Delius felt much the same about his smoky Bradford birthplace
as Walton felt about equally ‘up north’ Oldham. Neither felt
any pangs of homesickness. Both composers were drawn to sun-kissed
climes. Each imbued his music with sunshine and passion though
Delius also had a predilection for things Nordic.
Over the years EMI Classics have taken very seriously their
role as chatelaine to a small pantheon of British composers
and each rated multiple recordings. There were also single projects
for some often extravagantly expensive byways. The high noon
of that tendency came in the 1970s.
This tightly packed set reminds us how much the label has done
for Delius since the dawn of the recording era. It also serves
as a reminder of what Delius has done for EMI. No company has
sustained such an effort for this composer for so long. Even
so, since the 1980s, new recording sessions by EMI have been
few and far between. Still, with their legacy archive the performances
of the 1960s and 1970s still speak to us and are likely to for
decades to come.
We sacrifice detailed background notes and instead get a lucid
and compact essay by Lyndon Jenkins. Printed sung texts have
also disappeared. The up-side is that we get a set that is comparable
- though with fewer discs - to EMI’s titanic Elgar,
Britten
and Vaughan
Williams boxes. The lack of sung words affects some two-thirds
of the music recorded here; after all Delius wrote a lot of
music for voice and only rarely resorted to vocalise: Song
of the High Hills being one example and To Be Sung
of a Summer Night on the River being another. Some amends
are made on CD 17 which provides the words in pdf format but
there are still no detailed liner notes. For that you need to
plough the internet. Two sites stand out. The EMI
Classics/Delius Society site has been specially established
for the 150th anniversary and is themed around this
box. Then there’s the rewarding Delius
Society site: admirable, cleanly designed and with a satisfying
emphasis on function and content.
A number of other things are notable about this set quite apart
from its trigger being the 150th anniversary of Delius’s
birth. For a start there’s not as much Beecham here as you might
expect. The first CD is all-Beecham but after that
things change. The second disc showcases Barbirolli while the
third mixes Mackerras – who was to record a grand selection
for Decca in the 1980s – with Handley and three orchestras two
from the M62 corridor and one at the Southern end of the M1.
Hickox and Marriner hold court over CD 4 with Groves, Meredith
Davies and Sargent in CDs 5 and 6. CDs 7 and 8 are pretty much
Fenby discs in one way or another while Beecham does put in
an appearance or so in the songs on CD 9. Handley bestrides
the tenth disc with works that are particular favourites of
mine. CDs 11-12 (Songs of Sunset, Arabesque
and A Mass of Life) are very much a case of Groves
in Liverpool. CD 13 is a mixed sequence with Meredith Davies
in the wonderful and grievously overlooked Requiem
and Idyll. Sargent addresses the Songs of Farewell
and A Song Before Sunrise. Sea Drift and the
opera Koanga (CDs 14 and 15) are Groves recordings.
Meredith Davies directs EMI’s illustrious 1970s A Village
Romeo and Juliet.
If you want Beecham’s Delius then you are already well catered
for: go for the recent EMI
box of his English music recordings. To complete the overall
‘Tommy’ conspectus there are two sets from 2003: the 4 CD Sony
box and the still available earliest recordings on Naxos.
Then again we should not overlook Somm’s Beecham-Delius series:
Seadrift;
In
a Summer Garden; A
Village Romeo and Juliet; A
Mass of Life - prelude; An
Arabesk,
Brigg
Fair. Beecham’s excellence in Delius - or more accurately
the recognition and assertion of his music by the English journalist
fraternity - has tended to suffocate new generations of Delius
conductors. Woe betide you if, like Ormandy or Slatkin (Felix)
each of whom did some Delius, you were also a non-Brit or at
least non-Commonwealth. Things are a shade more catholic now
– look for a start at the Danacord series in the hands of Bo
Holten. The EMI set presents the world beyond Beecham even if
it is dominated by English conductors albeit some of them just
about ‘redeemed’ by having played under Beecham. It’s as well
that the march of mortality and the progress of technology have
helped break the benign/malign Beecham monopoly. Delius’s music,
like that of other composers, needs new blood and while the
present recordings are hardly new they do and did point the
way forward for later generations. Quite apart from that they
continue to yield massive satisfaction.
