The Delius Society Journal Autumn 2015, Number 158
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The Delius Society Journal Autumn 2015, Number 158 The Delius Society (Registered Charity No 298662) President Lionel Carley BA, PhD Vice Presidents Roger Buckley Sir Andrew Davis CBE Sir Mark Elder CBE Bo Holten RaD Piers Lane AO, Hon DMus David Lloyd-Jones BA, FGSM, Hon DMus Julian Lloyd Webber FRCM Anthony Payne Website: delius.org.uk ISSN-0306-0373 THE DELIUS SOCIETY Chairman Martin Lee-Browne CBE Chester House, Fairford GL7 4AD Email: [email protected] Treasurer Peter Watts c/o Bourner Bullock Chartered Accountants Sovereign House, 212-224 Shaftesbury Avenue London WC2H 8HQ Email: [email protected] Membership Secretary Paul Chennell 19 Moriatry Close, London N7 0EF Email: [email protected] Journal Editor Katharine Richman 15 Oldcorne Hollow, Yateley GU46 6FL Tel: 01252 861841 Email: [email protected] Front cover: View of the entrance of 94 rue Wilson and the rose tree Domaine de Courson, taken from the street Photo: © Claire Maupas Back cover: View of the 12th-century Tour de Gannes from Jelka’s studio at Grez Image: © Claire Maupas The Editor has tried in good faith to contact the holders of the copyright in all material used in this Journal (other than holders of it for material which has been specifically provided by agreement with the Editor), and to obtain their permission to reproduce it. Any breaches of copyright are unintentional and regretted. CONTENTS CHAIRMAN’S NOTES ........................................................................................5 EDITORIAL...........................................................................................................8 KOANGA – AN INTRODUCTION ...................................................................9 O KOANGA, THOU ART CHANGED … THOU ART TRANSLATED!* .12 A LATE START – DELIUS AND ENGLISHNESS .........................................17 REMEMBERING ROBERT THRELFALL (1918-2014) ..................................24 ON FIGURING THE FIRST CUCKOO IN SPRING ......................................32 THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING FLAT! .....................................................37 PERCY GRAINGER’S PROMOTION OF DELIUS IN THE USA: PART TWO .....................................................................................................................39 100 YEARS AGO ................................................................................................51 OBITUARIES ......................................................................................................53 Evelin Gerhardi (1909-2015) .........................................................................53 Robert Wright (1934-2015) ............................................................................62 BOOK REVIEWS ................................................................................................64 Charles Mackerras ..........................................................................................64 Grainger the Modernist .................................................................................67 CONCERT REVIEWS ........................................................................................70 Delius at Dorchester .......................................................................................70 The German Society of Pennsylvania ..........................................................71 BBC Proms ......................................................................................................73 CD REVIEWS ......................................................................................................77 Delius Violin Concerto ..................................................................................77 THE DELIUS PRIZE ..........................................................................................82 POETRY CORNER .............................................................................................86 MISCELLANY ....................................................................................................87 Delius Anniversary marked in Lesjaskog ...................................................87 CD of Swedish cellist John Ehde ..................................................................89 Merchandise ....................................................................................................89 Wanted – book by John Crombie .................................................................89 Julian Lloyd Webber ......................................................................................90 DSJ 158 3 The Delius Society YouTube Channel ........................................................ 91 Aventura en España ...................................................................................... 91 Music in Perth ................................................................................................ 95 Delius pictures for sale ................................................................................. 96 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ............................................................................. 97 FORTHCOMING EVENTS .............................................................................. 98 Delius Society London Branch ..................................................................... 98 Other Events ................................................................................................. 101 4 DSJ 158 CHAIRMAN’S NOTES Since the last issue of (if the Editor will allow me to say it) this admirable Journal, very little of Delian note for the Chairman to report or comment on has occurred, apart from saying that we have still not managed to find someone to take over Chris Green’s role in organising our events, in conjunction with Karen Fletcher. Instead I thought that members might be interested to know a little about two extremely interesting ‘Delian’ things my wife and I did when we went to Bielefeld, with our President, to see A Village Romeo and Juliet – reviewed by me in the previous issue. The first was a visit to the Delius family archive – to be found in a room in an elegant house in the middle of the city. We were met by the present ‘head’ of the family, Rudolf Delius – the managing director of C A Delius & Söhne, the successor to the silk-weaving and linen trading house originally founded by Johann Caspar Delius in 1722, and which now makes furnishing fabrics and industrial coverings (including retractable covers for estate car boots) – and Eberhard Delius, the doyen of the family, who is the The Stadthalle in Wuppertal (formerly Elberfeld) DSJ 158 5 keeper of the archive. There are still several hundred living members of the family, mainly in Germany, and the most important item in the archive is a huge book containing the family tree – the names and dates of every single known member. On the page following the title page, there is a single name, Johannes Cornelius Delius, the oldest known member of the family, who was born in 1554; the next page has details of his sons and daughters, and the following one of their children, and so on, the whole record growing exponentially up to the present day. In addition to the tree, there are shelves of books and cabinets of files containing details of all the members of the family about whom there is any paper-work, including press cuttings. A quite amazing achievement! The following day we went to see the Stadthalle [Town Hall] in Wuppertal, in which three of Delius’s major works were first performed under Hans Haym between 1897 and 1902 – Paris in 1901, and both Appalachia and the first version of the Piano Concerto in 1904 (Haym also conducted the premieres of Over the Hills and Far Away in the Elberfeld Casino in 1897, and Koanga in the opera house two years later). This gigantic building, similar to the Victorian town halls in, for example, Cheltenham and Leeds, but much larger and far more elaborately decorated, was originally the town hall of Elberfeld, which was absorbed into Wuppertal in 1929. It was built in 1900, so when Delius first went there The Grosse Saal in the Wuppertal Stadthalle as it would have been when Paris was first performed there in 1902 6 DSJ 158 The Grosse Saal of the Wuppertal Stadthalle today it was literally brand-new – but in the Third Reich the amazing rococo stucco-work, marble wall-facings and elaborate decoration were completely removed or obliterated. In 1995, however, save that the Grosse Saal was given modern light fittings, it was completely restored to its original appearance, so that when we were there it looked as pristine as it had when Paris was given its première. What a place in which to have the biggest work that you had composed performed for the first time! Martin Lee-Browne [email protected] DSJ 158 7 EDITORIAL Welcome to the autumn issue of the Journal, much of which was edited and prepared in a very hot and wet Hong Kong, where I spent the whole of August. Thank you, as always, to those who have contributed articles; please do keep sending them in! I was particularly pleased to find on my return to the UK a large envelope containing a selection of poems by Norman Jones. Readers may recall his Ode to Frederick Delius, which was published in DSJ 139 p 135, and he has now submitted many more, some comic and others based on hearing Delius’s music. I have reproduced several of the latter on page 86, and I plan to incorporate others in future editions. Many members will be aware of the death of Evelin Gerhardi in July 2015 at the astonishing