduation from the Leipzig Conservatory, Delius's Father, Julius Delius,

15 presented him with a score of Tristan und Isolde, ​ a gift that would influence a number of works ​ ​ ​

16 between 1888 and 1900 with uneven results. ​ In 1888, Delius sent Grieg a copy of his Paa ​ ​ Vidderne for comments, to which Grieg replied that a "Norwegian melody and a Wagnerian ​ treatment of the voice are dangerous things indeed to try to reconcile."17 ​ After leaving Leipzig, Delius went to Paris, with financial assistance from his father, to

18 join the artistic circles in which his uncle Theodor had long been involved. ​ One of these groups ​ was an informal "Wagner Society" where Delius was able to extend his familiarity with

it. The next great thrill I got was when I heard Wagner's music. It was the Walküren Ritt played by the Hallé orchestra. I must have been seven or eight." 14 Beecham, Frederick Delius, 35. ​ ​ 15 Delius to Edvard Grieg, April 25th, 1888. Carley, Grieg and Delius, 45-6. "My father has delighted me by giving ​ ​ me the score of Tristan und Isolde." 16 Elements of Tristan und Isolde can be found in each of his first four operas dating from 1892-1900. ​ ​ 17 Delius to Edvard Grieg, September 23rd, 1888. Carley, Delius (I), 24. ​ ​ 18 It was Edvard Grieg that persuaded his father to let him continue his pursuit of music instead of returning to Bradford for the purpose of entering back into the family wool trading business. In a letter to Frederick Delius, which is unusually formal, Grieg writes: “I was pleasantly surprised, indeed stimulated, by your manuscripts and I detect in them signs of a most distinguished compositional talent in the grand style, which aspires to the highest goal. Whether you will reach this goal only depends upon what turn your affairs take. If you will permit me, in the interests of your future, to offer you a piece of advice, (it is as an older artist that I take the liberty of doing this) it would be this, that you devote yourself now, while you are still young, fully to the pursuit of your art, rather than accept a formal position, and that you follow both your own true nature and the inner voice of your ideals and your inclinations. However, in order to achieve this it is essential that you choose the national and artistic environment as dictated to you by your genius. It is my fervent wish that you will one day find in your own country the recognition which you deserve, as well as the material means towards the achievement of your splendid goal and I do not doubt for a moment that you will succeed. With the assurance of my warm sympathy Yours very truly Edvard Grieg” Edvard Grieg to Delius, February 28th, 1888. Carley, Delius (I), 13. ​ ​ Lionel Carley, the foremost scholar on the letters of Frederick Delius, has concluded that the formality of the letter indicates that it was meant to be shown to Delius's father as proof that he had potential and a life in music was something that he could make for himself. See footnote, Carley, Delius (I), 13. ​ ​ ​ ​

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Wagner's operas. Ragnhild Juel, a Norwegian opera singer who was introduced to Delius through their mutual friend Edvard Munch, gave an account of this group in a letter from October 1892:

Through [Delius] I have been included in a little Wagner Society which is terrifically

interesting – there are four gentlemen, including Delius, who play Wagner's operas in

versions for eight hands, while I and an excellent baritone add the vocal parts. It is

terrifically interesting and educational for me – all the gentlemen are excellent musicians

and a couple of them first rate pianists [. . .]19 ​

Andrew Boyle has established that the society was most likely a gathering of composers and "enthusiasts at Rue Vercingétorix" in the studio of Ida Ericson and William Molard, her

20 husband. ​ They held frequent gatherings of young artists in their salon as Thomas Millroth ​ explores in his book Molard's Solang. In reference to the group that Ragnhild Juel named the ​ ​ "Wagner Society," Millroth writes:

No doubt every aspect of Wagner was turned inside out when Molard and his composer

friends got together on Saturday – a circle that embraced Maurice Ravel, Léon Moreau,

Florent Schmitt, Déodat de Séverac, Fritz Delius and others.21 ​

It was at this time that Delius wrote his first opera, Irmelin (1890-2), in which influences ​ ​

22 of Wagner can be heard in the harmony, extensive use of leitmotifs, and vocal lines. ​ Out of all ​ 19 Andrew Boyle, Delius and Norway (Woodbridge, The Boydell Press: 2017), 99-100. ​ ​ 20 Ibid., 100 21 Thomas Millroth, Mollards Solang, quoted in Boyle, Delius and Norway, 100-01. ​ ​ ​ ​ 22 For more information on Irmelin, see: Paul Guinery and Martin Lee-Browne, Delius and His Music (Woodbridge: ​ ​ ​ ​ The Boydell Press, 2014), 45-9.; Beecham, Frederick Delius, 56-8; Alan Jefferson, Delius (London: J. M. Dent & ​ ​ ​ ​ Sons, 1972), 28-29; Geoffrey Attwell, “Irmelin - A Neglected Opera,” Delius Society Journal 102 (Autumn 1989): ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

7 the music Delius was exposed to as a boy in Bradford, in Florida in his early twenties, during his time in Leipzig, the musical capital of the world at that time, and in the vibrant musical culture of

Paris, where he encountered many of the city’s finest composers, it was Wagner’s music that most affected him during these apprentice years. While not his only influence, Wagner was certainly the one who shaped his writing for the stage, and it was Wagner's dramas that pushed

Delius towards crafting a vision for his art.

Dramatic Art as Replacement for Religion

In 1894, ten years after his life-altering encounter with Tristan und Isolde, Delius decided ​ ​ to use Richard Wagner as his model for the development of his dramatic style. Writing to Jutta

23 Bell, ​ his former neighbor during his time living in Florida (1884-86) and assistant in the ​ construction of the libretti for his second and third operas, Delius described steeping himself in

Wagner’s works: “I received your letter on the point of starting for Munich. In Bayreuth I heard

‘Parsifal’ twice and Tannhauser once. . . Before leaving Munich I shall hear the Nibelungen 3

24 times, Tristan und Isolde 3 times and the Meistersingers 3 times.” ​ By the end of the summer, ​ Delius had spent over eighty hours in performances of works by Richard Wagner, all within the

15-20; Robert Threlfall, “Irmelin and Her Prelude,” Delius Society Journal 146 (Autumn 2009): 50-4; Geoffrey G. ​ ​ Hoare, “‘Irmelin’: A Bitter Pill for Beecham,’ Delius Society Journal 63 (April 1979): 15-19. ​ ​ 23 Delius to Jutta Bell, February 9th, 1896. Carley, Delius (I), 98. "There is in spite of everything something big ​ ​ about your nature which not only commands my respect but also my greatest sympathy. I believe you are after all about the best woman I ever met." 24 Delius to Jutta Bell, August 12th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 90. “I received your letter on the point of starting for ​ ​ Munich. In Bayreuth I heard “Parsifal” twice and Tannhauser once. Parsifal is magnificent: the finest work of Wagner The orchestra and theatre are perfect. I am really very glad I came here, it will no doubt be of great benefit to me. Before leaving Munich I shall hear the Nibelungen 3 times, Tristan und Isolde 3 times and the Meistersingers 3 times. On my return to Paris I will read you all my sketches for Watawa and shall not give the final form to the poem before being settled down again. I change and alter and rewrite a great deal. Therefore I dont like to shew my first sketches. The whole however is very clear before me now and in a fortnights work I shall be able to give the proper poetic form. . . Only a woman could have conceived Watawa like you have done, therefore all your thoughts will be of great value to me. I want to make the poem very concise, not a word to much philosophical or psychological – as the drama – as I have conceived it – requires.”

8 span of a few weeks. Delius wrote to Bell, "I am really very glad that I came here, it will no doubt be of great benefit to me."25 ​ This journey would leave Delius with ideas about the formation of his next opera, The ​ Magic Fountain (1894-5). "The whole, however, is very clear before me now and in a fortnights ​

26 work I shall be able to give the proper poetic form," ​ he wrote to Bell while drafting the libretto ​ during this same summer. Parsifal was an especially important model: "Parsifal is magnificent: ​ ​

27 the finest work of Wagner. The orchestra and theatre are perfect." ​ But what struck him was not ​ only their musical construction but the encompassing ideals he saw for the potential of his art: "I want to tread in Wagner's footsteps and even give something more in the right direction," Delius

28 had proclaimed to Bell in May of 1894. ​ This “right direction” involved religion, and ​ particularly the supplanting of religion by art: "dramatic art is almost taking the place of religion.

29 People are sick of being preached to. But by being played to, they may be worked upon." ​ And ​ similarly: "I want to say something to the world very serious & music & poetry are only my means."30 ​ A confirmed atheist, Delius found support for his project in the works of Friedrich

Nietzsche. Writing to Philip Heseltine, Delius observed that after encountering the writings of

Nietzsche he felt an urge to become a philosopher, but decided that he "was not a philosopher

25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Delius to Jutta Bell, May 29th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 86. "Please tell me more fairy tales. I love them as much ​ ​ as you do, and we might weave some together for our purpose. I should, as I said before, like to give all my works a deeper meaning. I want to say something to the world very serious & music & poetry are only my means. You might really be of great help to me as I see in you a sister nature to mine. You are about the only woman that understands a little what I am driving at. But I want to tread in Wagner's footsteps and even give something more in the right direction. For me dramatic art is almost taking the place of religion. People are sick of being preached to. But by being played to, they may be worked upon." 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid.

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31 but a musician & would have to restrict [his] powers to one of these two.” ​ Like Nietzsche, ​ Delius believed that there was a moral force in religion that needed to find its way to the public by a different route. Delius's answer was through "dramatic art," in which preaching was

32 replaced by a conveyance of "deeper meaning" through the artform itself. ​ Here Delius seems ​ drawn to vestiges of Romanticism in the young Nietzsche, e.g. the conviction expressed by

Arthur Schopenhauer, that art contains "the eternal ideas. . . essential and abiding in all the phenomena of the world."33 ​ Nietzsche’s post-Wagnerian (i.e., anti-Romantic) ideas also appealed to Delius. With his proclamation that "God is dead," Nietzsche argued that without a replacement for religion, the whole of humanity would descend into nihilism, given that "our entire European morality" was

34 "built upon [the Christian God]." ​ Delius hoped to forestall this outcome with dramas conveying ​ 31 Delius to Philip Heseltine, May 11th, 1916. Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 220. “[Your letter] ​ ​ shews me that the ‘Christian world’ is gradually revealing itself to you as it revealed itself to me, – when I was about your age & went to Florida, – in all its colossal hypocrisy, brutality, & materialism & you can understand my enthusiasm when I suddenly opened Nietzsche for the first time – with his readjustment of values & his wonderful & daring frankness & courage. His attack on Christianity & the whole existing state of things – It absorbed me so much that after reading most of his works some again & again I came to the conclusion that I was not a philosopher ​ ​ but a musician & would have to restrict my powers to one of these two – Philosopher is a rotten word – Reformer would be better – Nietzsche was not a philosopher either – but a gigantic reformer, an enthusiast & poet. . ." 32 See footnote 28. 33 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, vol. 1, Section 36, trans. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, 7th ed. ​ ​ (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1909), 246, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38427/38427-pdf.pdf. ". . .[Art] repeats or reproduces the eternal Ideas grasped through pure contemplation, the essential and abiding in all the phenomena of the world; and according to what the material is in which it reproduces, it is sculpture or painting, poetry or music. Its one source is the knowledge of Ideas; its one aim is the communication of this knowledge." 34 Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Gay Science: Book V, Section 343,” in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. by ​ ​ ​ ​ Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 447-48. "The background of our cheerfulness. The greatest ​ ​ recent event – that “God is dead,” that the belief in the Christian God has ceased to be believable – is even now beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe. For the few, at least, whose eyes, whose suspicion in their eyes, is ​ ​ strong and sensitive enough for this spectacle, some sun seems to have set just now. . . . In the main, however, this may be said: the event itself is much too great, too distant, too far from the comprehension of the many even for the tidings of it to be thought of as having arrived yet, not to speak of the notion that many people might know what has ​ ​ really happened here, and what must collapse now that this belief has been undermined – all that was built upon it, leaned on it, grew into it; for example, our whole European morality. . . Even we born guessers of riddles who are, as it were, waiting on the mountains, put there between today and tomorrow, we firstlings and premature births of the coming century, to whom the shadows that must soon envelop Europe really should have appeared by now – ​ ​ why is it that even we look forward to it without any real compassion for this darkening, and above all without any worry and fear for ourselves? Is it perhaps that we are still too deeply impressed by the first consequences of this ​ ​ event – and these first consequences, the consequences for us, are perhaps the reverse of what one might expect: not ​ ​ at all sad and dark, but rather like a new, scarcely describable kind of light, happiness, relief, exhilaration, encouragement, dawn? Indeed, we philosophers and “frees spirits” feel as if a new dawn were shining on us when

