Delius As I Knew Him [Kindle Edition]

This is a truly remarkable story that will appeal, whether or not the reader has any interest in 'serious' music. Fenby brings to life the atmosphere of tension that prevailed in the home of Frederick Delius, a self-absorbed egotist. Although his attitude to the then-blind and paralysed composer bordered on reverence, Fenby never loses his clear-headedness when assessing Delius' faults and idiosyncrasies.

This is a wonderfully-written book that shows Fenby to have been both sensitive and extremely tough. He had to be both to deal with a unique and difficult genius like Delius. The author was fortunate to enter a milieu that brought him into close contact with some of the great names in the music world of the late 1920s and early 30s: Edward Elgar, Peter Warlock, and Percy Grainger. His portraits of these and other musical luminaries are charming and insightful.

Although it was my love of Delius' music that drew me to this book, I found 'Delius as I Knew Him' most rewarding for its insights into its author, who was clearly a good and selfless man.

As other reviewers here on Amazon have explained this is a remarkable book. I think that this must rank as one of the greatest ever first hand biographical portraits of human creativity. I can only think of Cosima Wagner's Diaries in the field of music which have the same impact and which provide a similar level of direct insight into the mind of a great creative artist.

The subject matter is quite extraordinary if not unique. A young idealistic musician goes off from his home in Yorkshire to live with a blind and paralysed composer and his wife and help him compose the works that lie locked unformed in the head of the blind and paralysed man. The composer of course is Frederick Delius who himself is a quite extraordinary figure in musical history and was and emerges from these pages as a very strong willed fierce personality despite his infirmities. The book tells the story of how great adversities were overcome, how personaility clashes were resolved and how finally their joint ambition was fulfilled and the music emerged onto the page and then into the concert hall and then finally we have them recorded for our enjoyment at home. Every music lover owes Eric Fenby a debt of gratitude and every one music lover or not owes him adebt for recording so closely what it was like to work witha genius (albeit a very maladroit and awkward genius like Delius)

The setting of the story is the house and garden of Frederick amnd Jelka Delius at Grez-sur-Loing some miles south of Paris. There are three main characters Frederick and Jelka Delius and Fenby. There are visitors such as Percy Grainger and the great Cellist Barjansky. Mostly however the book revolves around the three main characters as they find a way of working and living together seemingly cut off from the outside world in the enchanted (in both the positive and negative sense of that word) house and garden at Grez.

Back in the early 1980s, when I first read this book, a recording of the works composed during this period (1928 - 1934) was made under the baton of an elderly Eric Fenby and I would suggest that any readers interested might like to hunt out that recording to experience the music that came out of the extraordinary musical collaboration that is described in this book. I have just been to my record collection and found that the original vinyl LPs were issued in under the name "The Fenby Legacy". There was also a CD release later in the 1980s. Fenby Legacy

I should also add that there is a much admired BBC film from the 1960s based upon this book. It is called "A Song of Summer" and is directed by Ken Russell. Here is the link Delius - Song Of Summer [DVD] [1968]

This is a supurb book designed to outline and make present the problems Fenby undertook in dealing with Deilius' illness and their combined efforts to realize Delius' special needs as a composer in horrendous pain and whose life was coming to an end. A wonderfully calm and generous rendition by Eric Fenby on the composer he knew and loved.