CHAN 241-37 the essential Delius 21 CCHANHAN 2241-3741-37 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 220-210-21 226/6/076/6/07 113:57:253:57:25 Frederick Delius (1862 –1934) COMPACT DISC ONE Florida Suite* 37:43 1 I Daybreak – Dance 11:16 2 II By the River 6:41 3 III Sunset – Near the Plantation 10:36 4 IV At Night 8:56 © Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library North Country Sketches* 28:54 5 I Autumn 8:22 6 II Winter Landscape 4:00 7 III Dance 7:23 8 IV The March of Spring 8:52 9 Air and Dance† 5:07 TT 72:07 Ulster Orchestra* London Philharmonic Orchestra† Vernon Handley Frederick Delius 3 CCHANHAN 2241-3741-37 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 22-3-3 226/6/076/6/07 113:57:173:57:17 COMPACT DISC TWO Two Pieces for Small Orchestra 13:58 9 Late Swallows 9:28 1 1 On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring 6:41 for string orchestra 2 2 Summer Night on the River 7:17 Arranged by Eric Fenby 3 A Song before Sunrise 5:48 10 Intermezzo from ‘Fennimore and Gerda’ 5:29 for small orchestra Edited and arranged by Sir Thomas Beecham Two Aquarelles 4:36 Bournemouth Sinfonietta for string orchestra Arranged by Eric Fenby Norman Del Mar 4 1 Lento, ma non troppo 2:11 11 The Walk to the Paradise Garden 10:05 5 2 Gaily, but not quick 2:22 Lento From ‘Hassan’ 4:27 12 In a Summer Garden 15:35 Arranged by Sir Thomas Beecham Andante – Animato TT 75:44 6 Intermezzo 2:08 7 Serenade 2:17 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Brendan 0’ Brien leader Richard Hickox 8 Prelude to ‘Irmelin’ 5:21 Lento 4 5 CCHANHAN 2241-3741-37 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 44-5-5 226/6/076/6/07 113:57:193:57:19 a private rehearsal/performance conducted ‘Near the Plantation’, the preceding ‘Sunset’ Delius: Orchestral Works by Hans Sitt in a Leipzig restaurant, with an music is very beautiful, as is the fi nal audience consisting of Grieg, Sinding and the ‘At Night’, Delius’s fi rst nocturne. composer. This was the fi rst time that Delius Though a later work, North Country The childhood loves of Frederick Delius were the instinctive way in which they treated heard an orchestral work of his own, and the Sketches has its origin in a considerably the music of Chopin and Childe Harold’s a melody, and, hearing their singing in following year he revised two movements, earlier time than the Florida Suite. It refers Pilgrimage by Byron – early hints that such romantic surroundings, it was then although of these revised versions only one, to the Yorkshire Moors around Delius’s he would seek to escape from his native that I fi rst felt the urge to express myself ‘Sunset’, survives. Delius was never able to birthplace, where Delius and his sister often Bradford. His sister, Clare, was later to write in music. hear the effect of these changes, however, took long walks. During these he showed that he ‘spent whole days in the library It was therefore apt that the sights and as the Florida Suite was not performed again himself particularly sensitive to birdsong, poring over maps and books of travel’, and sounds of Florida should provide the subject until 1937, three years after his death. This something that is echoed by much woodwind Florida Suite and North Country Sketches matter for the fi rst purely orchestral work was by the London Philharmonic Orchestra writing in the ‘March of Spring’ movement. commemorate two of his early refuges. It was that Delius was to write, Florida Suite. As under Sir Thomas Beecham at the Queen’s It should be remembered that Delius once more positive than that, however. Just as he such it is impressive, but it gives indications Hall, London, on the occasion of the Royal contemplated an opera based on Wuthering went to Norway ostensibly to obtain orders besides of some of his later preoccupations. Philharmonic Society’s Coronation Concert. Heights, and the wild scenery of the Brontë for his father’s wool manufacturing fi rm but in Thus the opening theme of the fi rst and last There are really six movements but, as four country, as it was in his time, greatly reality to drink in the mountain scenery and movements would reappear in his opera of these are linked in two pairs, the work’s impressed him. In fact, a love of the rural the melancholy of pre-industrial folksong, The Magic Fountain of 1893, as would the layout is as follows: I ‘Daybreak – Dance’, II Yorkshire landscape remained with him all his so he settled at Solano Grove, Florida, not dance and climax of the third movement. ‘By the River’, III ‘Sunset – Near