Classical Editor: Rob Barnett
 

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FREDERICK DELIUS - The Historic EMI Recordings issued on Naxos' Great Conductors series

DELIUS Orchestral works Vol. 1
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Summer Night on the River
Eventyr
Koanga - Closing Scene
Hassan: Interlude; Serenade
Paris - Song of a Great City

RPO/LPO conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
rec 1927-34 NAXOS HISTORICAL 8.110904 [61.11]
Crotchet
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When first issued the Delius Society volumes were luxury items available only to the moneyed classes. Seven weighty 78s, a booklet written by A K Holland all in a heavy case embossed with an outline of Delius's head added to the exclusivity of the exercise. It was issued in 1938: a year before the Second World War and four years after Delius's death. Now more than sixty years later Naxos have issued a series of well produced and modestly 'processed' discs reissuing the Delius society volumes all at super bargain price. Naxos put us in their debt with these revivals of connoisseur recordings. Of course the sound is historical and mono but the performances are cherished documents and still richly enjoyable. At one time it seemed unthinkable that transfers of this sterling quality could be available at bargain price. I recall buying the seven LP set on World Record Club LPs at some hideous price. Naxos have turned that world on its head.

The delectable woodwind solos point up how strong a line-up of musicians Beecham was able to select. This really shows in the first two pieces. Eventyr is a favourite of mine alongside the breezy North Country Sketches and Paris. Eventyr is in spirit with Grieg's Peer Gynt - a Nordic romance leaning Bax-wards and having more narrative backbone than is common for Delius. The Goblin shout could have done with less English reserve and more wild abandon - better with the RPO in the later CBS-Sony recording. The sound quality is clean with a whisper of hiss remaining so as not to rob the natural ambience of the originals. The same is true of all three discs.

It now seems, in retrospect, such a tragedy that Beecham never recorded the complete operas. Imagine a Beecham Koanga, Fennimore, Magic Fountain and Irmelin! To tantalise we have the final scene from Koanga with its recollections of Appalachia. The choir rather shows up the limitations of the sound.

The two Hassan snippets are done with a light touch and the Serenade's plumed delicacy has never been equalled (Paul Beard is the solo violinist) although Vernon Handley comes close on EMI Eminence. Rae Jenkins conducted the BBC Welsh SO for the famous broadcast of the Flecker play back in 1972. That performance closely rivals or often outdoes the Beecham in sensitivity. Does anyone out there have the complete broadcast in stereo - do contact me urgently if you have it.

Paris is Delius's rhapsodically headstrong picture of the city whose raffish delights drew him in like a whirlpool. His years there left this memento but also the disease which crippled him. This Song of a Great City in its opening measures parallels Vaughan Williams' London Symphony but soon casts off such thoughts in an accumulation of tension, expectation, dreamy romance and an exuberance common to the wilder stretches of Ravel's La Valse. At the close the listener is taken back to another dawn as if drowsing exhausted near a fountain.

First class sleeve notes by Lyndon Jenkins are a strength of the series.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

(Historical)

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DELIUS Orchestral works Vol. 2
The Walk to the Paradise Garden
Sea Drift
Fennimore and Gerda - Intermezzo
In a Summer Garden
Over the Hills and Far Away

John Brownlee (bar)
London Select Choir
RPO/LPO conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
rec 1927-36 NAXOS HISTORICAL 8.10905 [62.42]
Crotchet
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The Walk is reckoned the best amongst the various Beecham recordings. It was his disc that was played on the BBC on the night of Delius's death in 1934. It has some the most magical wind playing as also does the Fennimore Intermezzo which is a piece created by Eric Fenby from the preludes to scenes 10 and 11 of the opera.

Sea Drift is major Delius. It is his most touching major statement - full of highlights. John Brownlee's dark tawny tobacco tones are perfect here although there is a trace of the stilted accent of the 1930s - a shade disconcerting now. Bruce Boyce recorded the work with Beecham much later. A Mass of Life was not recorded during the 1930s perhaps because its massed textures were too demanding for the technology of the time. For that we had to wait until the 1950s and that version has never been reissued on CD (shame on you Sony!). Notable are the choirs 'shine great sun! and Brownlee's heartbroken (but not sobbed) 'We two together no more.'

Beecham's Summer Garden is alive with streams, insect noises and breezes rustling the branches. If the Garden is enclosed like something from Alain Fournier's 'Le Grand Meaulnes', Over the Hills and Far Away is open and speaks of the same great spaces which enliven his masterpiece The Song of the High Hills.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett 

(Historical)

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DELIUS Orchestral works Vol. 3
Brigg Fair 13.45
La Calinda 3.25
Hassan - Closing scene 7.23
Irmelin Prelude 4.12
Appalachia 37.07
(all rec Abbey Rd, Studio 1, London)
Jan van der Gucht (ten)
Royal Opera Chorus
LPO/Beecham
NAXOS 8.110906 [66.12]
Crotchet
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Appalachia is historically significant because, as Lyndon Jenkins points out in his accompanying notes, this was the work which was the initiator of the Beecham Delius story. Beecham was immediately captivated when he hear Fritz Cassirer conduct the work in London in 1907. It is a set of rhapsodic variations on a slave spiritual - another memento from his Florida plantation years. It is the antithesis of the nigger minstrel plantation songs of the vaudeville and music-hall of the time: a languid river dream, stern or joyful at moments but largely a great, slow but inexorable journey paralleling the journey through life to a warm and comforting oblivion. It is a work of great beauty and remarkably well sustained over 37 minutes. The choir's part is modest. This is largely an orchestral piece. The only blemish, to modern ears, is the solo tenor whose diction is perfect but whose style must now seem as dated to us as the style of singers of the present decade will seem when heard in 2070.

Apart from the alert and springy Brigg recorded in 1928 all the tracks were set down in 1938. You might have expected a dramatic improvement in quality from Brigg to La Calinda but it is in fact pretty modest. These are historical recordings modestly reprocessed to suppress clicks and other blemishes but the level of intervention is sensitively done so as not to intrude.

Hassan is rather earthbound when it should have been ethereal. Irmelin and the Florida memento (La Calinda) will not disappoint.

With the issue of the third disc can further instalments be far behind. Still to come are the concertos for piano and violin, Song of the High Hills (a priority, I hope!), A Village Romeo and Juliet, Elegy and Caprice and the two Dance Rhapsodies. What a pity that the cello concerto and double concerto were not done as part of the Delius society recordings in the 1930s.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

(Historical)


Reviewer

Rob Barnett

(Historical)


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