Frederick Theodore Albert Delius was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce. He was sent to Florida in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation. He soon neglected his managerial duties, and in 1886 returned to Europe.
Percy Aldridge Grainger was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who moved to the United States in 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. Although much of his work was experimental and unusual, the piece with which he is most generally associated is his piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune "Country Gardens".
Philip Arnold Heseltine, known by the pseudonym Peter Warlock, was a British composer and music critic. The Warlock name, which reflects Heseltine's interest in occult practices, was used for all his published musical works. He is best known as a composer of songs and other vocal music; he also achieved notoriety in his lifetime through his unconventional and often scandalous lifestyle.
"Brigg Fair" is a traditional English folk song sung by the Lincolnshire singer Joseph Taylor. The song, which is named after a historical fair in Brigg, Lincolnshire, was collected and recorded on wax cylinder by the composer and folk song collector Percy Grainger. It is known for its use in classical music, both in a choral arrangement by Grainger and a subsequent set of orchestral variations by Frederick Delius.
In the Fen Country is an orchestral tone poem written by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams had completed the first version of the work in April 1904. He subsequently revised the work in 1905 and 1907. It is Vaughan Williams' earliest composition not to be withdrawn.
Paris: The Song of a Great City is a nocturne for orchestra composed by Frederick Delius over the period of 1899–1900. Hans Haym, to whom Delius dedicated the work, conducted the premiere on 14 December 1901 in Elberfeld, Germany. Sir Thomas Beecham conducted the UK premiere of the work in Liverpool on 11 January 1908. The critical edition of the score, published in the late 1980s, incorporated revisions by Beecham, and included editorial work from Eric Fenby and Norman Del Mar.
Hélène Sophie Emilie Rosen, later known as Jelka Delius, was a German painter, best known as the wife of the English composer Frederick Delius.
Edward Geoffrey Toye, known as Geoffrey Toye, was an English conductor, composer and opera producer.
A Mass of Life is a cantata by English composer Frederick Delius, based on the German text of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885). In 1898, Delius had written a male choir and orchestral setting of "Midnight Song" from the same work, and this was revised to form part of the Mass.
Cynara is a setting by Frederick Delius of a poem by Ernest Dowson, for solo baritone voice and orchestra.
Songs of Sunset is a work by Frederick Delius, written in 1906–07, and scored for mezzo-soprano and baritone soli, SATB chorus and large orchestra. The words are by Ernest Dowson.
The Piano Concerto in C minor is one of the early compositions by the English composer Frederick Delius. The piece underwent repeated revisions that resulted in the existence of three major versions which significantly differ from one another. The first public performance of any version was played by Julius Buths with the conductor Hans Haym on 24 October 1904 in Elberfeld, Germany.
This is a summary of 1929 in music in the United Kingdom.
This is a summary of 1915 in music in the United Kingdom.
The English Pastoral School, sometimes called the English Nationalist School or by detractors the Cow Pat School, is an informal designation for a group of English composers of classical music working during the early to mid 20th century, who sought to build a distinctively English style of music by composing in a style informed by Tudor music and English folk music, and often explicitly evoking the English countryside. The leading composers associated with the school were Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Gustav Holst, with other notable figures including George Butterworth, John Ireland, Frank Bridge, Edmund Rubbra, Gerald Finzi, Herbert Howells, Ernest John Moeran and Peter Warlock.
Joseph Taylor, was a folk singer from Saxby-All-Saints, Lincolnshire, England, who became the first English folk singer to be commercially recorded after coming to the attention of the composer and musicologist Percy Grainger.
This is a summary of 1907 in music in the United Kingdom.
Irmelin is an opera in three acts with music by Frederick Delius. Composed between 1890 and 1892, it was the first opera which he finished. But it wasn't premiered until 1953, nearly twenty years after his death. The libretto was by the composer, and weaves together two mythical stories. Philip Heseltine described the opera as a "fairy-tale of quite ordinary kind" and "its form dramatically rather below the level of the conventional operatic text. Though the music was much praised by Grieg and Messager... its performance was never seriously contemplated by the composer". Delius had however assimilated Wagnerian influence in his music, with use of key motifs and a sense of flow through the three acts.
Summer Night on the River is a tone poem composed in 1911 by Frederick Delius. Together with On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring it is one of Delius's Two Pieces for Small Orchestra. The two were first performed in Leipzig on 23 October 1913, conducted by Arthur Nikisch.
