Frederick Delius

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Portrait of Frederick Delius
Ida Gerhardi : Portrait of Frederick Delius, oil on canvas, 1903

Frederick Theodore Albert Delius [ ˈdiːliəs ] CH (born January 29, 1862 in Bradford , † June 10, 1934 in Grez-sur-Loing ) was a British composer .

Life

Delius came from an old family of textile traders and manufacturers of German origin, who still have their headquarters in Bielefeld today, but originally came from the Netherlands. Frederick was the fourth of 14 children of Julius and Elise Delius who moved to Yorkshire, where he was born and raised, in the mid-1850s. Although he was allowed to take piano and violin lessons as a child, his father did not want him to be a musician. So Delius reluctantly entered his father's textile trade, but was at least able to visit Norway and Paris on business trips , both important places for his later career as a composer.

In 1884 Delius received the money to grow an orange plantation in Solano Grove near Jacksonville , Florida . However, he soon neglected this work and instead took six months of extensive music lessons from the musician Thomas Ward. This is also where his first compositions were written. He then stayed for a few months in Danville ( Virginia ), where he earned his living playing the organ as well as singing and teaching. Finally, in 1886, his father granted him an eighteen-month course at the Leipzig Conservatory , where Hans Sitt , Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn were his teachers.

Jelka Rosen : Portrait by Frederick Delius, oil on canvas, 1912

More important than these studies for Delius, however, was the encounter with Edvard Grieg in Leipzig , with whom he became friends and who finally convinced his father of his son's musical career. Delius got to know the Grieg couple well. Delius shared an eager correspondence with the mentors. He also dedicated several pieces to Nina Grieg . His first works have now been published, including the Florida suite , two string quartets and a few songs. After his time in Leipzig, Delius traveled back to Paris, where he stayed in artistic circles and Paul Gauguin , August Strindberg and Edvard Munch were among his friends. He finished his first opera Irmelin in 1892, The Magic Fountain in 1895 and Koanga in 1897 . Little by little he developed his very personal style, which was initially influenced by Wagner and Grieg, later also by Debussy : an unmistakable harmony, an apparently infinite flow of music and a sensitive grasp of the finest emotional nuances, close to impressionism . Delius' music can be understood as an important musical expression of the " fin de siècle ". His works are almost never performed in Germany; only a few classical music lovers know them. A defining element in his work is the beauty (especially of nature, lush flowers and gardens) in view of transience, autumn, decay and withering.

In 1896 he met the painter Jelka Rosen , whom he married in 1903, and in 1897 he moved with her to Grez-sur-Loing, a small town near Fontainebleau . His first mature masterpieces were created around the turn of the century: Paris: The Song of a Great City for orchestra (1899), the opera A Village Romeo and Juliet (1901) based on Gottfried Keller's novella Romeo and Juliet in the village , Appalachia for choir and orchestra ( 1903), Sea Drift for baritone, choir and orchestra (1904) based on a poem by Walt Whitman and his most ambitious work, composed in German, Eine Messe des Lebens (1905) based on Friedrich Nietzsche . In this monumental cantata Delius succeeded in musically translating the spirit and atmosphere of “Zarathustra”, sometimes hymnically triumphant, then again in a late romantic-impressionistic-exaggerated way. This period closes with his last opera, Fennimore und Gerda (1909–1910), based on an episode from the novel Niels Lyhne by Jens Peter Jacobsen .

Delius' grave in Limpsfield, Surrey

During the First World War, he fled to England from the approaching German troops. The works of these years, such as the Requiem (1914–1916), were less successful. Delius now turned to the conventional forms of absolute music, but did not succeed in structuring the opulence of his tonal language convincingly. Therefore one rarely hears his concerts (double concerto (1915–1916), violin concerto (1916), cello concerto (1921)) and chamber music: violin sonata No. 1 (1914), cello sonata (1916), string quartet (1916). With the incidental music to Hassan (1920) he found his old mastery again. At this time he was already enjoying the constant support and lifelong support of the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (1879–1961). Beecham made it possible, often at personal sacrifice, to perform almost all Delius works as well as those of other composers of his time.