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35 universal moral truth that moves "the human spirit forward." ​ For this, he turned to fairy tales. ​ Writing again to Bell, Delius asked for "more fairy tales . . . [so that] we might weave some

36 together for our purpose" adding that these tales "give all my works a deeper meaning." ​ Delius, ​ like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (and later Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell), knew that societies

37 used myths and rituals as a way for transmitting moral philosophies and universal truths. ​ By ​ incorporating myth in his operas, and by a carefully planned absence of "realism," Delius hoped

38 to divorce morality and truth from religion, conveying his beliefs on the stage. ​ Eric Fenby, ​ Delius's amanuensis in the last years of his life, wrote that "music, for [Delius], to use his own words, was simply and solely the means of expressing ‘the imminent, unchanging realities of nature and humanity;' as seen through the medium of his own individuality."39 ​ For Delius, works without a "deeper meaning" were produced by artists overcome by a need to please the public, either for financial gain or the glorification of their own ego. Writing to Heseltine, Delius claimed that it is a "real tragedy. . . when [an artist] is obliged to earn [their] living" by means of their art. This could only produce music that caters to the "entirely

we receive the tidings that “the old god is dead”; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, anticipation, expectation. At last the horizon appears free again to us, even granted that it is not bright; at last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger; all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an “open sea.” ​ ​ 35 See footnote 37. 36 Delius to Jutta Bell, May 29th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 86. See footnote 28. ​ ​ 37 For Jung’s view on the role that myth plays in the shaping of society and individual action, see Carl Jung, The ​ Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, ed. Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler, and William ​ McGuire, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969). Joseph Campbell states that “it has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back.” The purpose of these stories handed down from generation to generation is to communicate universal symbols and ideas that allow for a more sustained and justified existence. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 3rd ed. (Novato: New World Library: ​ ​ 2008), 7. 38 Delius to Jutta Bell, February 25th, 1896. Carley, Delius (I), 99. “Do not fear not being realistic – I don't believe ​ ​ in Realism in opéra – Fantasy & poetry.” 39 Eric Fenby, Delius as I Knew Him, 3rd rev. ed. (Raincliffe Books: 2019), 192. W. H. Haddon Squire commented ​ ​ on the above quote from Fenby: "Could any composer, possessing inner sincerity, have a finer aim? Inner sincerity was the attribute so ruthlessly demanded by Nietzsche’s superman; Delius also demanded it from the composer.” W. H. Haddon Squire, "Delius and Nietzsche," Tempo 7 (Spring 1948): 28. ​ ​

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40 uncomprehensive public;" by contrast, Delius declared, "I write only for myself." ​ He felt that ​ all too often the "professional musicians" were the "real enemies of music" calling them

"hypocrites" for claiming they work for the "benefit of Humanity [. . .] Oh! for the honesty of the

41 brothel!" ​ Delius's art had a greater purpose – truth – whatever the impact on the purse. ​ Technique or construction likewise mattered to him only insofar as they helped him achieve these goals. As Fenby pointed out, "he had never forced his work, but, guided first by his instinct and then by his intellect, had allowed his technique to grow unconsciously with his

42 inspiration." ​ Delius despised artists who were "technically proficient" but lacked "something ​

43 worth saying." ​ For him, music "should be a simple and intimate thing, direct and immediate in ​ its appeal from soul to soul, a thing of instinct rather than of learning, of the heart rather than of the head."44 ​

40 Delius to Philip Heseltine, December 21st, 1915. Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 191-2. “… All you ​ ​ ​ say about music in England is entirely true; it is just the same with the other arts – but, of course, music is nearer to our hearts. I, of course, have been aware of this for many years & I have no hopes that it will ever become better, but when I work I forget everything &, as you know, I only write for myself – Every artist ought to have just enough to live on – The real tragedy begins when he is obliged to earn his living: for the more he concentrates upon the earning the worse his art seems to become – The greater the artist the greater the tragedy & the greater the difficulty of being understood – The great artist has not only an entirely uncomprehensive public – but he has all the mediocrities of art against him or when not against him, absorbing the attention of the public as soi-disant great geniuses – Then again he has the charlatan at his elbow & the officially not understood original genius – who has cribbed certain peculiarities of an individual & works them up logically into a system so that he also adds to the confusion in the brains of the otherwise well disposed public & as a rule passes off as the real thing. . .” 41 Delius to Phillip Heseltine, May 11th, 1916. Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 221. "You are right ​ ​ when you say that professional musicians are the real enemies of music – they all have a little string to pull & are, all trying to make the world believe they are idealists & working for the benefit of Humanity – Hypocrites again: Christianism in another form – Oh! for the honesty of the brothel!" 42 Fenby, Delius as I Knew Him, 193. ​ ​ 43 Ibid., 194. “No matter how technically proficient a man may be, his inner development can never be hurried. If a man has something worth saying, he will manage to say it somehow, no matter how clumsily. It is having that something worth saying that is the important thing. ‘To be able to do something,’ said Goethe, ‘you must be something’; and, it seems to me, it was this sudden ‘being something’ that accounted for the sudden and instant flowering of Delius’s genius.” 44 Ibid., 197-8. “Music, he thought, should be a simple and intimate thing, direct and immediate in its appeal from soul to soul, a thing of instinct rather than of learning, of the heart rather than of the head. It should never be complicated, or, in other words, the intellect should keep its proper place, for with complication music lost its power to move. One should never be conscious of its workings, or of how it was put together, otherwise how could it transport?. . . To be purely cerebral was easy. To be truly and genuinely emotional was hard. One should always feel rather than invent, and feel deeply, and never think out the detail of one’s score.”

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In the beginning, Delius wrote his own libretti, following the example of Richard

Wagner, but eventually he realized that he was not skilled enough to create the "poetry" he wanted. "My literature is not on the level with my music," Delius told Bell, "And I believe in

45 Collaboration a greater effect may be attained." ​ Delius advised Bell not to "search any more for ​ the truth" as it "will come in working for a great cause – Why you never found it was, simply, that you did not look in the right direction." He claimed that most people fritter "away their lives with little enjoyments" asserting that "even [most] artists . . . have no special aim or direction."46 ​ With him, however, Bell would find "direction" thanks to their shared nature and ideals,47 ​ especially in the "way [she has] understood [his] idea of Watawa," the central character of his second opera. "I feel . . . that for the first time a woman understands me thoroughly," he wrote, adding that he felt a deep understanding and "the greatest admiration" for her.48 ​ During their next collaboration, his third opera, Koanga (1895-97), Delius again warned ​ ​ Bell away from realism. "Do not fear not being realistic – I don't believe in Realism in opéra –

49 Fantasy & poetry." ​ Purging the everyday realm of society, and reducing the content to the ​ abstract level of myth and fairy tales, allowed him to express his ideas of universal truth.

Nonetheless, while his stories are fantasy, their settings are historically informed. "I read all I

45 Delius to Jutta Bell, February 25th, 1896. Carley, Delius (I), 99. ​ ​ 46 Delius to Jutta Bell, July 11th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 83. An echo of a similar sentiment sent in a letter to Philip ​ ​ Heseltine in May of 1916: "Perhaps the experiences you are now going thro’ will give you your direction in Life – mould you to your own capacities – Lead you enthusiastic honest & sympathizing nature into certain channels by necessity & the force of great events – As you know I chose solitude & music & nature – I have never been in love with humanity – For me – humanity is a dung heap upon which certain flowers grow & flourish – These flowers are all that is left & all that are remembered thro’ time – Individuals. After several thousand years we look back upon a few names of Individuals . . ." Delius to Philip Heseltine, May 11th, 1916. Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter ​ Warlock, 220. ​ 47 Delius to Jutta Bell, May 29th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 86. "You might really be of great help to me as I see in ​ ​ ​ ​ you a sister nature to mine. You are about the only woman that understands a little what I am driving at." 48 Delius to Jutta Bell, July 11th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 83. ​ ​ 49 Delius to Jutta Bell, February 25th, 1896. Carley, Delius (I), 99. ​ ​ ​ ​

13 can on the subject which I am treating," Delius wrote to Bell, "and then treat the subject in my own way."50 ​

Delius's Dramatic Ideals

51 Delius strongly believed in the "annihilation [of]. . . personal consciousness," ​ a sort of ​ dissolution of the ego that occurs when spending time alone in nature, especially wandering

52 through the mountains like Nietzsche's Zarathustra. ​ This transformation of one’s consciousness ​ 53 would become a central theme in his first four operas. ​ "I chose solitude & music & nature," he ​

54 wrote to Heseltine, ​ imploring him to put aside "paralysing" religions and "be free – believe in ​

55 Nature – it is quite enough & by far the most satisfactory standpoint. . ." ​ "I believe. . .in nothing ​

50 Delius to Jutta Bell, July 29th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 88. Delius wrote to Philip Heseltine that he had been in ​ ​ love two times in his life and that the second one was "far intenser," a love that "gave the direction to my life. Delius pursued his "second love" while in Florida but she refused. 7 or 8 years later she came to Paris to try to be with him but he no longer loved her. (Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 114, 192.) Andrew Boyle has concluded ​ ​ that based on the timeline, Jutta Bell was the second, intense love. Even though he no longer loved her, he valued her friendship intensely and confided in her much of his early vision for his works. Boyle, Delius and Norway, 19. ​ ​ 51 Delius to Philip Heseltine, June 23rd, 1912. Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 37. “I consider Nietzsche ​ ​ the only free thinker of modern times & for me the most sympathetic one – He is at the same time such a poet. He feels nature. I believe, myself, in no doctrine whatever & in nothing but in Nature & the great forces of Nature – I believe in complete annihilation as far as our personal consciousness goes.” 52 Zarathustra's Prologue: "When Zarathustra was thirty years old he left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains. Here he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude and for ten years did not tire of it. But at last a change came over his heart, and one morning he rose with the dawn, stepped before the sun, and spoke to it thus: “You great star, what would your happiness be had you not those for whom you shine? “For ten years you have climbed to my cave: you would have tired of your light and of the journey had it not been for me and my eagle and my serpent. “But we waited for you every morning, took your overflow from you, and blessed you for it. “Behold, I am weary of my wisdom, like a bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to receive it. “I would give away and distribute, until the wise among men find joy once again in their folly, and the poor in their riches. “For that I must descend to the depths, as you do in the evening when you go behind the sea and still bring light to the underworld, you overrich star. “Like you, I must go under– go down, as is said by man, to whom I want to descend.” Freiderich Nietzsche, “First Part,” Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. by Walter ​ ​ ​ ​ Kaufmann, 121-191 (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 121-22. 53 Other works by Delius such as Over the Hills and Far Away, Paa Vidderne, On the Mountains, In a Summer ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Garden, The Song of the High Hills, among others, reflect the same transformational force of nature. ​ ​ ​ 54 Delius to Philip Heseltine, May 11th, 1916. Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 220. ​ ​ 55 Delius to Philip Heseltine, April 28th, 1912. Carley, Letters (II), 85-86. ​ ​

14 but Nature," Delius wrote, "In the great Scheme of Nature Man is no more important than a flie