The sound throughout is clean and refulgent ‘honest John’ analogue.
There’s only a handful of early digital examples here. What
we have is mostly stereo and in large part reflective of one
of EMI’s halcyon periods: mid-1960s to late-1970s; there are
some exceptions. Pretty well all of these recordings
were first issued in the heyday of the LP.
The first disc is a Beecham festival. These items are very well
known and need little comment. Sleigh Ride and the
rest are as magical, as beguiling and as swooningly catchy as
ever. Brigg Fair is superbly done. Marche Caprice
is remarkably Tchaikovskian. The Dance Rhapsody No. 2
is captured in lovely stereo and accommodates an acres-wide
dynamic range – very satisfying. The five separately tracked
movements of Dance Rhapsody No. 1 include some trippingly
spun oboe invention - pure distilled Beecham magic. Paa
Vidderne is more obvious and less refined. It has a tendency
towards bombast in the Strauss way. Even so, it has its moments
and some of them are heatedly Tchaikovskian. This rare piece
with other Norwegian Delius pieces can also be heard in modern
sound on ClassicO (review review review).
The disc ends with Beecham speaking: the promotional presentation
in October 1948 for the launch of the 78rpm set of A Village
Romeo and Juliet.
CD 2 is an all-Barbirolli affair. Barbirolli outlived Beecham
by about a decade and has claims to being his successor in Delius.
It’s such a pity that he did not tackle the bigger works apart
from Appalachia. I would have loved to have heard his
way with Song of the High Hills, Sea-Drift,
the Cello Concerto and the Double Concerto. As it is we have
from the LSO his notably tender Walk to the Paradise Garden
followed by a completely coherent A Song of Summer
– itself a very successful tone poem – and the singing silver
of the miniature Irmelin Prelude. Late Swallows
drifts lullingly between Zemlinsky and Finzi. It’s strangely
chilly. After the merest smidgeon of rehearsing Appalachia
we come to the full work tracked in 17 sections. That recording
holds up very well and the Hallé woodwind and harp are so satisfying.
The finale (tr. 22) is sung with evident passion by the Ambrosian
Singers and baritone Alun Jenkins. This major work, which in
its theme, variations and finale template echoes the famous
Brigg Fair, sways quietly into a honeyed silence.
CD 3: Mackerras’s Delius is to be found in a major way on Decca
Classics who have just issued his Welsh National Opera 1980s
cycle in a celebratory 8 CD box (4783078 – see list at end).
His relaxing – too relaxed - Paris was done afresh
for that project but he first recorded it for EMI Eminence CD
EMX 2185 (later reissued on CFP)
with the Violin Concerto and the Double Concerto. A thoughtfully
paced and warm In a Summer Garden marks the start of
Handley’s Delius, first issued on CFP
in the 1970s and on Chandos in the 1980s. There’s a full-lipped
and roseate On Hearing The First Cuckoo in Spring,
a frictionless drifting Summer Night on the River and
a verdant Intermezzo from Fennimore and Gerda.
The Piers Lane reading of the compact Piano Concerto reminds
me of Saint-Saëns. It’s an early piece and more of a barnstormer
than you might expect – grandstand mode engaged and not a sign
of the mature Delius.
CD 4: This all-Hickox disc again shows us a conductor essaying
Delius as a prelude to his tackling more major works for Chandos.
In much the same way his Sea Drift/Appalachia
for Decca
preceded his EMI recordings. The Florida Suite and
Brigg Fair are rendered in finely graduated digital
sound from 1989 and were taken down in a kindly acoustic (review).
The results are honeyed and feature a tender legato. The Grainger-dedicated
Brigg Fair is most affectionately shaped and can stand
confidently alongside the various Beecham versions.
