Frederick Delius
From Philosopedia
Delius, Frederick (1862—1934)
An English composer of German parentage, Delius was influenced by Grieg. He is known for combining romanticism and impressionism in music that is characterized by free structure and rich chromatic harmony.
One of Delius’s works is On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (1912), and he also wrote operas, including A Village Romeo and Juliet (1907). A Mass of Life is set to Nietzsche’s text Also Sprach Zarathustra and is for two choirs and a double size orchestra. The work celebrates the joys of being alive, of dancing and drinking, of climbing moutains, and looking at girls’ ankles.
Terry Sanderson has described Delius’s atheism (The Freethinker, August 1996 and May 1997). He relates the time when Eric Fenby visited Delius and was told,
- Eric, I’ve been thinking, the sooner you get rid of all this Christian humbug the better. The whole traditional conception of life is false. Throw those great Christian blinkers away and look around you, stand on your own two feet and be a man. . . . Sex plays a tremendous part in life. It’s terrible to think we come into this world through some despicable act. Don’t believe all the tommyrot the priests tell you; learn and prove everything by your own experience.
