The Music of Frederick Delius

Style, Form and Ethos

Jeremy Dibble

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Hardback

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English

The Boydell Press
24 June 2021

Romantic music (c 1830 to c 1900); 20th century & contemporary classical music

This book examines Delius's individual approaches to genre, form, harmony, orchestration and literary texts which gave the composer's musical style such a unique voice. Frederick Delius' (1862-1934) music has proved impervious to analytical definition. Delius's approaches to genre, form, harmony, orchestration and literary texts are all highly individual, not to say eccentric in their deliberate aim to avoid conformity. Rarely does Delius follow a conventional line, and though one can readily point to important influences, the larger Gestalt of each work has a syntax and coherence for which conventional analytical methods are mostly inadequate. Delius's musical style has also defied one of the most essential critical tools of his musical epoque - that of national identity. His style bears no relation either to the Victorian or Edwardian aesthetic of British music spearheaded by Parry, Stanford and Elgar before the First World War, nor to the more overtly nationalist, folk-song-orientated pastoralism of post-war Britain in such composers as Vaughan Williams and Holst. In contrast, Delius acknowledged himself a 'stateless' individual and considered that his music refused to belong to any national school or movement.

To test these claims, the book explores a number of important factors. Delius's musical education at the Leipzig Conservatorium and the works he produced there. Delius's musical voice, notably his harmonic and melodic style and the close structural relationship between these two factors. The book also explores the question of Delius and 'genre' in which the investigation of form is central, especially in opera, the symphonic poem, the choral work (where words are seminal to the creation of structural design) and the sonata and concerto (to which Delius brought his own individual solution). Other significant factors are Delius's cosmopolitan use of texts, operatic plots and picturesque impressions, his relationship to Nietzsche's writings and the genre of dance, and the role of his 'earlier' works (1888-1896) in which it is possible to plot a course of stylistic change with reference to the influences of Grieg, Sinding, Florent Schmitt, Wagner, Strauss and Debussy.

By: Jeremy Dibble
Imprint: The Boydell Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9781783275779
ISBN 10: 1783275774
Pages: 564
Publication Date: 24 June 2021
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

JEREMY DIBBLE is an Emeritus Professor of Music at Durham University where he taught for 30 years. He is the author of C. Hubert H. Parry: His Life and Music (1998), Charles Villers Stanford: Man and Musician (original edition, 2002), Michele Esposito (2010). With the Boydell Press, Dibble has published John Stainer: A Life in Music (2007), Hamilton Harty: Musical Polymath (2013), British Musical Criticism and Intellectual Thought, 1850-1950 (2018) (with Julian Horton) and The Music of Frederick Delius (2021).

Reviews for The Music of Frederick Delius: Style, Form and Ethos

Thoughtful, thorough, and based on much reflection and study of the archives and manuscripts, this book may finally settle the issue of form and style as it relates to Delius's work. -- J.K. Matthews, Rowan University * CHOICE *