While Groves avoided the Delius concertos he was happy to tackle
other major scores. This took him to A Mass of Life,
Song of the High Hills and Sea Drift - all
with his beloved RLPO - the latter with John Noble. Dance appears
to have been something of an idée fixe with Delius
as we can see – as it was also with Grainger- witness his The
Warriors, English Dance and Scotch Strathspey
and Reel. The first two pieces are presented by the RPO
with Groves. Life's Dance is among his least known
scores. From 1904 and based on the Helge Rode drama The
Dances Goes On this is Straussian, discursive and rapturous.
It is distinctively Delian but the melodic ideas do not linger.
The North Country Sketches were also recorded by Beecham
- several times (CBS-Sony,
Naxos,
Somm).
They have a leafy, brisk and poetic air and an enlivening shiver.
Groves keeps things moving forward. Delius's example in Dance
- the third movement - also deeply affected Patrick Hadley in
The Hills and Scene from ‘The Woodlanders’.
This is followed by a movingly sung Sea Drift from
John Noble and the Liverpool Philharmonic Choir with the RLPO.
Delius and Dowson are just as potent as Delius and Whitman.
The glowing ten minute setting of Cynara is in a very
fine-sounding vintage recording by John Shirley-Quirk, again
with the RLPO.
The sixth disc is given over very neatly to Delius’s three concertos
for strings. Stringed instruments lend themselves to unendliches
melodie and in this Delius is centre-stage. The coupling
is an inescapably logical and economical one; even so EMI resisted
it for years. Chandos led the way with their very recent CD
(review).
Menuhin seems occasionally overwhelmed by languor and is less
than ideally equipped when it comes to eloquence and smooth
tone production. Meredith Davies is suitably dreamy and exultant
in both the Violin Concerto and the Double Concerto – the latter
a sadly underestimated and under-performed work. Menuhin is
in better fettle here and Tortelier is excellent. Perhaps a
French soloist is more than apt given the many years Delius
spent at Grez. However it is Florida that one thinks
of at the start of the finale. Sargent’s 1965 Cello Concerto
was set down with Du Pré at about the same time that she recorded
the Elgar with Barbirolli. The recording is fabulous. One would
never think it was getting on for half a century old. The RPO
appear in all three concertos. The Florida lilt also suffuses
the Cello Concerto.
CD 7’s Fenby arrangements present Elena Duran in three ingratiating
pieces for flute and strings. The Five Little Pieces
also reflect Fenby’s midwifery handiwork on Delius originals.
They’re all very pleasing and the last shares a vigorous atmosphere
with the North Country Sketches. The Sonata for
String Orchestra is Fenby’s dreamy and then sturdy arrangement
of the String Quartet including the Late Swallows penultimate
movement; again a momentary link with the similar treatment
of the mature Walton quartet. After this comes the Britten Quartet’s
1995 recording of the String Quartet original. It’s warm and
flowing and has more of a sense of movement than you might expect.
The luscious sound compares well with the still pleasing Fitzwilliam
version on Eloquence (also in the Decca 8CD Mackerras set).
The breezy glancing charm of the finale registers very nicely
indeed. Lovely! The next disc takes us back to Delius in chamber
mode and to Menuhin. The three violin sonatas are presentably
performed in recordings made in 1973 with ardent disciple Fenby
as pianist. Menuhin is better in the more vigorous moments than
in the dominant pensive vein. Tasmin Little has the passionate
full-lipped style down to a tee in the little Légende.
The cellist Moray Welsh should have been more prominently celebrated.
I recall his stunning broadcast premiere of the Foulds Cello
Sonata with Robert Stevenson in 1978. His reading of the Delius
Cello Sonata with the equally passionate Israela Margalit is
amongst the finest. It is to be counted alongside that of Julian
Lloyd Webber. We end with the assertive silver-filigree metallic
tracery of Igor Kipnis in the Dance for Harpsichord.
Next comes a pleasingly magpied-together disc of 21 songs and
a diptych for cello and orchestra. Bostridge is all thoughtful
precision. Warmth radiates from Philip Ledger’s two vocalises
To Be Sung of a Summer Night on the River – sheer magic
and when first issued a nice complement to Hadley’s The
Hills. It was set down in 1975. Arthur Symons’ Dowson-influenced
Wanderer’s Song is nicely floated. For the Straussian
Heimkehr – and the following ten songs - Beecham returns
variously as conductor and as pianist. Elsie Suddaby is in sweet
voice for three Nordic songs. Those four tracks from 1949 and
1951 sound very good. The four Dora Labette tracks have a somewhat
tempered surface bristle but the signal is strong and healthy.