[sic]."56 ​ ​ ​ Many of Delius’s associates have testified to his crucial impact of nature on his creative work and worldview. Eric Fenby describes the force that nature had on Delius’s music:

Since those days when the stillness of nature had first calmed the troubled waters of his

soul, he had known in his heart that he had something to give, something to say about life

in terms of music that no one else could give or say. This noble urge which stirred him so

strangely was the only spiritual thing in life for which he had reverence, and this

remained so unto the end of his days.57 ​

Christopher Palmer writes that "broadly speaking Delius sought three principal themes in his literature: natural beauty, human love, and optimism born of self-reliance and earthly

58 self-sufficiency." ​ Of the three, nature increasingly took the central role, so that by 1912 Delius ​ had almost entirely given up on the human experience as a dramatic theme. Beecham described this change with evident ambivalence:

The iron which had begun to enter his soul about 1902 had become firmly set there by

1911, and from that time on we hear gradually less of the poetry and charm which

delighted us in Sea Drift and In a Summer Garden. In their place we have hitherto ​ ​ ​ ​ unfamiliar elements of austerity and impersonality, as if the composer had grown tired of

56 Ibid., 86. Footnote 1. 57 Fenby, Delius as I Knew Him, 164-65. ​ ​ 58 Christopher Palmer, "Delius and Poetic Realism," Music and Letters 51 (October, 1970): 404. ​ ​

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interpreting the joys and sorrows of human beings and had turned to the contemplation of

Nature only.59 ​ This move away from hope in humanity is exemplified in the letter, quoted above, where Delius refers to humanity as "a dung heap upon which certain flowers grow & flourish.”60 ​ Each of Delius's operas deals with some act of transformation that involves a diminished reliance on human connections and increased faith in the self, not in a selfish way but as a kind of asceticism—distancing oneself from society and retreating into or submitting to what nature brings. Like Tristan und Isolde, who make a pact to withdraw together from human existence, ​ ​ the characters in Delius's operas are unable to find peace within the realm of society and must, therefore, die in order to reach transcendence. Consistent with Delius’s turn away from realism, this cutting away of life represented cutting away of the ego, selfish desires, etc. and a recommitment to the natural course of nature, to which we are all bound by death. Roger Scruton has spoken that the sexual desire between the characters of Tristan and Isolde is an "erotic love between dying things." In this view, these characters reflect Wagner’s experience of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophers such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, whose "fundamental intention. .

.was to dramatize the human condition as that of the subject in the world of objects and the

61 potential tension between those two aspects of our being." ​ Delius likewise focused on the ​ individual as a subject alienated from objectivity, with other subjects in the same quandary. For

Delius, the key challenge artistically and philosophically was to establish the integrity of the individual in a world of constrictions made by society.62 ​

59 Beecham, Frederick Delius, 221. ​ ​ 60 See footnote 46. 61 Roger Scruton and Sarah-Jane Leslie “Roger Scruton – Wagner and Philosophy,” YouTube Video, 45:20, December 25, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj4wKO_a56g, (5:34-6:04). 62 Fenby, Delius as I Knew Him, 179. "We are all sent into this world, we know not how and we know not why. We ​ ​ each have our own individualities, our own particular and varying natures, and our job is to find ourselves at all costs. Never be afraid of being yourself in spite of everything and everybody. Be yourself, and don't trouble if it hurts anybody else. They'll soon get over it. That is the supreme test of a man – his ability to stand on his own. Look

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From his second opera onwards, Delius's characters are all outcasts—i.e., subjects alienated from the objectivity reality of the world. The figures that interested Delius were people who faced some sort of oppression. His second opera, The Magic Fountain, deals with the ​ ​ mistreatment of the Native Americans; his third, Koanga, with the suffering of the Negro Slaves; ​ ​ the fourth, A Village Romeo and Juliet (1897?-1901), with the denying of love between two ​ ​ peasants whose families are embroiled in a bitter fight over a worthless piece of land; his fifth,

Margot la Rouge (1901-2), with the life of a prostitute; and his last, Fennimore and Gerda ​ ​ (1909-11), with a character who, wherever he hopes to find love, is met only with death and loneliness. Delius was not an activist in a traditional sense, but he did want to highlight the injustice and senseless divisions in society to proclaim that true equality and optimism are only

63 found by accepting the natural world. ​ Any attempt at altering the natural flow of things could ​ only lead to strife, in this view.

Nonetheless, Delius was not a promoter of death but of life. What his operas present is the need to cast off what limits life—namely, earthly desires, desires that make one feel grounded in life or that make one cling to it. Feelings such as greed, hatred, division, and anything else having to do with the ego, all tie one down to life. Delius aimed to show that the release of these constraints was the only way one could truly live without fear of death. When one fears death, life is limited by that fear. Once death is accepted, and the realization is made

64 that life is full of disappointment and the "dung heap" ​ that makes up humanity, one can live ​ to yourself, and don't narrow and hedge in your life with conventional behavior and all these silly moral restrictions that are the stupid invention of priests. Sex plays a tremendous part in life. It is terrible to think that we have come into this world by some despicable physical act. Don't believe all the tommyrot priests tell you; learn to prove everything by your own experience. Do things and find things out for yourself, and don't be frightened of making a fool of yourself." 63 Delius to Philip Heseltine, March 15th, 1916. Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 206. “Don’t bother ​ ​ about crowds. Develop your own individuality, old pal, for you have have one, believe me, climb on to the mountain ​ ​ plateaus & get a good view of the tallies & the humans crawling about.” 64 See footnote 46.

17 truly in the present without needing to be constantly busying themselves with thoughts of trying to sustain life.

Delius found kindred spirits in the poetry of Walt Whitman and the philosophy of

Nietzsche. Heseltine sent Delius a poem by Whitman dealing with the casting away of what tethers one to the earth:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;

Not one is dissatisfied – not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago;

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.65 ​ Delius replied to Heseltine: “What a splendid fellow old Walt [Whitman] was. That's a quotation

66 taken out of my own heart.” ​ Likewise, in the Second Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals, ​ ​ ​ Nietzsche codified a set of principles that effectively summarizes Delius's ideals:

The attainment of this goal would require a different kind of spirit from that likely to

appear in this present age: spirits strengthened by war and victory, for whom conquest,

adventure, danger, and even pain have become needs; it would require habituation to the

keen air of the heights, to winter journeys, to ice and mountains in every sense; it would

require even a kind of sublime wickedness, an ultimate, supremely self-confident

65 Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” 32. Philip Heseltine to Delius, September 2nd, 1915. Smith, Frederick Delius ​ and Peter Warlock, 183. ​ 66 Delius to Philip Heseltine, October 17th, 1915. Smith, Frederick Delius and Peter Warlock, 186. ​ ​

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mischievousness in knowledge that goes with great health; it would require, in brief and

alas, precisely this great health!67 ​

On Delius's infatuation with Nietzsche, Fenby observed that the composer "had the profoundest admiration for [Nietzsche] and his work, so much so that I often thought it was

68 Nietzsche himself addressing me." ​ Other passages in On the Genealogy of Morals no doubt ​ ​ ​ served as a call to action for him:

Is this even possible today?– But some day, in a stronger age than this decaying,

self-doubting present, he must yet come to us, the redeeming man of great love and

contempt, the creative spirit whose compelling strength will not let him rest in any

aloofness or any beyond, whose isolation is misunderstood by the people as if it were

flight from reality – while it is only his absorption, immersion, penetration into reality, so

that, when he one day emerges again redemption from the curse that the hitherto reigning

ideal has laid upon it. This man of the future, who will redeem us not only from the

hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great

nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell-stroke of noon and of the great decision

that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this

Antichrist and antinihilist; this victor over God and nothingness – he must come one

day.69 ​

67 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Second Essay, Section 24,” On the Genealogy of Morals, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, ​ ​ ​ ​ trans. and ed. with commentaries by Walter Kaufmann (New York: The Modern Library, 1992), 532. 68 Fenby, Delius as I Knew Him, 182. ​ ​ 69 Nietzsche, “Second Essay, Section 24,” On the Genealogy of Morals, 532. In Section 25, Nietzsche goes on to ​ ​ add: ". . . to which only Zarathustra has a right, Zarathustra the godless.”

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Delius's claim that he wished to "tread in Wagner's footsteps and maybe go more in the right direction" was one that he fulfilled, but by means of a philosophy conceived by a Nietzsche who had turned away from Wagner. Delius followed Wagner in the use of myths rich in symbolic meaning, but he also included a great deal of intimacy and realism in his works by exploring everyday individuals belonging to groups that historically have been undervalued or abused. Delius was dramatizing moral truths while also highlighting the hypocrisy and injustice inherent in the modern society. In essence, his artistic philosophy might be reduced to: retreat into nature and there you will find harmony.70 ​

70 "How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health! The discipline of the schools or of business can never impart such serenity to the mind." 6 May 1851, Henry David Thoreau, The Journal: 1837-1861, ed. Damion Searls (New York: ​ ​ New York Review of Books, 2009), 47.

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Chapter 2

The Magic Fountain Act I ​

As shown in Chapter 1, the years from 1886, when Delius entered the Leipzig

Conservatory, to 1895, the year he completed his second opera The Magic Fountain, were ​ ​ pivotal in Delius’s stylistic development. One of the main sources of inspiration was the works of Richard Wagner, which he heard performed in Leipzig, studied as part of a Wagner Society in

Paris, and traveled to hear in Bayreuth and Munich. During the summer of 1894, as he prepared

71 for his trip to Bayreuth, Delius wrote that he wanted to “tread in Wagner's footsteps.” ​ Over the ​ next two years, Delius used Wagner as a model for the creation of The Magic Fountain. The ​ ​ genesis of this work represents the most important step in Delius’s development, revealing how he came to develop his mature dramatic style, which emerged in his fourth opera, A Village ​ Romeo and Juliet. Sir Thomas Beecham testifies to the importance of this period in his ​ development, writing:

It is hoped then that the attention both of musicians and the Public may turn towards our

composer and the considerable quantity of work he turned out between 1889 and 1900,

hardly any of which has yet reached recognition[. . .]72 ​

The Magic Fountain has received little attention from scholars or performers, and as a ​ result its importance in Delius’s development has gone unnoticed. Some commentators, such as

Paul Guinery, have criticized the work saying it is a “failure” and one of Delius’s “weakest. . . stage works” due to the lack of “elevated language” in its libretto and the absence of dramatic

71 Frederick Delius to Jutta Bell, May 29th, 1894. Lionel Carley, Delius: A Life in Letters, I: 1862-1908 (Cambridge, ​ ​ ​ ​ Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), 89. 72 Sir Thomas Beecham, Frederick Delius (London: Hutchinson, 1959), 38. ​ ​ ​

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73 action. ​ Still others, such as Delius’s friend Alfred Hertz, have praised the work for its “poetic” ​

74 conception ​ and Beecham wrote that The Magic Fountain, both musically and dramatically, is a ​ ​ ​ 75 work of unusual interest and merit. ​ Irrespective of the work’s effectiveness, however, it allows ​ for a rare glimpse into Delius’s use of direct models, and it represents the clearest example of

Wagner’s effect on Delius’s development. Studies have been written detailing the influence of other elements on Delius’s style: “Negro” spirituals, the harmonic improvisations of former slaves Delius heard singing in the fields of Florida, the music of Edvard Grieg, and the

Norweigian landscape. But there has yet to be a detailed examination of Wagner’s influence, particularly in The Magic Fountain, where Wagner’s fingerprint is most clear. ​ ​

Act I

The Introduction to Act I sets the atmosphere for the first scene and presents several of the most important leitmotifs for the opera. Delius transforms musical material from Tristan und ​ Isolde and incorporates elements of Wagner’s story. An examination of Delius's Fate Theme, and ​ the ways in which it is employed throughout the first act, will allow for a glimpse into the vast musical symbolic web of leitmotifs Delius weaves throughout the opera, a reflection of Wagner’s influence upon Delius’s dramatic style.

