Delius Box: 150th Anniversary [Box set]

This release appears to be on Audio CD only and this is the format that I sent for and received before going on a short touring holiday of the north of England and my soundtrack for this road trip was this set of CDs to play on my old car's CD player. I have loved the music of Delius since being introduced to his music whilst at University in the late 1970s. Here was a chance to get re-acquainted with a number of much loved old recordings first enjoyed on vinyl. The Barbirolli/Halle recordings of some of the orchestral pieces, especially a personal favourite "In a Summer Garden", are a special highlight. It was a deep happiness to hear again these sublime hymns to nature played with such insight and I was drawn in once more to share the composer's godless yet deeply spiritual worship of and joy in the beauty of life. If nostalgia could be this rewarding all the time it wouldn't have such a bad name. Also very much deserving of praise are the Charles Groves and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra recordings. The Menuhin and Tortelier recordings of the violin, cello and double concertos are full of the inspried musicianship that one would expect from two such much admired virtuosi.

Delius is, as I suspect any reader of this review will know, a much neglected composer these days and the trajectory of his fall from popularity can be taken from the fact the vast majority of these EMI recording date from the 1960s and 1970s. There is almost nothing recorded in the last 25 years. In the years that have elapsed since the golden years of EMI's Delius recording, Delius has been played less and less. It is such a pity because on his day his music stands comparison with any other British composer including Elgar, Vaughan Williams or Holst (all of whom were his near contemporaries). Sea Drift is a work of astonishing emotional depth and musical beauty, the violin concerto is a never ending stream of melodic and harmonic invention. Even my enthusiasm is not so great as to claim that the Mass of Life is without its longeurs but the opening to parts one and two and the penultimate and ultimate sections are joyous choral and orchestral affirmations of life that have no direct parallel anywhere in human artistic achievement.

The last point brings me on to one of the most important things to realise about Delius.He is quite unlike any other composer or creative artist for that matter. He is a one off. His sensibility to life, beauty, love, sex and the musical language in which he expresses it is unlike that of any other composer. Critics have said many detrimental things about Delius - one is that he always sounds the same - well there are some tropes that come up again and again but this cd set proves his astonishing range within his unique sound world.

Delius made a number of attempts at opera and we have three complete recordings on this set. We have the most successful of them "A Village Romeo and Juliet" which has some very successful music indeed not just the famous "Walk to the Paradise Garden" but also the whole closing section which has echoes of Tristan and Parsifal (at least to these ears). We also have "Koanga" (an early opera based on a story of cross cultural love and conflict on a New World plantation) and "Fennimore and Gerda" (a sub Strindbergian plot with some voluptuous music). Delius' operas have never found a regular place in the repertoire of the world's opera houses. Despite his admiration for Wagner, Delius just could not get the hang of writing consistently successfully for the lyric stage.

The core of the set is to be found in the recordings from the 1960s and early 1970s of the central works of the Delius oeuvre "Appalachia", "Song of the High Hills", "Brigg Fair", "In a Summer Garden", "Sea Drift", "Songs of Sunset", "The Mass of Life", the string concertos and the string chamber music.

Someone once said that a great composer is a composer who creates his/her own sound world. By that token Delius is a great composer and the listener who buys this excellent celebration set of CDs will derive great joy from much if not perhaps all of the music contained within.

I do urge you to try Delius's music and if you are going to start somewhere, try "In a Summer Garden".It lasts about 14 minutes. Sit down and relax and think of a warm sunlit summer's day sat in large garden after a delicious lunch. Imagine a river gently flowing at the bottom of the garden with dragon flies dancing in the sunlt haze. Imagine bees hovering among flowering shrubs in the full bloom of June... you begin to doze off.. and now let Delius take you there.