Labette is clarity itself for her eleven tracks. Aren’t those
words at the end of Twilight Fancies (When the
sun goes down) archetypical Delius. The mannered Heddle
Nash was recorded in 1934 in To the Queen of My Heart
and Love’s Philosophy – the latter also a Quilter marque.
Gerald Moore is magnificently sensitive and keeps things moving.
From the year after the four songs sung by Labette and accompanied
by Beecham comes the Caprice and Elegy recorded by
an unnamed orchestra conducted by Fenby at a time when Delius
had just five more years to live. It is easy to overlook how
special this sounds. It has been extremely well transferred.
For a more systematic and uniformly-voiced approach to the songs
do turn to Stone’s two volume complete survey.
CD 10 includes two of my favourite Delius works. Eventyr
was recorded by Handley with the Hallé. It’s brooding yet lilting
progress is lent additional pep by the saga atmosphere. This
includes the malevolent xylophone impacts and the famous goblin
shouts by members of the orchestra at the climactic moments.
See also the Handley/Delius CFP review.
It is very good to have Handley’s complete Hassan music.
The music is very imaginative indeed – perfectly in keeping
with the exoticism and cruelty of Flecker’s play. Strange that
Delius never set any of Flecker’s poetry. A Delius setting of
The Gates of Damascus remains a great might-have-been.
Had Bantock been drawn to the same words he too would have made
something remarkable of Flecker’s saturated imagery. I keep
hoping that one of these days the play as broadcast by the BBC
on Radio 3 in 1973 (Robert Hardy and Sarah Badel were among
a strong cast) will be issued on disc. To hear the music in
situ adds potently to the words and vice versa.
We Take The Golden Road to Samarkand is vintage and
unmissable Delius. The music featured is far more extensive
than that used in the various Beecham-derived and recorded suites
though my impression is that more still was included in the
BBC broadcast. It also featured a special supplementary studio
concert of some pieces the Corporation could not fit into the
play as broadcast. The orchestra was the BBC Welsh conducted
by Rae Jenkins.
CDs 11-12 present Delius in the grandeur of choral sound rather
than the delicacy of the orchestral miniatures. The effortless
honey of the Songs of Sunset is heard in Groves’ 1968
Liverpool version. These Dowson settings remain affecting not
least when Baker and Shirley-Quirk are heard in duet. The Danish-inspired
and cloud-hung An Arabesque works well leading to the
start of A Mass of Life, another Groves product, this
time with the LPO. The singing is lovely and an obvious improvement
technically on later versions including the much earlier though
unrefined-sounding Beecham (Sony and Pristine) and the presumably
unauthorised Del Mar off-air recording (Intaglio). The latter
sports none other than the young Kiri Te Kanawa as the soprano.
Still it is wonderful again to hear Heather Harper – she who
made such a memorably voluptuous event of the Chandos recording
of Harty’s Ode to a Nightingale. Groves is very good
indeed, lavishly enjoyable – much more than respectable. EMI
may well be tempted to muster a Groves/Delius set; there’s plenty
of material there. However, for that blood-rush you need to
hear Beecham and Del Mar.
CD 13 is a replica of one first issued in 2002 and reviewed
here. The Sargent items appeared once before that. This was
on an odds-and-ends Delius miscellany entitled La Calinda
- A Delius Festival on EMI Classics CDM 769534 2. EMI have
cut their Delius patrimony in many permutations … quite right
too. Even among Delians the Requiem has inhabited
the dubious twilight. Why is this? Hickox recorded it for Chandos
as a partner for Mass of Life. A different off-air
Requiem was similarly harnessed on the Italian Intaglio
label (INCD 702-2, long deleted). The Intaglio was a taping
of a BBC Third Programme broadcast of the RLPO conducted by
Groves. The soloists were Thomas Hemsley and again Heather Harper.