Introduction to Act I

Before Delius’s use of Wagner as a model can be shown, an examination of the Fate

Theme’s first entrance in the Introduction to Act I is crucial. Prior to the entrance of the Fate

73 Paul Guinery and Martin Lee-Borwne, Delius and His Music (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014), 69. ​ ​ 74 Alfred Hertz to Frederick Delius, August 27th, 1898. Carley, Delius (I), 129. Hertz wrote: "I should like to pay ​ ​ you a most genuine compliment on your opera. I studied it in detail right through, & was quite frankly inspired by ​ ​ some of its beauties. The whole colouring of the music is so original, & the conception of the whole so poetic, that really my boldest expectations were exceeded." Despite his enthusiasm, Hertz did not perform the work citing that the "first performance" is critical for a new opera and that Elberfeld would not be able to do it justice. 75 Beecham, Frederick Delius, 66. ​ ​

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Theme, Delius sets the atmosphere of the opera with a series of slow-moving harmonies for strings alone (Example 2.1). These harmonies represent the stillness of the sea that has been without a breath of wind for twenty days, leaving Solano, a Spanish captain, and his sailors unable to sail to shore. The work begins in B-flat major with a tonic prolongation in mm. 1-5 rotating between B-flat major and an E-flat added sixth chord. There is an unexpected intrusion of a flat minor six in m. 6, G-flat minor, followed by a B-flat dominant seventh which resolves to

E-flat minor (mm. 7-8). This shift disrupts the peaceful opening with overtones of the uncertainty that the sailors are confronted with as they are stranded upon the waters not far off the coast of

Florida.

The progression from I to bvi is similar to Wagner’s “Tarnhelm” theme from Das ​ Rheingold. Wagner’s theme is first heard when Mime presents the Tarnhelm, made from the gold ​ stolen from the Rhinemaidens, to Alberich. Wagner’s progression utilizes two minor triads that are separated by a major third (i-bvi) and is used to reflect the “sinister” and “eerie” power of the

76 Tarnhelm. ​ Matthew Bribitzer-Stull has examined this progression and found that, after ​ Wagner’s use of it in Das Rheingold, the progression can be found in a vast number of operatic ​ ​

77 and film scores to represent darkness, fate, and other sinister moments. ​ Bribitzer-Stull points ​ out that this progression can be found in Parsifal during the opening music of Act II as a ​ ​ 78 representation of Klingsor. ​ Act II begins in B minor and descends by major thirds to G minor in ​ m. 7 and E-flat minor in m. 8.

76 Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, Understanding the Leitmotif From Wagner to Hollywood Film Music (Cambridge: ​ ​ Cambridge University Press, 2015), 133. 77 Ibid., 131-56. ​ 78 Ibid., 154. ​

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Example 2.1: The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction mm. 1-16.79 ​ ​ ​

Following the shift to E-flat minor in m. 8 of The Magic Fountain (Example 2.1) is an F ​ ​ major chord, acting as a return to the tonic B flat, which leads deceptively to G-flat major (m.

10). The remaining bars of this opening phrase rotate between a G-flat major triad and a B-flat dominant seventh chord. The final chord in this series is G-flat major, leaving the B-flat dominant seventh unresolved. Over the sustained G-flat major harmony, the first and second horns enter with an enharmonic F-sharp followed by a change in the lower strings to a B minor triad. In the opening fourteen bars, the music has modulated from B-flat major to B minor, a shift that represents the ominous fate that is the driving force of the opera.80 ​

79 All musical examples from The Magic Fountain are adapted from Frederick Delius, The Magic Fountain, in Co​ llected Edition of the Works​ of Frederick Delius​ , vol. 2, ed. Sir Thomas Beecham, R​ obert Threlfall, Eric ​ Fenby ​ and Norman Del Mar (London: Delius Trust, 1990). 80 Beecham, Frederick Delius, 130. ". . . the overall guiding and controlling influence in [Irmelin and The Magic ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Fountain] is an element of nature; in the first the Silver Stream and in the second the Fountain itself. The actors in ​ each drama move as if they were in the grip of outside forces, irresistible and unchanging. In A Village Romeo and ​ Juliet also we are made conscious that the two principal characters are puppets at the mercy of an unknown power, ​ which from the beginning has ordained their eventual destruction: and a similar impulsion is present in the three chief figures of Fennimore who give the painful impression of being pulled about this way and that, without will or ​ ​ power to resist."

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The sudden harmonic shift of the opening creates an atmosphere of uncertainty and bleakness upon the still waters of the sea. This feeling of impending fate is solidified by the entrance of the Fate Theme (Example 2.2) presented in an English horn solo over sustained harmonies in the lower strings with the addition of the bassoons and sarrusophone at the first

81 cadential point. ​ The use of these low double reed instruments along with the viola, cello, and ​ double bass produce an austere coloring for the first presentation of this theme. After the first iteration in B minor, the English horn repeats the Fate Theme within the key of E-flat minor.

Delius adds a clarinet in its lowest register at the cadential point furthering the darkness of the setting.

Example 2.2: Fate Theme The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction mm. 17-20. ​ ​

These two iterations of the Fate Theme in the Introduction present the first segment of the full theme that is not heard until Act I, Scene 2 (Example 2.3). The completion of the Fate

Theme in Scene 2 coincides with the fulfillment of the events that are hinted at in the

Introduction to Act I: namely, the death of the sailors at sea after a severe storm causes their ship to sink, leaving Solano, the only survivor, lying lifeless on the Florida shore.

81 The titles of the leitmotifs for The Magic Fountain are my own. ​ ​

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Example 2.3: Fate Theme The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 2 mm. 514-26 ​ ​

26

The Fate Theme (Example 2.3) consists of four separate elements: the use of solo English horn, the dotted quarter and eighth note rhythmic cell (a), the triplet arpeggios (b), and the descending chromatic sequence (c). These four elements show unmistakably that Delius modeled his Fate Theme from Wagner's Hirtenreigen, the extended English horn solo from Act III of ​ ​ Tristan und Isolde.82 ​ ​

Wagner's Hirtenreigen

Act III of Tristan und Isolde, which I will argue below was Delius’s model for this scene, ​ ​ opens with Tristan lying under a lime tree after being wounded at the end of Act II. Tristan lies in a state of despair and longing, barely clinging on to life. He is expectantly waiting for his beloved Isolde's ship to come in sight of the shore. Tristan hopes that she can heal this wound just as she had healed the wound he received from Morold, Isolde's former husband, whom

Tristan killed before the point at which the opera begins.

After an orchestral introduction representing the bleakness of the setting, Act III, Scene 1

(Example 2.4) opens with an extended English horn solo, titled Hirtenreigen. The Hirtenreigen ​ ​ ​

83 is constructed from two separate elements: "The Call" and the "Triplet Theme." ​ "The Call" ​ contains a prominent rhythmic motive of a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth note (a).

Throughout “The Call,” the intervals of a fourth and a fifth are prominent. The "Triplet Theme" consists of a rhythmic motif of a triplet on beat one followed by a half note on beat two and a quarter note on beat four (b) and is developed through a descending chromatic sequence (c).

82 Delius originally used this theme in his Florida Suite written during his time in Leipzig. This was a time in which ​ ​ Delius was intensely captivated by Wagner's Tristan und Isolde as has been shown in Chapter 1. Its representation as ​ ​ an agent of Fate is revealed through the contexts in which Delius uses the theme in The Magic Fountain. ​ ​ 83 For more information on Wagner’s Hirtenreigen and its use in Act 3 of Tristan und Isolde, see Michael Dias, ​ ​ ​ ​ “‘You Ancient, Solemn Tune’: Narrative Levels of Wagners’ Hirtenreigen,” Musicological Explorations 14 (2014): ​ ​ 75–113.

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Example 2.4: “Hirtenreigen” Tristan und Isolde Act III, Scene 1.84 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

84 All musical examples from Tristan und Isolde are adapted from Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Vocal Score by​ Richard Kleinmichel, trans.​ Henry Grafton Ch​ apman (Milwaukee: G. Schirmer, 1​ 934). ​

28

The Hirtenreigen serves as a symbol of Tristan's fate. In his monologue "Muss ich dich ​ ​ so verstehen," Tristan reveals that this mournful tune came to him as a signal of his father's death and appeared during the death of his mother when Tristan was born. Tristan states, "The old, old

85 song to them, as well, brought sorrow, too, and fortune fell." ​ For Tristan, this tune is a symbol ​ of his approaching death and he questions whether this tune is telling him "in yearning, to perish." Michael Dias writes that this tune serves as an elucidation of Tristan's memories of his parent's death while creating a realization and acceptance of a similar fate coming for him.86 ​

Delius's Fate Theme and Wagner's Hirtenreigen

Numerous musical features suggest that Delius used Wagner's Hirtenreigen as the model ​ ​ for the Fate Theme in The Magic Fountain. Both themes consist of two parts, are written in a ​ ​ minor key, and are orchestrated for an English horn solo. The first part of Delius's theme is based on the rhythmic cell of a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth note from the first part of

Wagner's Hirtenreigen (see (a), Examples 2.3 and 2.4). Delius's Fate Theme opens with the ​ ​ interval of a fourth, the most prominent interval in the first part of “The Call,” followed by a rising minor scale over the interval of a fifth, the first interval heard in Wagner's Hirtenreigen. ​ ​ Delius's layering of the rhythmic motif (a) over the interval of the fifth is a condensed version of

Wagner's "Call" motif (Example 2.3).

The second segment of Delius's Fate Motive is based on a series of triplet arpeggios that sequence chromatically from the tonic to the dominant B-flat major. This is an adaptation of

Wagner's "Triplet Theme" (b) which serves as the second part of the Hirtenreigen and likewise ​ ​ descends chromatically (see (c), Examples 2.3 and 2.4). In the Fate Theme, Delius uses a

85 Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Vocal Score by Richard Kleinmichel, trans. Henry Grafton Chapman ​ ​ (Milwaukee: G. Schirmer, 1934), 248. 86 Dias, “You Ancient, Solemn Tune,” 78.

29 variation of Wagner’s “Triplet Theme.” Throughout The Magic Fountain, the triplet motif (b) is ​ ​ found as an extension to the Fate Theme (see below).

Using Wagner as a model, Delius made the orchestral score of The Magic Fountain the ​ ​ main storytelling device. In Delius's first opera Irmelin, leitmotifs are presented as motivic ​ ​ representations of specific characters or thematic ideas. In The Magic Fountain, Delius weaves ​ ​ his leitmotifs into a complex web of musically symbolic material that gives greater depth and

87 meaning to the libretto throughout the opera. ​ This web allows the audience to go beyond the ​ words being sung and enter into the inner workings of what is happening within the minds of the characters and the forces that are compelling their decisions. Throughout Act I, Scene 1 Delius uses elements inherent in his Fate Theme, often combined with other leitmotifs, to foretell the fate that awaits the sailors and Solano.

Determination Motif, Fountain Theme, and Ambition Motif

In the Introduction to Act 1, after the two iterations of the Fate Theme, Delius introduces a rhythmic figure consisting of a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth (Example 2.5). This motive is the Determination Motif, which Delius uses to represent the headstrong willpower of

Solano and appears at points in the opera where Solano persists in his actions despite advice from others or setbacks that have occurred. After a modulation to G-flat major, the Fountain

Theme is presented (Example 2.6), representing the Fountain of Eternal Youth, the object of

Solano's desire and the motivating force for his journey.

87 Dias presents an analysis of Wagner’s Hirtenreigen that shows how Wagner transforms this theme to reflect ​ ​ several different levels of dramatic meaning. Dias finds that there are three distinct narrative levels from which Wagner is able to embed a greater depth of symbolic intent into the orchestral texture in Act III of Tristan und ​ Isolde. ​

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Example 2.5: Determination Motif The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction mm. 28-30. ​ ​ ​ ​

Example 2.6: Fountain Theme The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction reh. A, mm. 34-41. ​ ​

The Fountain Theme is connected to the Ambition Motif that serves to show Solano's ambition for finding the fountain (Example 2.7). The Introduction ends with a variation on the series of chords heard at the opening of the opera; this gesture serves as a transition into Act I,

Scene 1, which takes place on the boat that is resting motionless upon the still sea.

