English musical composer, born at Bradford, Yorkshire, on the 29th of January 1862, educated primarily at the International College, Isleworth, and destined by his parents for a mercantile career. To Delius the prospect thus held out was unendurable, though, rather paradoxically, when he declined the business career proffered to him in Bradford, he set out for Florida, where he established himself as an orange planter. His spare time, however, was devoted to such musical study as he could obtain from such books as were in his diminutive library. In this sense he, like Elgar, was self-taught. But he quickly broke away from orange-groves and betook himself to Leipzig, where he underwent a more or less regular course of training at the hands of Jadassohn, though probably he learnt more of practical use from Grieg, who at that time was resident in Leipzig studying the art of scoring for a modern orchestra. In or about 1900 Delius took up his abode at Grez-sur-Loing (S. et L.), near Fontainebleau, which subsequently was his principal domicile, though he travelled in many lands. He was in Norway in 1897 when his incidental music was produced to Gunnar Heiberg’s Folkeraadet, and, by its satirical use of the National Anthem, set the town by the ears. Meanwhile compositions flowed from his ready brain. He gave a concert of some of them in London in 1899 when his Légènde for violin (composed in 1892) was produced. In 1893 his fantasie-overture Over the Hills and Far Away was done by Dr. Haym at Elberfeld, and followed in 1897 by his pianoforte concerto in C minor. This fine work, however, was ultimately recast and produced in London at a promenade concert in 1907 by Theo. Szanto, a Hungarian pianist. But before then, in 1896, Delius’s first opera, Koanga, was in the making. It was produced at Elberfeld in 1904. His second opera, Romeo and Juliet in the Village, was first performed at the Komische Oper in Berlin in 1907, and subsequently was given by Sir Thomas Beecham at Covent Garden in February 1910 and, in a revised version, in 1919. A third opera, Fennimore and Gerda, was staged at Frankfurt am Main soon after the Armistice.
In between the intervals of opera-composing, Delius was very busy producing purely orchestral works, or works for chorus and orchestra for the concert room. Thus Life’s Dance dates from 1898; Paris: the Song of a Great City from 1900; Appalachia (1903); Sea Drift (1904); A Mass of Life (after Nietzsche, 1905); Brigg Fair (1908); In a Summer Garden (1908); Requiem (1909); a Poem of Life and Love and Eventyr (1919). Besides all this Delius composed a violin concerto and a double concerto for violin and violoncello, a violin and a ’cello sonata, and a string quartet, many songs and several a capella choruses.