Oddly enough the Unicorn Fenby Legacy series (1980s)
never reached it though it would have made a much better balance
with the glorious Song of the High Hills than the Scandinavian
songs with orchestra.
The Requiem has been hampered in its concert life by
being a defiantly unChristian and, for that matter, unIslamic
work. Delius preached the gospel of glory in the high noon of
life and meeting death fearlessly. For him after death there
was nothing. The Requiem offered none of the then popular
comforting spiritualism of the post-Great War days. The message
was: bask in life and all its joys because when it’s gone it’s
gone. The effect was intensified by having the choirs sing 'alleluia'
and 'La il Allah' antiphonally - a blasphemous coup. It is no
wonder the work found no place at the Three Choirs! It is however
amongst the best Delius being more concise than A Mass of
Life and vastly more effective. Its sad sweetness is utterly
uncloying. Part of its grip on success is down to the clarity
of the mingled lines and textures. It achieves a wonderful transparency
from which Howells and Hadley were later to learn.
Idyll is even stronger, melodically speaking, with
well rounded themes - mature and extremely expressive. The slow
roll of the theme at 00.47 in track 6 manages to sound Sibelian.
Shirley-Quirk is impressive. Idyll ends in transcendent
peace.
Sargent's Song Before Sunrise is a little short on
mystery and sounds rushed. It’s beefy and red-blooded - an approach
flooded with virile potency. The choral singing in his Songs
of Farewell is golden. Listen to those acres of burnished
tone at Joy Shipmate Joy. In one of the songs you hear
the same music that Delius uses in the dawn episode from Hassan.
Then for the final five discs we come to the operatic Delius.
The early Koanga (CDs 14-15) is more virile and exultant
than we might have expected. It is resonant with the atmosphere
of the young Delius’s Florida orange plantation time. It’s far
more Puccinian than any of the other operas. Contrary to my
recollections of the LPs the sound has come up very brightly
indeed without unwelcome glare. It’s extremely enjoyable and
might well surprise you; it certainly surprised me. Practically
speaking it’s the only game in town although I see that from
ebay that there are two obscure alternatives: a 2 CD set of
a 1958 broadcast conducted by Stanford Robinson and a 2 LP (IGS081/2)
box of the American premiere where the lead is taken by Eugene
Holmes. CD 15 ends with four tracks allocated to a rather urgent
Song of the High Hills – originally issued on LP (ASD2958)
alongside Groves’ Sea Drift. Meredith Davies conducts
a ripely adroit cast, choir and orchestra for A Village
Romeo and Juliet. It’s centred in history between Beecham’s
HMV recording - and now the wireless broadcast preserved by
Somm - and Mackerras’s early 1990s recording; nothing more recent
than that. Rather like EMI’s Vaughan Williams opera projects
of the same era the cast roster reads like an honour roll not
only of the then great but a predictive sampling of a new generation
of fine singers. The singing is, in general, pretty attentive
to word shaping and enunciation. The playing and singing are
full of character and there is far more spirited writing here
than the clichés about Delius might lead you to believe. CD
17 finishes with a half hour illustrated talk about Delius by
Fenby. It is packed tight with rewarding revelations and instructive
insights. Helpfully – just as with the operas – this talk is
plentifully tracked so one can jump around each work or item
with targeted ease. Fennimore and Gerda was fashioned
from the novel by Jens Peter Jacobsen. Davies’s EMI recording
mixes a Danish cast, choir and orchestra with one grand internationally
recognised name (Söderström, in glorious voice) and two yeoman
English singers: Tear and Rayner Cook. Their enunciation is
crystalline. The project dates from March 1976 so represents
the highest tide of EMI’s Delius operas. It betrays no shadow
of weakness. Should you wish to explore the Delius operas further
afield then there are long deleted BBC CDs of Irmelin
(BBC CD3002) and The Magic Fountain and Margot
La Rouge (BBC CD3004).