Serious syphilitic illness began in the 1920s, soon after which Delius was paralyzed and blinded for the rest of his life. His wife Jelka had to write down his second violin sonata (1923), after which his composing activity ceased for several years. In 1928 he met the young musician Eric Fenby , who from then on looked after the seriously ill composer until his death and wrote down his later works, including the third violin sonata (1930), the Idyll for soprano, baritone and orchestra (1932) and numerous smaller ones Pieces. Fenby described this unique collaboration in his book Delius as I knew him (1936).

Compositions

Stage works

Operas

  • Irmelin (op. 3; 1890-1892). Opera in 3 acts. Libretto : Frederick Delius. Premiere May 4, 1953 Oxford (New Theater)
  • The Magic Fountain ( Der Wunderborn ; Die Zauberquelle ; 1893–1895). Lyrical drama in 3 acts. Libretto: Frederick Delius. WP (in concert) November 20, 1977 London (BBC Radio); (scenic) June 22, 1997 Kiel (opera house)
  • Koanga (1895-1897). Lyrical drama in 3 acts with prologue and epilogue. Libretto: Charles Francis Kearry (based on an episode from the novel The Grandissimes. A Story of Creol Life by George Washington Cable). WP (with German text) March 30, 1904 Elberfeld ( Stadttheater ); (with English text) 1935 London
  • A Village Romeo and Juliet (based on the novella Romeo and Juliet in the village by Gottfried Keller ; 1900/01). Lyrical drama in 6 pictures. Libretto: Frederick Delius, Jelka Rosen -Delius and Charles Francis Keary (1848–1917). WP (in German) February 21, 1907 Berlin ([Old] Komische Oper [Friedrichstrasse near Weidendammer Bridge])
  • Margot la Rouge ( The Red Margot ; 1901/02). Lyrical drama in one act. Libretto: Berthe Gaston-Danville (pseudonym: Mme Rosenval). Premiere June 8th 1983 Saint Louis  / Missouri (Opera Theater)
  • Fennimore and Gerda (op.11; 1909/10). Opera in 11 pictures. Libretto: Frederick Delius (after Niels Lyhne [1880] by Jens Peter Jacobsen ). Premiere October 21, 1919 Frankfurt am Main ( opera house ; conductor: Gustav Brecher [1879–1940])

Incidental music

Vocal compositions

Piano songs

  • 5 Songs from the Norwegian (1888). Texts: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson , Theodor Kjerulf , John Olaf Paulsen (1851–1924), Andreas Munch (1811–1884)
  • 7 Songs from the Norwegian (1889/90; 2 songs orchestrated). Texts: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson , Henrik Ibsen , Aasmund Olavsson Vinje
  • 3 English Songs (1891). Texts: Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • 4 songs (1895; also orchestrated). Texts: Paul Verlaine
  • 7 Danish Songs (1897; also orchestrated). Texts: Holger Drachmann , Jens Peter Jacobsen (English by Frederick Delius, German by Jelka Rosen )
  • 4 songs after Nietzsche (1898)
  • In luck we went laughing (1898)
  • The Violet (1900; also orchestrated)
  • Autumn (1900)
  • Black Roses (1901)
  • Summer Landscape (1902; also orchestrated)
  • The nightingale has a lyre of gold (1910)
  • La lune blanche (1911; also orchestrated)
  • Chanson d'automne (1911)
  • I-Brazil (1913)
  • 4 Old English Lyrics (1915-1916)
  • Avant que tu ne t'en ailles (1919)
  • 18 unpublished songs

Orchestra songs, choral works

  • 6 German Partsongs (1887) for choir
  • Sakuntala (1889) for tenor and orchestra
  • Maud (1891) for tenor and orchestra. Texts: Alfred Tennyson
  • Midnight Song (1898) for baritone, male choir and orchestra
  • Appalachia (1898–1903) for choir and orchestra
  • Sea Drift (1903/04; dedicated to Max von Schillings ) for baritone, choir and orchestra. Texts: Walt Whitman
  • A Mass of Life (1904/05) for soloists, choir and orchestra ( A Mass of Life )
  • Songs of Sunset (1906/07) for mezzo-soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra. Texts: Ernest Dowson
  • Cynara (1907/29) for baritone and orchestra
  • On Craig Dhu (1907) for choir and piano
  • Midsummer Song (1908) for choir and piano
  • Wanderer's Song (1908) for male choir and piano
  • An Arabesk (1911) for baritone, choir and orchestra
  • A Song of the High Hills (1911) for choir and orchestra
  • 2 Songs for a Children's Album (1913)
  • Requiem (1914–1916) for soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra
  • 2 Songs to be sung of a Summer Night on the Water (1917) for choir
  • The splendor falls on castle walls (1923) for choir
  • A Late Lark (1925) for voice and orchestra
  • Songs of Farewell (1930) for choir and orchestra. Texts: Walt Whitman
  • Idyll: Once I passed through a populous city (1930–1932) for soprano, baritone and orchestra