Example 2.7: Ambition Motif The Magic Fountain Act I Introduction reh. B, mm. 53. ​ ​

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Layering of the Fate Theme

Act I, Scene 1 opens with the sailors chorus complaining of their captain’s vain "phantom quest," mournfully singing "never more shall we see the shore" (Example 2.8).

Example 2.8: The Magic Fountain Act 1, Scene I reh. C, mm. 74-85. ​ ​

Solano overhears and dismisses their complaints, claiming that they do not know what they are saying. He proceeds to sing the Fountain Theme while reading a description of the powers contained within the waters of the fountain that give eternal life "for those prepared."

Solano expresses that he is unsure of the meaning of "those prepared" but decides to foolishly ignore it. Delius presents Solano as a figure who is not evil but ignorant. Solano is unable to think of anything outside of himself, and when he hears the complaints of the sailors he cannot process them. Here Solano clearly recalls Wagner’s Parsifal, the "reine Tor" (Pure Fool) who has no notion of anything outside of himself until he is led into the realm of the Knights of the Grail.

Parsifal is seen as the possible answer to a prophecy about a "reine Tor" who will be able to bring salvation to the group by taking back the Holy Spear, the one that put the wound in Christ's

32 side, from Klingsor who took it and wounded their leader Amfortas. On the quest for this spear,

Parsifal is mystically transformed as a result of giving up his Self for the benefit of others. It is only through sacrificing his own desires, through a series of temptations, that he can overcome the powers of Klingsor and return the Holy Spear to its rightful home with the Holy Grail at

Monsalvat. Both Solano and Parsifal are on a quest, a quest that transforms them from an egocentric view of life to a pure, selfless being. Delius uses the Fate Theme to reflect several moments in Act I, Scene 1 that Solano is presented with the ability to change his course of action and avoid the dangers of his quest. Unfortunately, at this point in the opera, Solano is unable to see past his own desires and decides to follow his own Will instead of the voice of reason that the sailors aboard the ship represent.

Transforming leitmotifs into the minor mode is one way in which Delius foretells of fate.

The accompaniment of the opening sailors chorus in Act I of The Magic Fountain is the same as ​ ​ that of the Fountain Theme, the only difference being that the sailors music is in a minor mode while the Fountain Theme is in A-flat major (reh. D). This shift to the minor mode is a reflection of the Fate Theme, the only recurring leitmotif in a minor key. The sailors see Solano's foolishness as represented in their acknowledgment of their future fate of never seeing their homes again. Solano is completely unaware of any possible danger which is reflected in his inability to see past his own desires. Delius also uses the triplet motif (b) from Wagner's "Triplet

Theme" (Example 2.4) to highlight the presence of fate within the actions and thoughts of

Solano. In Act I, this motif appears at key moments of Solano’s decision-making, choices that ultimately lead to the death of his crew. The sailors aboard Solano’s ship are voices of reason who see the dangers that lay ahead. As they are working on the ship, they sing of their approaching fate. Solano twice overhears them and is given the opportunity to reflect upon the

33 decision he is making. At each of these points, the triplet motif (b) is heard reflecting its acting as an agent in Solano’s decisions to press forward, ignoring the concerns of his sailors. Solano is confronted by the crew and given his third, and final, opportunity to change course and forget this fateful quest for the Fountain of Eternal Youth. Solano rejects their pleading and moves on without reflection and the triplet motif (b) is heard sealing the fate of the sailors.

The first example of Solano ignoring the reason of the sailors appears after Solano reads the description of “a fountain of Eternal youth. . . ready for those prepared to drink it in ‘Wisdom and truth.’” (mm. 100-6). Solano repeats the words, "a fountain ready for those prepared” and states, “I grasp not the meaning here: are not those prepared who wish and dare without pausing or fear?" (Example 2.9). Delius begins this statement as a recitative with Solano's vocal line containing the Ambition Motif (Example 2.9). This theme reflects Solano's attempt at comprehending the meaning of the words. The orchestral texture begins to fill out when Solano, thinking aloud, asks whether those who "wish and dare without pausing or fear" are the ones who should be granted access to the waters (mm. 120-4). Solano believes that if he relentlessly pursues the fountain its waters will grant him eternal life purely by his Will. Solano's vocal line is accompanied by the "Triplet Theme" (b) in a variation of the Fate Theme (Example 2.9).

Example 2.9 shows the triplet motif (b) rising in a chromatic line (m. 121), representative of the chromatic sequences of the Fate Theme but ascending here to represent Solano's ambition, followed by the interval of a fifth, the interval that the first part (a) of the Fate Theme transverses

(see Example 2.3). As Solano's excitement increases, the orchestra fills out the previous bar with two beats of chromatic triplets followed by the rising fifth and a descending fourth before giving a variation of the second half of the fate theme (b) (mm. 121-3).

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Example 2.9: The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 1 mm. 114-40. ​ ​

35

Example 2.9 (con.)

36

Example 2.9 (con.)

37

Example 2.9 (con.)

38

Example 2.9 (con.)

39

The orchestra extends this variation in a decrescendo to piano at which point Solano's Ambition

Motif is presented in a minor form first by the English horn (m. 125), reflective of the Fate

Theme, and followed by the oboe (m. 126). This moment of stillness reflects Solano giving thought to the description of the fountain. It is a moment of reflection upon the potential dangers that the fountain presents as has been reflected in the use of the Fate Theme in the accompaniment. The music quickly breaks off in a "Più vivo" (reh. F) and accelerando as Solano insists that all these "mysteries'' will be sorted out once he has gotten to the fountain and drank its waters.

The fate of Solano's choice to follow his own Will instead of reason is reflected in the six-bar chromatic ascent in the double basses (reh. F), with rising chromatic figures added throughout the orchestra as the music builds to a sudden lyrical shift as Solano, now confident of his choice, sings: "Eternal youth, Eternal love, life everlasting is mine" (mm. 133-36). This lyrical shift highlights Solano's break from any reasoning and shows his unwillingness to listen to the signs of Fate. His fragmented thinking is reflected by the music breaking away from the

Fate Theme and instead basking in false optimism as Solano refuses to accept anything but his own desires. He cannot be swayed by reason because his delusion has firmly set in. This is followed by the sailors commenting that Solano is "dreaming, ever dreaming" (reh. G).

After a repetition of the opening chorus in which the sailors claim that they are on "a phantom quest," Solano takes another moment to consider their words. He sings, "And if it were a phantom quest?" and stops for a moment of introspection (Example 2.10). Delius orchestrates these six bars with clarinets in a low register doubled by the bassoons, a very similar orchestration to how he presents the accompaniment to the Fate Theme in the Introduction.

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Example 2.10: The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 1 mm. 171-93. ​ ​

41

Example 2.10 (con.)

42

Harmonically, the accompaniment to Solano's moment of consideration is a series of chords that descend chromatically as a reflection of the chromatic descent of the Fate Theme (see (c),

Examples 2.3 and 2.10). The dotted rhythm (a) from the Fate Theme appears in an extended form as a double dotted half note followed by an eighth note in mm. 181-84 followed by the original rhythmic form in m. 185. (see Example 2.10). The lengthening of these elements from the Fate Theme during this moment of reflection gives Solano one last chance to consider the thoughts of those around him, but "with sudden energy" he breaks away from this brief moment of thought and states "Nay! I must not doubt" (reh. I) as he expresses that he must search for the fountain with "a mighty Will" (mm. 190-1). Delius uses the dotted Determination Motif (reh. I) to accompany this expression and the chromatic descending chords from the previous thoughtful moment are presented as "marcato" and sped up (mm. 191-3) to reflect the sealing of Solano's fate by his decision to cast aside all doubt and purely follow his own passions. After an orchestral interlude (mm. 194-200) expressing Solano's Will, the entrance of the English horn at the cadential point (mm. 201-1) makes certain Solano's fate.

After a series of comments from the chorus of sailors and Solano about the stillness of the sea and bleakness of their days, Solano confronts the sailors by assuring them that once he reaches the fountain he will pay them back double in gold and give them the waters of life that will make them never grow old. One of the sailors speaks out, saying that they would all rather

"see the shore of home once more" than pursue this aimless quest any longer (reh. N). This statement is accompanied by the triplet motif (b) in the horn marked "piano" as a brief background statement (Example 2.11). The rest of the crew repeat emphatically the words of this sailor punctuated by a repetition of the triplet motif now played forte by two horns, first violins, and violas (Example 2.12). It is clear to the sailors that a decision to not turn around now will

43 mean their deaths making this their final chance to convince Solano. The Determination Motif breaks out again as Solano responds by ignoring their complaints saying that the search for the fountain is the only care he has in life (reh. O), claiming that the sailors don't understand the dreams he has.

Example 2.11: The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 1 reh. N, mm. 298-9. ​ ​

Example 2.12: The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 1 mm. 309-10. ​ ​

Instead of heeding the sailors’ advice, Solano cries out to the winds to bring a "storm or hurricane" accompanied by a series of chromatic lines and the Determination Motif (mm.

343-46). The scene begins to change as the sailors cry out that a breeze is starting to blow. There is a jubilant chorus (reh. R) as the sailors prepare the ship to sail with the winds that have suddenly appeared. Solano comments that his "Will is obeyed" claiming that "Nature was forced" by his Will (mm. 380-84). Now, more than ever, Solano is sure of his destiny and the power he contains to overcome any obstacle. The sailors rejoice in singing about the land they will soon see. The chorus becomes increasingly animated, reflecting the excitement of the crew.

Suddenly, the music stops and the skies begin to turn dark. A storm is approaching and Solano calls out to his sailors to tighten the ropes and prepare for the "stormy night" (m. 461). This is

44 accompanied by a series of chromatic lines that grow with the addition of instruments until it climaxes in the curtain closing as the orchestra presents the terrifying storm (reh. W). Chromatic lines continue, reflecting the fate of those upon the ship in the midst of the storm. The orchestra builds to a climax "con tutta forza" (reh. X) after which the music gradually dies away and the chromatic lines grow softer as the tempo gets slower. Finally, the music rests on a B-flat pedal in the key of E-flat minor, the first time this key has been established as a tonal center thus far in the opera.

The music grows softer as the brass and woodwinds present the stillness of the waters and create a bridge to Act I, Scene 2. As all of the instruments die away, Scene 2 begins with the full presentation of the Fate Theme given in E-flat minor (see Example 2.3). Harmonically, the statement of the Fate Theme in E-flat minor reflects the resolution of the B-flat dominant seventh heard in the introduction that went unresolved (see Example 2.1). In the Introduction, the Fate

Theme was given in B minor, instead of the expected E-flat minor, but at the beginning of Act I,

Scene 2 the full theme is presented in the key that the beginning of the Introduction set up.

Act I, Scene 2

Act I, Scene 2 of The Magic Fountain is again modeled after Act III, Scene 1 of Tristan. ​ ​ ​ ​ The orchestral interlude that serves as a bridge to Scene 2 of The Magic Fountain is the symbolic ​ ​ equivalent of the orchestral interlude that begins Act III of Tristan und Isolde. They both ​ ​

88 represent the bleakness of the scene and the tragedies that have unfolded in both works. ​ The ​ Fate Theme in The Magic Fountain begins as the curtain opens on Scene 2, just as the ​ ​

88 Thomas Grey on the Act 3 introduction of Tristan und Isolde: "the magnificently attenuated gestures of the ​ ​ orchestral prelude convey the impression of a vast and desolate horizon, the steel-grey surface of the sea that symbolized the bleak empty day in contrast to the lush depths of night in the previous act." Quoted in Dias, “You Ancient, Solemn Tune,” 76-77.