2012 will see a gratifying crop of performances and perhaps
more recordings. The concerts include Paris, the Song of a Great
City, and a complete performance of Hassan at the Cheltenham
Festival (5-6 July), the Cello Concerto and Sea Drift in Hereford
Cathedral as part of the Three Choirs Festival (22 and 26 July),
a Study Weekend at The British Library (22-23 September) and
a four-day Delius Celebration in Manchester and Bradford (17-20
October). We can look forward also to John Bridcut’s BBC4 documentary
and a Royal Mail commemorative postage stamp has been issued.
The present generous set has no parallels nor would I anticipate
that there will be for many years. The performances and recordings
are healthy and pleasing. They will win many new friends for
the composer. The box is competitively priced – remarkably so.
Apart from those for whom duplication is a problem this almost
comprehensive set is irresistible.
Rob Barnett
Track-listing
CD 1 [79.20]
[1] Sleigh Ride (Winternacht) 5.30
[2] Marche caprice (ed & arr. Beecham) 4.00
[3] Over the hills and far away (ed. Beecham) 12.57
[4] A Dance Rhapsody no. 2 7.40
[5] -[9] A Dance Rhapsody no. 1 12.01
[10] On the Mountains (Paa vidderne) 12.17
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
[11] -[15] Promotional presentation by Sir Thomas Beecham in
October 1948 for the launch of the 78rpm set of A Village Romeo
and Juliet 25.02
CD 2 [78.50]
[1] The Walk to the Paradise Garden from A Village Romeo and
Juliet (arr. Beecham) 9.45
[2] A Song of Summer 11.19
[3] Irmelin Prelude 5.44
London Symphony Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli
[4] Late Swallows (arr. Fenby) 10.49
Hallé Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli
[5] Rehearsing Appalachia (16.VII.1970) 2.32
[6] -[22] Appalachia – Variations on an Old Slave Song with
final chorus 37.19 (rev. & ed. Beecham)
Ambrosian Singers (chorus master: John McCarthy)
Hallé Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli
CD 3 [75.50]
[1] Paris – The Song of a great City 21.49
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Mackerras
[2] In a Summer Garden 14.12
Hallé Orchestra/Vernon Handley
Two Pieces for Small Orchestra
[3] No. 1 On hearing the first cuckoo in Spring 5.42
[4] No. 2 Summer night on the river 6.23
[5] Intermezzo from ‘Fennimore and Gerda’ (arr. Fenby) 4.54
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon Handley
[6] -[8] Piano Concerto in C minor 22.40
Piers Lane, piano
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon Handley
CD 4 [78.55]
[1] -[4] Florida, suite (Revised and edited by Sir Thomas Beecham)
38.15
[5] -[27] Brigg Fair – An English Rhapsody 16.02
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Richard Hickox
[28] Summer Evening (arr. Beecham) 6.30
[29] La Calinda from Koanga (arr. Fenby) 4.05
[30] Air and Dance 4.05
[31] Intermezzo & 2.13
[32] Serenade from Hassan (arr. Beecham) 2.23
Northern Sinfonia of England/Richard Hickox
[33] -[34] Two Aquarelles, arr. Fenby 4.11
The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields/Sir Neville Marriner
CD 5 [76.50]
[1] Lebenstanz (Life’s Dance) 15.21
[2] -[5] North Country Sketches 26.46
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves
[6] -[13] Sea Drift (Whitman) 25.02
John Noble, baritone/Liverpool Philharmonic Choir
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves
[14] Cynara (Dowson) 9.30
John Shirley-Quirk, baritone
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves
CD 6 [69.30]
[1] -[3] Violin Concerto 27.14
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Meredith Davies
[4] -[6] Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra 21.50
Yehudi Menuhin, violin/Paul Tortelier, cello
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Meredith Davies
[7] -[11] Cello Concerto 24.37
Jacqueline du Pré, cello
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Malcolm Sargent
CD 7 [79.00]
ALL WORKS ARRANGED BY ERIC FENBY 1906-1997
[1] Dance* 2.36 Two Pieces for flute and strings*
[2] 1. La Calinda 3.36
[3] 2. Air and Dance 4.56
[4] -[8] Five Little Pieces for small orchestra 9.50
[9] -[12] Sonata for String Orchestra 28.54
*Elena Duran, flute
Bournemouth Sinfonietta/Eric Fenby