Concerts

  • Suite (1888) for violin and orchestra
  • Légende (1895) for violin and orchestra
  • Piano Concerto in C minor (1904; fundamental revision of the Fantasy from 1897)
  • Double concerto for violin, violoncello and orchestra (1915/16)
  • Violin Concerto (1916)
  • Cello Concerto (1921)
  • Caprice and Elegy (1930) for violoncello and orchestra

Orchestral works

  • Florida (1887). suite
  • Sleigh ride and March caprice (1887/88)
  • Hiawatha (1888). Tone poem
  • Idylle de Printemps (1889)
  • Small suite (1889/90)
  • Summer Evening , Winter Night , Spring Morning (1890). 3 small tone seals
  • Paa Vidderne (Sur les cimes) . Symphonic poem after Ibsen (1890-1892; version with speaker as early as 1888)
  • Over the Hills and Far Away (1895-1897). Fantasy overture
  • Appalachia (1896) for orchestra
  • La ronde se déroule (1899). Symphonic poetry
  • Paris: The Song of a Great City (1899)
  • Brigg Fair: An English Rhapsody (1907)
  • In a Summer Garden (1908). rhapsody
  • Dance Rhapsody no.1 (1908)
  • On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (1912); Summer Night on the River (1911). 2 pieces for small orchestra
  • North Country Sketches (1913/14)
  • Air and Dance (1915) for strings
  • Dance Rhapsody no.2 (1916)
  • Eventyr (Once Upon a Time) (1917)
  • A Song Before Sunrise (1918) for small orchestra
  • A Song of Summer (1929/30)
  • Irmelin Prelude (1931)
  • Fantastic Dance (1931)

Chamber music

  • String Quartet (1888)
  • Romance (1889) for violin and piano
  • Violin Sonata in B major (1892)
  • String Quartet (1893)
  • Romance (1896) for violoncello and piano
  • Violin Sonata No. 1 (1905–1914)
  • String Quartet (1916)
  • Cello Sonata (1916)
  • Violin Sonata No. 2 (1923)
  • Violin Sonata No. 3 (1930)

Piano and harpsichord music

  • Dance (1919) for harpsichord
  • 5 pieces for piano (1922/23)
  • 3 Preludes for piano (1923)

literature

  • Thomas Beecham : Frederick Delius. Vienna House, New York 1973, ISBN 0-8443-0082-9 . (Reprint of the London 1959 edition).
  • Eric Fenby: Delius as I knew him. G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., London 1936.
  • Klaus Henning Oelmann (ed.): Edvard Grieg's correspondence. Volume 2: The correspondence with Breitkopf & Härtel , the letters from Frederick Delius to Nina and Edvard Grieg and other selected letters . Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Egelsbach St. Peter Port (UK) 1994, ISBN 3-8267-1123-8 .
  • Ulrich Tadday (Ed.): Music Concepts 141 / 142. Frederick Delius. edition text + kritik, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88377-952-2 .

Inspiration for other artists

Web links

Commons : Frederick Delius  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to Sir Thomas Beecham, the Dutch family changed the original family name Delij or Deligh to the Latinized form Delius in the 16th century according to the custom of that time. Beecham (1944), A Mingled Chime-Leaves from an Autobiography, 72
  2. ↑ see en: Eric Fenby
  3. ^ Publishing house G. Bell & Sons, London
personal data
SURNAME Delius, Frederick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Delius, Frederick Theodore Albert; Delius, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Bradford
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1934
Place of death Grez-sur-Loing