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Hirtenreigen begins once Act III, Scene 1 opens after the orchestral introduction. Like Tristan, ​ Solano has suffered a traumatic event and is at the edge of life and death lying on the Florida shore. For Tristan, the Hirtenreigen reflects his somber situation, and for Solano, it is Delius's ​ ​ adaptation of the Hirtenreigen into his own Fate Theme (see above p. 28). Both characters are ​ ​ waiting for someone to come and help them. Tristan is expectant upon Isolde, and Solano, without knowing it, is waiting to be discovered by Watawa who, like Isolde, will begin her character's journey by plotting to kill Solano. Watawa is eventually transformed by love and dies in her own version of Wagner's “Liebestod.”

The first scene of The Magic Fountain serves as a prelude to the rest of the work. By ​ ​ deviating harmonically from E-flat minor in the Introduction, and only returning to the key after the tragic fate of the shipwreck, Delius is able to create a connection between the fate foretold in the opening that is now fulfilled at the end of the first scene. Those events served to bring Solano to this point from which the centerpiece of the opera can begin, namely, the meeting of Watawa and Solano and the beginning of their transformational journey together. In modeling this portion of the story from Tristan und Isolde, Delius reworked the order of events to serve the story of the ​ ​ search for the Fountain of Eternal Youth. Instead of having Solano wounded as a result of falling in love with Watawa, Delius uses this event to be the force that brings the two together for the first time. Watawa, like Isolde, wants to take revenge. Isolde, in Act I, plots to kill Tristan because he killed her husband. Watawa plots to kill Solano, a Spanish sailor, to avenge the killing of her tribe at the hands of a group of Spanish sailors. The rest of the opera focuses on her transformation from hate to love, like Isolde, and Solano's transformation from an ignorant fool whose only desire is to live forever into a selfless individual who chooses death for the sake of eternal love instead of eternal life.

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Chapter 3

The Magic Fountain, Acts II and III ​

Watawa's Theme

Act I focuses solely on Solano and how he ended up on the Florida shore. In Act II,

Watawa, the Native American princess whose tribe was murdered by a band of Spanish sailors, becomes the focal point of the story. As Solano lies on the shore in Act I, Scene 2, the Fate

Theme, in its definitive key of E-flat minor, reflects Solano’s desperation as he realizes that all of his crew perished at sea and he is near death with no one to help him. Solano becomes delirious as E-flat minor turns to E-flat major with the entrance of Watawa. Watawa's Theme (Example

3.1) is heard as she walks along the shore, not far from Solano. When she first sees him, she assumes that he is dead but when he begins to move she immediately goes to find Wapanacki, the leader of the tribe that she is now living with. Watawa is filled with fear and uncertainty at encountering another Spanish sailor and implores Wapanacki to kill him. Instead, Wapanacki has his men carry Solano from the shore and into their village saying that Native Americans never harm an unarmed man.

Example 3.1: Watawa’s Theme The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 2 reh. Aa, mm. 557-59 ​ ​

Watawa wants to have Solano killed to avenge her family’s murder, but she also is responsible for his life having been saved. As discussed in Chapter 2, Watawa is modeled after

47

Isolde, who healed the wounds that Tristan sustained while fighting in a battle with Isolde’s husband, Morold. When Isolde discovers the chip in Tristan’s sword—the same size as a piece of sword she found in her husband's head—she raises the weapon to kill Tristan but, looking into his eyes, feels her hate replaced by love. Watawa undergoes the same journey: in Act I, Scene 2, after finding Solano and saving his life, then wishing to have him killed, Watawa is convinced by

Wapanacki to let the gods decide his fate. Watawa plots to exact her vengeance with a poisoned knife instead of a sword, but as with Isolde, her hate also disappears at the moment of truth, as her love for Solano renders her unable to commit the act. Thus Act I, Scene 2 marks the beginning of Watawa’s transformation from hate to love.

For his part, Solano is modeled after the Tristan of Act III of Tristan und Isolde (see ​ ​ Chapter 2), who has been wounded and lies dying as he waits to be saved. For Tristan, this savior would be Isolde, and for Solano, it is Watawa. In adapting the story of Tristan und Isolde for The ​ ​ ​ Magic Fountain, Delius reordered the sequence of events to shift the focus from Solano to ​ Watawa, and to make her emotional journey the main subject of Acts II and III. Through the use of the Fate Theme, modeled after Wagner's Hirtenreigen, and the tragedy that befalls Solano that ​ ​ leaves him near death, Delius connects Solano with the Tristan of Act III.

By introducing Watawa’s Theme in the key of E-flat major, Delius reveals Watawa's role in Solano’s fate. The Fate Theme’s key is E-flat minor and represents the negative events that happen in the opera such as the death of Solano’s crew while Watawa's shift of mode to E-flat major reveals her role as a positive force acting upon Solano. Even though Watawa herself wishes Solano were dead, her actions are always prevented by an outside force. At first, this force is the voice of reason from two different characters: Wapanacki and Talum Hadjo. As

Watawa implements her plan to kill Solano, she is accompanied by variations of the “Triplet

48

Theme” (see Example 2.3) that Delius modeled on Wagner’s Hirtenreigen. This motif, referred ​ ​ to hereafter as the Fate Motif, first reflects Watawa's hatred towards Solano, which guides her actions—actions that decide Solano’s fate—but as Watawa’s transformation progresses, the Fate

Motif turns from a force of hate into a force of love in a transformation into the Love Theme (see the discussion of Act III below). As will be shown, Watawa's connection with Solano's fate remains a key element throughout the entire story. While Delius uses the Tristan of Act III to portray Solano's reliance upon others at this moment, it is the Isolde of Act I of Tristan that ​ ​ Delius develops throughout Acts II and III of The Magic Fountain. ​ ​

Amfortas’s Theme

To prepare the transformational journeys of Solano and Watawa, Delius incorporates elements of Wagner's Parsifal into the story by adapting musical motifs and character models. ​ ​ Musically, the Native Americans, with the exception of Watawa, are based upon the Knights of the Grail from Parsifal. Following a reiteration of the Fate Theme in Act I, Scene 2, Delius ​ ​ introduces the Solano Motif, which appears when Solano is mentioned in conversation among members of the Native American tribe (Example 3.2).

Example 3.2: Solano Motif The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 2 mm. 651-2 ​ ​

Delius modeled this motif on the Amfortas Motif from Act I of Parsifal (Example 3.3). ​ ​

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Example 3.3: Amfortas Motif Parsifal Act I mm. 151-489 ​ ​ ​

The Amfortas Motif and the Solano Motif contain an emphasis on beat two and contain a triplet figure. Both motifs begin on the tonic and tension is created in by the use of scale-degree six for the half note on beat two of both motifs which resolves to scale-degree five on beat four.

In an analysis of Tristan und Isolde, Roger North points out the similarities between the ​ ​

90 Amfortas theme and the Hirtenreigen of Tristan und Isolde. ​ The “Triplet Theme” in the ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Hietenreigen contains the same outline of an emphasis on beat 2 and the inclusion of a triplet. ​ The only difference is that the triplet occurs on beat four of the Amfortas Motif and on beat one of the “Triplet Theme.” Dramatically speaking, the Tristan of Act III and Amfortas of Parsifal ​ are similar characters in having been wounded as a result of giving in to love’s desires.

As the Solano Motif is heard, Wapanacki and a few members of his tribe take Solano from the shore into their village at the edge of the forest. Wapanacki, as will be shown, is modeled from Gurnemanz, a veteran Knight and counselor to Amfortas. The use of the Amfortas

Motif not only creates a connection, musically, between The Magic Fountain and Parsifal but ​ ​ ​ ​ ties Solano to Amfortas who, like the Tristan of Act III, is wounded and in need of outside help.

Solano is carried into the village and is nurtured back to health, a scene recalling the first entrance of Amfortas in Act I of Parsifal as he is carried onto the stage by a group of Knights ​ ​ (cf. the Native American tribe members) in order to sooth his wounds.

89 All musical examples from Parsfial are adapted from Richard Wagner, Parsifal, trans. Stewart Robb (Milwaukee: G.​ Schirmer, 1962). ​ ​ ​ ​ 90 Roger North, Wagner’s Most Subtle Art: An Analytic Study of "Tristan und Isolde," rev. ed. (London: R. North, ​ ​ 1999), 447.

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Solano in Act I is thus a combination of two heroes: Tristan and Parsifal. Throughout the opera, Solano goes through the same transformations as Parsifal in the shedding of his ignorance and as he makes decisions that are contrary to his desires but benefit others. Additionally, Solano transcends his ties to the earth, through the force of love, recalling the transcendence of both

Tristan and Isolde. But Delius did not want this opera to center around Solano. Originally, Delius

91 planned to title the opera "Watawa" ​ and had written to Jutta Bell that he wanted Watawa to be ​ the strongest character on the stage:

I want this work to be essentially Indian. I want the Indian Characters to be the most

important. For this reason I dont want much of the Spanish element it would complicate

the subject without adding to the conciseness.92 ​

In the end, it is Watawa who becomes the hero as she overcomes her hatred and allows the love she ends up feeling for Solano to triumph over the hatred she feels towards the Spanish sailors that murdered her family. She sacrifices herself so that Solano's eyes may be opened to the dangers of the Fountain. It is her heroism, and not that of a traditional male hero such as Parsifal, that is the focus of this work.

Act II

Following the Act II introduction, Delius opens Scene 1 with an “Indian village in the forest on the borders of a great swamp” (reh. B). The warriors, including their chief Wapanacki

91 Rachael Lowe, Frederick Delius 1862-1934: A Catalogue of the Music Archive of the Delius Trust, London ​ (London: Delius Trust, 1974), 37. This is revealed in a letter from Frederick Delius to Jutta Bell, July 11th, 1894. Lionel Carley, Delius: A Life in Letters, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 83-5. ​ ​ 92 Delius to Jutta Bell, July 29th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 88. ​ ​

51 and the shipwrecked Solano, sit smoking around a large fire. The warriors are humming, accompanied by ceremonial music marked “lento solenne” to represent the “stillness of night.”

This Solemn Theme (Example 3.4) is modeled on the Holy Grail motif of Parsifal (Example ​ ​ 3.5).

Example 3.4: Solemn Theme The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 1 reh. B, mm. 45-52 ​ ​

Example 3.5: Grail Motif Parsifal Act I mm. 39-43 ​ ​

Wagner uses the Grail Motif to represent the sense of reverence and ritual felt by the knights who have dedicated themselves to the preservation of the Holy Grail. There is a sense of stillness and security that the Grail theme signifies and Delius uses his adaptation, the Solemn

Theme, to add those same qualities to the Native American Warriors. The stage direction for Act

II, Scene I of The Magic Fountain states that the “sun has set and the stillness of night has set ​ ​

52 in.” The Native Americans are sitting around the central fire of their community in reverence and peace. The Warriors are awaiting news about whether they will need to attack a neighboring tribe that threatens to invade their village. They are gathered together for the protection of their community just as the Knights of the Grail are gathered for the protection of the Holy Grail. Both leitmotifs represent peace, community, and reverence in relation to a higher order.

The atmospheric similarities of these two motifs are matched by similarities in construction. The first two bars of each theme consist of a melodic figure that begins on the fifth scale degree followed by an ascending interval of a major second and a minor third (sol, la, do).

