The Walk to the Paradise Garden (1901)
Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
1934 was a low spot for English music. Sir Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst and Frederick Delius all died in that year, and promising newcomers such as Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett had yet to attract notice. Before we get suitably distressed by the English Tragedy of 1934, we should consider whether Delius really was an English composer. His German parents had settled in Bradford in the north of England. Frederick escaped the grime of Bradford in 1882, preferring to manage a citrus plantation in Florida where, according to Christopher Palmer:
… he experienced a kind of spiritual awakening crystallised in the form of the sound of close-harmony Negro singing wafting one summer over the St John River. …(He) realised that music, not grapefruit, was to be his life.’
After Florida he wandered somewhat aimlessly, mainly in Europe, studying unproductively for four years in Germany and finishing up in a French village, where he settled down to compose music of remarkable eclecticism. He lived there for the remainder of his life.
Talking of villages, the village of the opera, ‘A Village Romeo and Juliet’ from which this music comes, is called Seldwyla in real life. It is located in Switzerland, and the original libretto is in German. Given the slender connection between the plot and Shakespeare’s play, and the fact that ‘The Paradise Garden’ is the name of a run-down pub rather than a beauty spot featured in a tourist guide, we are nowhere near this ‘sceptered isle’ in geography, language or spirit. In short, it’s not English, not at all.
No matter; the music is bewitching. It was created to fill the time needed for a scene change in the opera, but is now celebrated as a tone-poem that invites the listener to picture ill-fated lovers walking hand-in-hand to their Nemesis. And while we are carried away by the bewitching harmonies and the fertility of our imaginations, we might ponder on where this gem fits within the greater scheme of musical things.
Despite Henry Cope Colles averring, ‘… Delius is a solitary figure in music; it is impossible to range him in the ranks of any given school’, others have tried to do exactly that. Peter Warlock suggested, ‘… as Beethoven is the morning and Wagner the high noon, so Delius is the sunset of that great period of music which is called Romantic.’ That rings true, perhaps, but Delius was also a modernist in the sense that his expressive style of harmony has exerted a significant influence over many composers since his death. His resistance to pigeonholing simply enhances the magic and mystery of his music and of this little entr’acte in particular.
Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
1934 was a low spot for English music. Sir Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst and Frederick Delius all died in that year, and promising newcomers such as Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett had yet to attract notice. Before we get suitably distressed by the English Tragedy of 1934, we should consider whether Delius really was an English composer. His German parents had settled in Bradford in the north of England. Frederick escaped the grime of Bradford in 1882, preferring to manage a citrus plantation in Florida where, according to Christopher Palmer:
… he experienced a kind of spiritual awakening crystallised in the form of the sound of close-harmony Negro singing wafting one summer over the St John River. …(He) realised that music, not grapefruit, was to be his life.’
After Florida he wandered somewhat aimlessly, mainly in Europe, studying unproductively for four years in Germany and finishing up in a French village, where he settled down to compose music of remarkable eclecticism. He lived there for the remainder of his life.
Talking of villages, the village of the opera, ‘A Village Romeo and Juliet’ from which this music comes, is called Seldwyla in real life. It is located in Switzerland, and the original libretto is in German. Given the slender connection between the plot and Shakespeare’s play, and the fact that ‘The Paradise Garden’ is the name of a run-down pub rather than a beauty spot featured in a tourist guide, we are nowhere near this ‘sceptered isle’ in geography, language or spirit. In short, it’s not English, not at all.
No matter; the music is bewitching. It was created to fill the time needed for a scene change in the opera, but is now celebrated as a tone-poem that invites the listener to picture ill-fated lovers walking hand-in-hand to their Nemesis. And while we are carried away by the bewitching harmonies and the fertility of our imaginations, we might ponder on where this gem fits within the greater scheme of musical things.
Despite Henry Cope Colles averring, ‘… Delius is a solitary figure in music; it is impossible to range him in the ranks of any given school’, others have tried to do exactly that. Peter Warlock suggested, ‘… as Beethoven is the morning and Wagner the high noon, so Delius is the sunset of that great period of music which is called Romantic.’ That rings true, perhaps, but Delius was also a modernist in the sense that his expressive style of harmony has exerted a significant influence over many composers since his death. His resistance to pigeonholing simply enhances the magic and mystery of his music and of this little entr’acte in particular.