[13] -[16] String Quartet 28.44
Britten Quartet
Peter Manning & Keith Pascoe, violins
Peter Lale, viola _ Andrew Shulman, cello
CD 8 [78.40]
[1] -[3] Violin Sonata No. 1 22.50
[4] -[6] Violin Sonata No. 2 13.32
[7] -[9] Violin Sonata No. 3 17.10
Yehudi Menuhin, violin _ Eric Fenby, piano
[10] Légende in E flat 8.15
Tasmin Little, violin _ John Lenehan, piano
[11] -[13] Cello Sonata 14.19
Moray Welsh, cello _ Israela Margalit, piano
[14] Dance for Harpsichord 2.21
Igor Kipnis, harpsichord
CD 9 [67.00]
[1] Twilight Fancies (Evening Voices) (Bjørnson; English: Copeland)
3.49
Ian Bostridge, tenor _ Julius Drake, piano
[2] -[3] To be sung of a summer night on the water (wordless)
4.15
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge/Sir Philip Ledger
[4] Wanderer’s Song (Symons) 3.35
Baccholian Singers of London
Rogers Covey-Crump, Ian Partridge, Ian Thompson, Paul Elliott,
tenors
Ian Humphris, Stephen Varcoe, baritone; Michael George, Brian
Etheridge, bass
[5] Heimkehr (The Homeward Journey) (Vinje) orch. Sondheimer
4.40
Marjorie Thomas, mezzo-soprano
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
[6] Twilight Fancies (Evening Voices) (Bjørnson) orch. Beecham
4.12
[7] Whither (Autumn) (Holstein) orch. Beecham 2.42
[8] The Violet (Holstein) orch. Gibson 1.53
Elsie Suddaby, soprano
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
[9] Whither (Autumn) (Holstein) orch. Beecham 2.45
[10] The Violet (Holstein) orch. Gibson 1.48
[11] I-Brasîl (MacLeod) orch. Heseltine (Warlock) 2.45
[12] Klein Venevil (Bjørnson) [sung in German] 1.51
Dora Labbette, soprano
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
[13] Twilight Fancies (Evening Voices) (Bjørnson) 4.18
[14] Cradle Song (Ibsen) 2.13
[15] The Nightingale (Welhaven) 2.03
Dora Labbette, soprano _ Sir Thomas Beecham, piano
[16] Irmelin Rose (Jacobsen) } 4.20
[17] So white, so soft, so sweet Is she (Johnson)
[18] Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit (Verlaine) 4.24
[19] La lune blanche (Verlaine)
Dora Labbette, soprano _ Gerald Moore, piano
[20] To The Queen Of My Heart (Shelley) 4.47
[21] Love’s Philosophy (Shelley)
Heddle Nash, tenor _ Gerald Moore, piano
[22] Caprice and Elegy 9.25
Beatrice Harrison, cello
Chamber Orchestra/Eric Fenby
CD 10 [79.10]
[1] Eventyr (Once upon a time) 16.14
Hallé Orchestra/Vernon Handley
[2] -[27] Hassan, Incidental music (Flecker) 62.56
Martyn Hill, tenor _ Brian Rayner Cook, baritone
Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir
Bournemouth Sinfonietta/Vernon Handley
CD 11 [75.08]
[1] -[8] Songs of Sunset (Dowson) 29.31
Dame Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano _ John Shirley-Quirk, baritone
Liverpool Philharmonic Choir
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves
[9] An Arabesque (Jacobsen) 11.38
John Shirley-Quirk, baritone
Liverpool Philharmonic Choir
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves
A Mass of Life (from Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra)
[10] -[14] FIRST PART 33.41
CD 12 [1] -[8] SECOND PART [66.07]
A Mass of Life (from Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra)
Heather Harper, soprano _ Helen Watts, contralto
Robert Tear, tenor _ Benjamin Luxon, baritone
London Philharmonic Choir
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves
CD 13 [78.15]
[1] -[5] Requiem 30.35
Heather Harper, soprano _ John Shirley-Quirk, baritone
Royal Choral Society
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Meredith Davies
[6] -[11] Idyll (Once I passed through a populous city) (Whitman)
21.32
Heather Harper, soprano _ John Shirley-Quirk, baritone
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Meredith Davies
[12] A Song before Sunrise 6.09
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Malcolm Sargent
[13] -[17] Songs of Farewell (Whitman) 19.23
Royal Choral Society
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Malcolm Sargent
CD 14 [61.16]
Koanga
[1] -[16] Prologue, Act 1 & 2
CD 15 [76.32]
Koanga
[1] -[13] Act 3 & Epilogue 51.34
[14] -[17] The Song of the High Hills (wordless) 24.58
Liverpool Philharmonic Choir
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves
CD 16 [68.10]
A Village Romeo and Juliet
[1] -[22] Scenes 1 – 4 (inc.)