This basic figure is harmonized with a descending progression of I-vi-IV in both cases, Delius writing in the key of E-flat major and Wagner in the key of A-flat major. In mm. 3-4, Delius circles around the melodic figure while Wagner’s motif rises with a quotation from the Dresden

Amen (mm. 4-5, Example 3.5). Both motifs begin with a half note followed by a chord change to vi on beat three. Delius uses another half-note before giving the third harmony, IV, at the beginning of the second bar. Wagner slightly anticipates the second bar by moving the change of chord forward by an eighth note but, overall, the arrival of the IV happens at the beginning of the second bar. Delius continues with four shorter notes, quarters in his case, as does Wagner, who uses four eighth notes. The shape of the melodic lines is identical: Delius begins on B-flat and gradually rises, ending on the E-flat an octave and a fifth higher than where he began (Example

3.4) and Wagner does the same by beginning E-flat and gradually rising an octave and a fifth to

B-flat (Example 3.5). Musically and symbolically, Delius creates a connection between the

Native America’s of The Magic Fountain and the Knights of the Grail from Parsifal. ​ ​ ​ ​

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Wapanacki and Gurnemanz: Voices of Reason

Wapanacki, the chief of the Native American village, is modeled on Gurnemanz from

Parsifal. Both Gurnemanz and Wapanacki represent human reason and serve as counselors to the ​ main characters. It is Gurnemanz who counsels Parsifal and sets him on the path to finding the

Holy Spear. Wapanacki gives counsel to Watawa, telling her to practice restraint and allow the gods to decide Solano’s fate instead of taking matters into her own hands. Wapanacki knows that the waters of the Fountain will kill anyone who is not prepared to partake of them. Instead of condemning Solano, he allows the gods to make their judgement. Likewise, Gurnemanz, in Act I of Parsifal, is not convinced that Parsifal is the “reine Tor” prophesied to save their community ​ ​ by retrieving the Holy Spear from Klingsor. He gives counsel and sends Parsifal on his journey, knowing that if he is the “reine Tor” he will succeed, and if not, he will receive the same fate as

Amfortas. Wapanacki tells Solano that Watawa will be his guide to the Fountain and instructs

Watawa to go to Talum Hadjo, an immortal hermit in the woods who is sustained by the waters of the Fountain, to receive further counsel. As the voice of reason, both Wapanacki and

Gurnemanz are essential for guiding characters on the beginning of their journeys.

Act II, Scene 2

At the end of Act II, Scene 1 comes a lengthy orchestral interlude that serves to transform the scene as Solano and Watawa embark upon their journey into the forest. For Delius, it was nature that had the power to transform an individual, and it is nature, not the religious faith of

Parsifal, that transforms Solano’s and Watawa’s individual desires into an eventual union. The ​ interlude at the end of Act I, Scene 2 marks the beginning of their journey of transformation. The

54 characters are absorbed into the forest and their egos will gradually be dissolved. In a letter to

Jutta Bell, Delius describes this transformation:

[Solano] in the end almost becomes an indian himself and quite disappears – or loses his

individuality in the last act. He and Watawa become one with their surroundings and

Nature. He is no more [Solano] but the love of Watawa, who has not changed one iota

since the beginning. Her nature I mean. [Solano] is an adventurer and gradually the

surroundings & the beautiful Watawa make him forget all his past life: that is why I make

him drink of the waters seeing & knowing this fatal effect. He does not want to go back

to his native land or people [. . .]93 ​

94 This scene change does not happen behind the curtain but on the stage. ​ Delius’s stage ​ directions have the characters "slowly passing through luxurious swamps" as the "day begins to break" (reh. T). As they move through the Everglades, Solano's eyes become transfixed upon

Watawa as he "turns his face radiantly towards Watawa who notices him not" (m. 420).

Musically, Solano's Theme is heard in a variation that is incorporated into the rest of the forest music (Example 3.6). This is a reflection of the transformation that Solano himself undergoes as his eyes open ever more to Watawa the farther they go into the "thick undergrowth" of the forest.

93 Delius to Jutta Bell, July 29th, 1894. Carley, Delius (I), 88-9. ​ ​ 94 Ian Lang, the director of the 1999 Scotish Opera performance of The Magic Fountain, states that Delius would ​ ​ have been inspired by the “cyclorama” he saw at Bayreuth for the performance of Parsifal. A cyclorama allows for ​ ​ the illusion of objects moving through space. This was used at Bayreuth during the transformation scene of Act I and is what Delius had in mind during these scene transformations that have Solano and Watawa walking through the changing forest. Rare Classix, “Delius The Magic Fountain,” September 16, 2019, video, 1:54:23, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlocnIaP3u0, 8:45-9:21. ​

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Example 3.6: Solano’s Theme The Magic Fountain Act I, Scene 2 mm. 641-3 ​ ​

Transformation of Solano’s Theme Act II, Scene 2 m. 416

Talum Hadjo and Titurel

On their journey to the Fountain, Solano and Watawa stop to receive counsel from Talum

Hadjo, a wise and immortal hermit who is sustained by the waters of the Fountain. Hadjo is the embodiment of Titurel who is sustained by magical forces of the Holy Grail. In Parsifal, Titurel ​ ​ is only heard as an offstage voice, not participating directly in the action upon the stage. In this way, Wagner made Titurel stand outside of the reality of everyday existence, representing the transcendence that comes to the most faithful servants of the Holy Grail. Likewise, Talum Hadjo lives within the forest, away from any other Native Americans. Wapanacki pointed out that he is never seen but holds eternal wisdom through his years of devoted study of the Fountain. Hadjo, like Titurel, represents someone who has transcended the realm of human experience but has not completely left the earthly realm. Both characters are sustained by devotion to their respective magical life sources. The meeting of Talum Hadjo reflects the transformation happening within the characters and their place on the journey away from the reality of everyday experience.

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Fate Motif’s Association with Watawa

After a short monologue from Talum Hadjo about the many generations of men who have been born and died in the years he has been in devotion to the Fountain, the Solemn Theme appears revealing the sacredness of the place. Watawa enters alone after telling Solano to wait for her as she receives counsel from Talum Hadjo. When she approaches Hadjo, he tells her that he has heard of the terrible tragedy that befell her family, and Watawa responds: "I have now within my power one of that cursed race" revealing the poisoned knife hidden in her belt that she will use to avenge her family. As Watawa speaks of the "power" she has over Solano's life, the

Fate Motif from Wagner's Hirtenreigen appears (Example 3.7). It is transformed into a dotted ​ ​ eighth/sixteenth replacing the triplet on beat one. The change to the dotted figure transforms this fate motif into a pointed, jabbing rhythm, to reflect Watawa's knife and her active role in deciding Solano's fate. The second measure includes the triplet with a quarter note on beat two followed by a rest on beat three and a quarter note on beat four. These sharp chords intensify the association with Watawa's knife.

Like Gurnemanz, Talum Hadjo serves as the voice of reason, advising Watawa to let the gods decide Solano’s fate through the waters of the Fountain. Hadjo asks Watawa if Solano has done any evil to her or anyone else and whether he brought weapons with him. She tells him that he has not hurt anyone and only searches for wisdom about the Fountain of Eternal Youth. Hadjo becomes agitated, exclaiming: "Does he seek to gain in one leap the profound knowledge" that it took Hadjo "fifty year of weary fasting" and contemplation to attain? (reh. Cc, mm. 577-89).

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Example 3.7: The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 545-6 ​ ​

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Hadjo tells Watawa that this is a "vain fancy" (m. 590) but asks if she does "truly wish to kill him" (mm. 593-94). She exclaims that she hates his race as the Fate Motif, in dotted form, appears as before (reh. Dd). Her rage is counteracted by Hadjo's counsel that "hate means death and strife" while "love means hope and life" (mm. 599-605). At these words, the Fate Motif is heard transformed into a tender motif reflecting the love that is seeded inside of Watawa

(Example 3.8). Hadjo tells Watawa to take his counsel and not use her knife. He says that if she wishes to kill him, she should lead him to the waters and let them take his life. Before telling her to leave him in peace, he implores that she let her "heart decide" what fate she wishes to bring to

Solano (m. 630). As Watawa leaves Hadjo's presence, she exclaims "death he shall find where he came to seek for life!" (mm. 636-39) after which the Tender Motif variant of the Fate Motif (see

Example 3.8) is heard as the scene "transforms slowly into soft and dreamy woodlands" (reh.

Gg).

Example 3.8: Tender Motif The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 605-7 ​ ​

When the scene shifts back to Solano in the forest, Watawa’s Theme is heard as Solano’s feelings towards her are revealed: "how strangely fair she is!/What form and subtle grace" (mm.

660-8). Watawa enters accompanied by a variation of the Fate Motif (Example 3.9) revealing that she has made her decision as to Solano’s fate: "coldly" she states "there lies the path" (mm.

674-5). Both characters pause, looking at each other, "trying to read the other's thoughts," (mm.

676-7) as the music modulates to E-flat major, the key of Watawa, and a transformation of

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Solano's Ambition Motif appears (Example 3.10). This variant of the Ambition Motif, in

Watawa’s key of E-flat, shows the attraction Solano is feeling towards Watawa and his transformation away from the ambition to find the Fountain, replaced by his ambition for

Watawa. Solano "looks once more entreatingly at Watawa" as another transformation of the Fate

Motif appears (mm. 686-91), reflecting the attraction felt by Solano for Watawa, the person who holds his fate in her hands. An inversion of the Ambition Motif accompanies the end of the transformed Fate Motif as the two characters continue on moving through the "thick brush"

(Example 3.11). The Everglades become thicker as a representation of the two characters becoming continually more absorbed by the forest, reflecting their distance from the realm of everyday reality and their transformations as a part of nature.

Example 3.9: The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 668-9 ​ ​

Example 3.10: Variation of Ambition Motif The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 681-2 ​ ​

Ambition Motif Act I Introduction m. 53

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Example 3.11: The Magic Fountain Act II, Scene 2 mm. 682-89 ​ ​

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Example 3.11 con.

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Act III

The final act of The Magic Fountain reveals Delius's reworking of Wagner's "Liebestod" ​ ​ from Tristan und Isolde. The last act contains what many view as the most compelling music of ​ ​

95 the opera. ​ The third act follows Watawa as she is confronted by conflicting emotions about ​ Solano. Watawa, like Isolde, feels her hate disappearing as a new emotion, love, emerges. For

Watawa, it is not a magic potion that sparks the change but immersion in nature, where she transcends the everyday experience and is confronted by her emotions for Solano. Throughout the act, the Fate Motif goes through several transformations to reflect Watawa's changing feelings. Solano pledges his love for Watawa and encourages her to let down her guard and do the same. Eventually, after much hesitation, Watawa and Solano fall into each other's arms in a

96 love duet, the first duet of the opera, except for a brief moment of vocal overlap in Act II. ​ The ​ two lovers fall asleep and the Fountain appears. Solano awakes, sees the Fountain, and goes to partake of its waters but Watawa stops him, explaining that if he drinks from the Fountain, he will die. He does not listen, but before he can reach the Fountain, Watawa drinks the waters in a sacrifice of herself for the benefit of Solano. She pledges her love to him and says she will wait for him in the “sweet Magnolia grove” (mm. 599-600). Solano decides to give up his desire for eternal life and partakes of the waters so that he can be united in love with Watawa. Both characters leave the earthly realm, along with all of their original desires, for the sake of love.

This adaptation of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde was Delius's first attempt at a "Liebestod" but not ​ ​ his last. His next three operas would contain a similar fate for the characters involved.

95 “The finest pages of The Magic Fountain are really in the third act, and one just has to ignore the incongruities of ​ ​ the story and its banal text, and concentrate instead on the sheer beauty of sound. Delius enjoys painting the scenery in extravagant and sensuous textures. . . and the orchestral introduction is very fine in its misty evocation of the moonlit tropical Everglades, with their luxuriant forests and colorful flowers. The love duet of Watawa and Solano reaches heights of passion but. . . Delius is reluctant to combine their voices in a true duet. . . the final scene in which the lovers meet their deaths fails to move us as it should, and ends with the orchestra swooning perfunctorily in D flat.” Guinery and Lee-Browne, Delius and His Music, 68-69. ​ ​ 96 In Act II, Watawa has a brief vocal line, spoken to herself, that overlaps Solano’s.

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Example 3.12: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 26-31 ​ ​

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His fourth opera, A Village Romeo and Juliet, would be Delius’s most successful attempt at a ​ ​ personal version of Wagner's "Liebestod."