the Plantation’, life, and North Country Sketches is its fi nest to grow oranges but because it was exotic, Similarly, the second section of the fi rst IV ‘At Night’. A complete day is thus portrayed expression. This work – in the same way as and remote from Bradford. Delius can be movement, another dance, was again to be and the music’s pictorialism owes something A Song of the High Hills (1911), Eventyr (1917) seen against several backgrounds – British, employed in Act II of a further opera, Koanga to Grieg, although Delius’s own Florida and several other pieces – is of distinctively French, Scandinavian – yet the American one (1895–97). Under the title La Calinda, impressions predominate, some of them being northern inspiration; it is also Delius’s sole tends to be forgotten. Solano was his fi rst this dance has long been familiar as an quite specifi c. For example, the fi nale’s theme purely orchestral score, apart from Brigg Fair really productive stopping-place, where, with independent orchestral piece. A theme from for horn quartet suggests the distant singing (1907), to evoke specifi cally English scenes. a local teacher, he began to work seriously at the third movement’s dance section also was of a spiritual. The opening, ‘Daybreak’, is The fi rst two movements were composed his art, and where he fi rst could sense what to return in the ‘Late Swallows’ movement of notably prophetic, outlining a characteristic in 1913, the last two in 1914, and the whole he had in him to do. Crucial to this was the his String Quartet (1916). Delian mood even if the way in which it is was fi rst performed at the Queen’s Hall singing of Negroes on his plantation. Much Bearing the subtitle ‘Tropical Scenes for conveyed is not yet entirely Delius’s. ‘By the by Beecham and the London Symphony later he said, Orchestra’, the manuscript of the Florida Suite River’ includes what is as close to a romantic Orchestra in 1915. It was published in They showed a truly wonderful sense of is dated 1887, the year of Delius’s twenty- ‘big tune’ as this composer ever got, and 1923. Each movement is a portrayal of a musicianship and harmonic resource in fourth birthday. It was fi rst played in 1888 at although there are stylistic inconsistencies in mood and a season, embodying a nature 6 7 CCHANHAN 2241-3741-37 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 66-7-7 226/6/076/6/07 113:57:203:57:20 mysticism that is only hinted at in the Florida Blind. It is a confection based on the simplest the same two-note motif ten times in fi ve music, two of which appear on this CD. Suite. An important aspect of this music’s of materials. Starting with a meandering bars). In ‘Summer Night on the River’ it is the The Two Aquarelles for string orchestra originality is the orchestral writing, which is theme given to the solo violin, in a moderate woodwind that dominate the tonal balance were arranged in 1938 from the two especially characteristic throughout, typifying tempo, the Air builds up to a climax which and dynamic shading, and the demands made unaccompanied wordless partsongs To Be Delius’s poetic and highly effective methods. immediately gives way to the Dance. Towards upon the sensitivity and skill of the players Sung of a Summer Night on the Water, dating The fi rst movement, ‘Autumn’, is subtitled the end a solo cello recalls the opening, and make this one of Delius’s most diffi cult scores from 1917. The fi rst of these, marked Lento, ‘The Wind Soughs in the Trees’, and so it a brief fl ourish from fi rst violins brings the to realise in performance. Certainly it is a ma non troppo, presents a slow melody which does in long chromatic lines on the muted work to an end. remarkable work of musical scene painting. uses typical Delian harmonies, dying away at strings over drone-like basses. As a result One can almost perceive the insects darting the end. The second, Gaily, but not quick, is © Robert Anthony Briggs the music seems both mobile and static at over the water and a mist hovering just above brisker and more extrovert but it, too, comes the same time, and a comparable effect of the overhanging trees on a late summer’s to a peaceful, quiet conclusion. non-monotonous repetition is produced The Two Pieces for Small Orchestra evening; and the solo cello passage at fi gure Hassan, Delius’s last work for the stage by the cool harp and woodwind motive in (‘Summer Night on the River’ of 1911 and 3 easily evokes the slow, languorous river (1920 –1923), is in many ways his most the next movement, ‘Winter Landscape’.