CD 17 [68.46]
A Village Romeo and Juliet
[1] -[15] Scenes 5 & 6 41.26
John Alldis Choir/John Alldis
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Meredith Davies
Illustrated talk by Eric Fenby 27.20
CD 18 [78.24]
Fennimore and Gerda
[1] -[15] Pictures 1 – 11 (inc.)
Danish Radio Chorus
Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Meredith Davies
EMI Classics 18cds 0841752
===========================
DELIUS Edition. A Village Romeo and Juliet, Brigg Fair, Appalachia,
Sea Drift, Florida Suite, Violin & Piano Concertos. Sir
Charles Mackerras. Decca 8cds CD / Decca Classics 4783078
CD 1
[1] Brigg Fair 16:20
[2] In a Summer Garden 14:07
[3] The Walk to the Paradise Garden 10:11
(A Village Romeo and Juliet)
North Country Sketches
[4] I Autumn 8:09
[5] II Winter Landscape 4:18
[6] III Dance 6:30
[7] IV The March of Spring 8:05
CD 2
[1] -[10] Appalachia (ed. Beecham) 37:50
A Song of the High Hills (ed. Beecham)
[11] With quiet easy movement 9:54
[12] Slow and solemnly 16:08
[13] Over the Hills and Far Away 13:39
CD 3
[1] -[6] Sea Drift 25:03
[7] -[10] Florida Suite 37:36
CD 4
[1] Violin Concerto (ed. Beecham) 24:23
Two Aquarelles (arr.Fenby)
[2] I Lento, ma non troppo 2:23
[3] II Gaily, but not quick 2:18
[4] On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (ed. Beecham) 6:58
[5] Summer Night on the River (ed. Beecham) 5:55
[6] Intermezzo (Fennimore and Gerda) 5:50
[7] Irmelin Prelude (ed. Beecham) 5:09
[8] Dance Rhapsody No.2 (ed. Beecham) 8:01
[9] Dance Rhapsody No.1 (ed. Beecham) 13:10
CD 5
[1] Cello Sonata 13:24
Two Pieces for cello and chamber orchestra
for cello and piano
[2] I Caprice 3:10
[3] II Elegy 4:42
String Quartet
[4] I With animation 7:45
[5] II Quick and lightly 4:04
[6] II Late swallows 8:53
[7] IV Very quick and vigorously 6:34
Four part songs
[8] Midsummer Song 1:49
[9] Craig Dhu 3:34
[10] To be sung of a summer night on the river 3:41
CD 6
[1] Intermezzo and Serenade (Hassan) 3:54
[2] A Song before Sunrise 4:39
[3] Air and Dance 4:54
[4] La Calinda (Koanga) 4:07
Two pieces for cello and chamber orchestra
[5] I Caprice 3:23
[6] II Elegy 4:45
Piano Concerto
[7] I Allegro - Largo 22:00
Historic bonus track
[8] Paris: The Song of a Great City 23:45
CD 7-8
A Village Romeo and Juliet
Decca 8cds 4783078
EMI CLASSICS 0841752 [18 CDs: 22:26:00]