Throughout Act III, Delius weaves leitmotifs together to highlight the forces at play in

Watawa's conflicting emotions, Solano's love for Watawa, and the concluding self-sacrifice motivated by love. This act does not present any new Wagnerian models but it does show how

Delius attempts to take the various motifs he modeled from Wagner and vary them to reflect the transformation of Solano and Watawa and his own version of Wagner's "Liebestod." The Fate

Motif and Fate Theme in particular reveal Delius’s attempts to fold this layer of symbolic meaning into the orchestral accompaniment to the last act.

Transformation of Fate Motif into the Love Theme

Act III begins with an extended orchestral prelude that reflects Watawa’s conflicting emotions. The prelude opens with music that describes the natural surrounding of the

Everglades, followed by a section marked "Agitato" with filled tremolos and running chromatic lines similar to the music heard during the shipwreck in Act I. This section is punctuated by the cadential figure from the Fate Theme (Example 3.12). The music becomes tranquil, giving a moment of reflection, before an "Appassionato" represents Watawa’s growing passion towards

Solano. The Apassionato section ends in a statement of the Love Theme (Example 3.13) which reappears after a return of the opening Everglades music.

Example 3.13: Love Theme The Magic Fountain Act III reh. F, mm. 77-83 ​ ​

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The Love Theme is an adaptation of the Fate Motif (Example 3.13, m. 1) which shows

Watawa's changing feelings from the hate felt at the beginning of Act II to the growing feelings, which she will later recognize as love, that the Love Theme represents. Measure 6 of Example

3.13, just before Watawa's first vocal entrance, punctuates the Love theme with the pointed version of the Fate Motif that was heard in Act II (see Example 3.7) as Watawa was discussing her plans to kill Solano with her poisoned knife. Watawa is standing alone by a lake looking into the waters, commenting that they are "darkened as by unknown fears" as the music modulates to

E-flat minor, the tonal center of fate (m. 86).

Watawa has an extended monologue in which she looks to nature for the answer to the conflict she feels within her. At reh. G she asks: "What can it be, this strange vague anguish floating quivering in the air?" She asks the waters why they weep (mm. 103-6) and if they know

"the force of hate?" (mm. 108-9). Watawa asks herself why she lingers any longer, why she doesn't kill him now exclaiming that "one sure thrust would end this strife" (mm. 132-3).

Suddenly, after these words, a fragment from the Love Theme emerges marked "distantly"

(Example 3.14). Watawa’s being unable to strike Solano with her knife due to the power of love over hate is analogous to Isolde not being able to strike Tristan with his sword due to the love that overtook her feeling of hate.

Example 3.14: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 134-5 ​ ​

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In a moment of tranquility, Watawa remembers her family and how she will be “blest” by avenging their deaths, her vocal line accompanied by a fragment of the Solemn Theme (mm.

141-5). She becomes agitated, telling herself to quickly kill him before realizing what she is saying: "Kill him, I?. . . No I cannot take his life!" (mm. 149-55). This is followed by a chromatic version of the Fate Motif (Example 3.15) as she states that she has to abide by

"Medea's counsel" (mm. 158-9). Medea is the god of Watawa's tribe and the entrance of the rising chromatic variation of the Fate Motif shows Watawa trying to separate herself as an agent of Solano's fate and instead put it in the hands of the gods.

Example 3.15: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 158-9 ​ ​

This moment of resignation is followed by an immediate outburst where Watawa changes her mind and decides that she can end her conflict tonight by killing Solano. She goes on to exclaim: "Yearning, burning mad desire thrilling, killing with wild fire. Hatred or love I know no longer" (reh. L, mm. 177-82). Suddenly, Solano is heard calling Watawa's name and she states that his voice sounds "like sweet music" (mm. 194-5). She continues to listen before bursting out with a confession of her love: "ah! madness, ah! longing. Love! what anguish! love! what pain! more intense because in vain!" (reh. N, mm. 209-15). Solano overhears her confession and tells

Watawa "say thou lovest once again" before asking her why she is feeling "anguish" and

"sorrow" (mm. 218-21).

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Solano falls to his knees as Watawa tells him to "turn and go" because "love between us is a treason that should strike Watawa dead" (reh. O, mm. 229-33). The music modulates to

D-flat major, the key of union between Solano and Watawa, as Solano tells Watawa that he could never leave her now that they have encountered "love's sweet bliss" accompanied by his own Theme from Act II (reh. P; see Example 3.6). This view of love-as-treason between Watawa and Solano is analogous to the treasonous love between Tristan and Isolde, a love that resulted in

Tristan receiving the fatal wound that brings about the entrance of the Hirtenreigen shown in ​ ​ Chapter 2. Love between them could never be allowed in reality so they transcended the earthly realm to a higher, spiritual one where love is the only thing that matters.

Solano confesses that he will abandon all "life and death. . . for one long kiss" (mm.

245-7) as he holds Watawa in his arms and their "lips meet in a long kiss" (mm. 249-54). The tempo slows and the Kiss Theme is heard in the clarinet at a pianissimo (Example 3.16). As

Solano is holding Watawa, he asks tenderly why love between them would be treasonous to which she responds with a long monologue that describes how here "people were destroyed by thine own race" (reh. R, mm. 268-70) adding, "I determined to revenge them blood for blood."

(mm. 272-4). Watawa confesses her plan to kill Solano but with each step she took, her "hatred lessened" (m. 279) until "love. . . saved thy life" (mm. 284-5). Her confession reveals the power the forest had on her as each step further into the thick brush reduced her hatred and strengthened her love. Solano responds by telling Watawa that he cherishes her "love. . . far greater than life"

(reh. S, mm. 287-92). This is the ultimate transformation of Solano from the obsessive captain that forced his crew to push forward, regardless of the danger, in order to reach the Fountain and gain eternal life, to the man who has given up any desire for himself out of pure love for

Watawa. This is accompanied by a retrograde inversion variation of the Determination Motif

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(Example 3.17), a dotted rhythmic figure, formally a reflection of Solano's force of Will to reach the Fountain no matter the danger (see Example 2.5), now transformed to a "dolce" and tranquil motif, no longer driven by Solano's Will for the Fountain but a reflection of his tender devotion to Watawa. At reh. T, the Determination Motif is presented in a "Più vivo" as Solano states that it is no longer his Will that pushes him forward but Watawa's: "In thy will lies all my bliss" (reh.

T, mm. 309-12). This is coupled with an inverted variation of the Ambition Motif (Example

3.18), a further demonstration of the reversal of Solano's desires shifting away from the self-centered figure that was presented in Act I to the lover who would give his own life for hers.

Example 3.16: Kiss Theme The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 251-4 ​ ​

Example 3.17: The Magic Fountain Act III reh. S, mm. 287-8 ​ ​

Original Determination Motif Act I Scene 1 mm. 28-30

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Example 3.18: The Magic Fountain Act III m. 314 ​ ​

At reh. U, Watawa is unsure of whether to allow her feelings to emerge as the transformed Determination Motif gradually builds momentum. A modulation to D-flat major

(reh. V), the key of the lovers, coincides with Solano entering into a duet with Watawa that builds to reh. W with the lovers exclaiming that "thou [are] the light that flooded all my darkness" (reh. W). The music, instead of continuing to a grand resolution, suddenly dies away as the two lovers sink down together in another "long kiss" (reh. X), falling asleep with the appearance of the Kiss Theme. As the two lovers sleep, the scene begins to change as "vapory forms of beautiful women" (reh. Y) appear along with "mystic forms" and "invisible spirits"

(mm. 400-10). The women sing to the lovers and a ballet sequence takes place with the spirits frolicking about (reh. Z). They call to their god Unktahé, the keeper of the fountain, in the rhythm of the Fate Motif (Example 3.19). This motif is repeated as they call the Fountain to

"awake" (mm. 426-33). The Fountain gradually becomes visible as the women enter and play in its waters (reh. Bb). The women sing a warning that all those unprepared will perish in the waters of the Fountain. The Fate Motif is heard throughout the scene as the god Unktahé, in the

"likeness. . . of Buddha," appears (reh. Cc-Dd).

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Example 3.19: The Magic Fountain Act III reh. Aa, mm. 421-2 ​ ​

As the spirits fade, leaving only the Fountain on stage, the Solemn music is heard as Solano awakens. He exclaims that the Fountain, which he "so long desired," is now before them (mm.

471-87). Solano tells Watawa to join him and they can live together in eternal youth and love, not knowing the danger of the Fountain’s waters. The music modulates to A-flat, the key that

Solano introduced the Fountain with in Act I , but is darkened by an extended variation of the

Fate Motif (Example 3.20).

Example 3.20: The Magic Fountain Act III reh. Ee, mm. 489-91 ​ ​

Watawa yells “No!” as Solano approaches the Fountain, telling him that waters are poisonous for all those unprepared (mm. 495-505). Solano tells Watawa that she must be

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"dreaming" (mm. 506-10) but she continues by describing the warning she was given by Talum

Hadjo. Solano's delusion about the fountain returns and he is unable to comprehend any danger.

The Fountain Theme is heard (reh. Hh) and Solano is transfixed by the "pure waters" in which

"death could [never] find a place" (mm. 539-40). As Solano speaks these words, the segment (b) from the Fate Theme (see Example 2.4) is heard softly in the Flute (Example 3.21).

Example 3.21: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 539-40 ​ ​

Watawa falls to her knees, imploring Solano to listen to her as her theme appears followed by the triplet arpeggio (b) from the Fate Theme (Example 3.22).

Example 3.22: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 553-5 ​ ​

Knowing that she will not be able to convince Solano by words alone, Watawa stands, accompanied by the Solemn Theme, and decides to sacrifice herself in the hope that Solano's life will be saved. The Solemn Theme is punctuated by a diminished seventh chord followed by

Watawa slowly fainting into Solano's arms. The full Fate Theme is heard for the first time since

72

Example 3.23: The Magic Fountain Act III mm. 579-91 ​ ​

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Act I Scene 2 as Watawa exclaims that she is dying (mm. 579-84) followed by a fragment of the

Love Theme, itself a variation of the Fate Motif (Example 3.23).

Watawa sings one last farewell to Solano as she fades away, consoling Solano by saying that she will wait for him in the "sweet magnolia grove" (reh. Kk, mm. 599-600). She dies and

Solano yells "I have killed thee" as the Fate Motif is heard in the horns (m. 601). Solano, in his despair, has "a sudden beautiful thought" and rises to approach the Fountain (mm. 604-5). He says, "I will follow thee to that sweet magnolia grove" and drinks the waters from the Fountain as the music modulates to D-flat major, the key of the lovers, reflecting their eternal union beyond the realm of the earth where their love can flourish (606-9). The opera concludes with a repetition of the Solemn Theme (mm. 609-16) just as Act III of Parsifal ends with the "Grail ​ ​ Theme," the model for Delius's Solemn Theme. With this, Delius brings the two stories of

Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde together. The lovers die in a "Liebestod" as in Tristan but ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ musically the ending is that of Parsifal. In this way, Delius is able to round out both of his ​ ​ models in the creation of The Magic Fountain. ​ ​ By taking Wagner as his model, Delius was able to expand his dramatic style beyond the confines found in his first opera Irmelin and set himself on a path that would culminate in his ​ ​ fourth opera, A Village Romeo and Juliet, the first work to show the pure Delian style of his ​ ​ 97 mature years. ​ If it wasn't for The Magic Fountain and the models Delius used, he would never ​ ​ ​ have been able to develop the compositional and dramatic techniques that led to his own unique compositional style.

97 See John W. Klein, “Delius’s Advance to Mastery,” Tempo 60 (Winter 1961-62): 2-6; Anthony Payne, “Delius’s ​ ​ Stylistic Development,” Tempo 60 (Winter 1961-62): 6-16, 23-5; and Philip Heseltine, “Some Notes on Delius and ​ ​ His Music,” The Musical Times 56 (March 1915): 137-42. ​ ​

74

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