Frederick Delius
   Norwegian Masterworks

* Eventyr
* Sleigh Ride
* Five Songs from the Norwegian (orch. Holten)
* Song of the High Hills

Henriette Bonde-Hansen, soprano; John Kjoller, tenor; Helle Hoyer Hansen,
soprano; Aarhus University Choir; Hummerkoret; Aarhus Chamber Choir; Aarhus
Symphony Orchestra/Bo Holten.
Danacord DACOCD 592  TT: 65:43

Summary for the Busy Executive: A Viking in Paris.

Because his music sounds to me like a Debussy precursor's (yeah, I know:
they were born in the same year), I tend to think of Delius as a Francified
Briton.  In fact, however, Delius had as many, if not more, ties to
German culture as to French and furthermore early on fell under the spell
of Scandinavia, particularly the music of Grieg.  Indeed, both Grieg and
Delius admired each other's work enormously -- against what I would have
thought the odds, since musically I find very little in common.  Grieg
strikes me as a composer of clear ideas, while Delius often gets lost
in his own rapture.  Grieg gets very little from Wagner, while Delius
owes that composer much in terms of harmony and form.  All the pieces
here have a specific Norwegian or Grieg inspiration.  Delius also wrote
music inspired by Danish folklore, available on Danacord DACOCD 536, so
he wasn't stuck on Norway.  Grieg and Norway, however, remained his
Scandinavian spiritual centers.  Indeed, before he went completely blind,
he and his wife, Jelka, traveled to Norway for the last time so that he
could see the sunset there.  What a Delian moment!

Even so individual a composer as Delius comes from somewhere.  In
his case, it's probably the Wagner of the "Forest Murmurs" section of
Siegfried.  Donald Mitchell makes a case for that passage's influence
on Debussy as well.  However, unlike Wagner and Debussy, Delius's music
typically moves neither symphonically nor dramatically, but "associatively."
He eludes conductors (and listeners) used to searching out motific
building blocks, like those found in Mozart and Beethoven.  In my
experience, it takes a special conductor -- Beecham, of course, comes
immediately to mind, as does Barbirolli -- if Delius's music isn't to
sound like an aural bog.  Delius himself gives his performers very little
help.  He and his musical secretary, Eric Fenby, had attended a performance
of one of the violin sonatas.  Delius complained privately to Fenby about
the performance.  Fenby responded that Delius had to take some of the
blame, since his scores were so free of expressive marks.  Delius replied,
"Surely, a truly musical person would phrase it my way." Consequently,
the conductor must, to an unusual extent, "channel" the composer.

Eventyr ("folk-tales"), finished in 1917, evokes the alternately dark
and radiant world of Scandinavian folklore -- the hunting packs of wolves
and trolls as well as the sun glinting on snow.  Like most of Delius's
tone-poems, it tells no story in particular or in detail.  Delius usually
talks about himself -- his reactions to nature or, in this case, to the
worlds of Norwegian tales and myths.  As I say, it moves "associatively,"
with one thought leading to another by tangent, rather than by thought-out
design.  There are brilliant moments, notably a description of something
like a goblin pack, with a shout from "20 men's voices" backstage, but
in this account probably just the male orchestral players with available
mouths.  I like it a lot because it moves, for Delius, pretty quickly,
and fast music doesn't come easily to this composer.  He stretches himself
pretty far with very often interesting results.

Sleigh Ride, on the other hand, Delius wrote in the late 1880s,
originally as a piano piece.  He orchestrated it shortly thereafter.
It received its first performance in 1947, Beecham conducting.  It's
a work that should have become an Instant Light Classic, but one still
encounters Delius very rarely in concert and not all that frequently in
recording.  It begins with what for Delius is a light dance (his fondness
for rich orchestral sound precludes anything truly light), punctuated
by sleigh bells.  Characteristically, Delius loses the specific inspiration
of sleigh bells pretty quickly so he can get raptured out by the winter
landscape.  Toward the end, the sleigh bells and the dance briefly return,
but the composer closes with his own rapture.

The Five Songs from the Norwegian, one of two sets, also comes
from around 1890.  Delius dedicated the songs to Grieg's wife, Nina.
These songs are so unusual for Delius, you might not, in a "blind"
listening, guess the composer.  Frankly, they sound a bit like Wagner's
Wesendonk-Lieder.  Grieg himself initially fretted that they uneasily
wedded Norwegian melos with Wagnerian harmonies, but he very quickly
overcame his doubts.  The tunes are all original with Delius, but they
do set German translations of Norwegian poets.  Bo Holten orchestrated
them and probably fit them to the original Norwegian words.  This is the
version sung here.  They are flat-out gorgeous.  Kudos go to Holten for
orchestration so close to Delius's own practice.

Delius often took years to complete a work and almost always had several
going at once.  He believed very strongly in inspiration.  If a piece
wouldn't come, he preferred to set it aside until lightning struck again.
Song of the High Hills runs counter to his usual practice.  He sweat
blood over it but wouldn't put it aside.  It took him about a year to
complete, especially because of (he wrote to Fenby) an "eight-part chorus
that wouldn't come right." It's certainly one of his major works.  Both
Bartok and Kodaly admired it, especially the use of a wordless chorus
(Delius's instruction: "Sing on the vowel which will produce the richest
tone possible").  It drives me crazy with its maddening inconsistency
-- Vaughan Williams's "village curate improvising" alternating with
passages of stunning imagination and beauty.  Bartok and Kodaly weren't
duped: that wordless chorus will blow you away.

All of this is to say, I suppose, that the performances don't always
convince me.  Holten does best in the five songs.  The soprano, Henriette
Bonde-Hansen, sings both sweetly and passionately.  Holten does well
enough in Sleigh Ride, although he doesn't come up to Beecham's magic
on EMI and the Aarhus players don't reach the level of Beecham's
Philharmonia.  With the major works, Eventyr and Song of the High Hills,
however, Holten disappoints me, in that he sometimes lets the thread of
coherence get away from him.  Then again, I'm not really a Delian.  The
fault could very well lie with me.

Steve Schwartz