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Europeans Rediscover Delius: Two Creative Operatic Revivals
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14365 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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6 / 1988 |
1,959 Words |
| Author
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Andrew Clark
Andrew Clark is a broadcaster and critic living in Switzerland. |
The music of Frederick Delius is finally starting to win a proper hearing in Europe. It has always had its devotees in Britain and America, mainly because of a performance tradition dating back to the composer's lifetime, and partly because of the affinities of Delius' background with English-language culture. Until recently, however, central Europe showed nothing but indifference. Now German-speaking audiences are being given the chance to rediscover Delius.
It is a curious phenomenon. The German music world spent more than thirty years after the Second World War trying to ignore or forget its late romantic and early modern heritage, and then about fifteen years ago started on a voyage of rediscovery. Much of the resurrected music was not to postwar taste, which glorified the tradition created by Schoenberg and his disciples of the Second Viennese School. The pendulum is now swinging back. German orchestras and opera houses are giving a novel slant to their programs by reintroducing repertoire that was fashionable in the first forty years of this century. It may not all be quality stuff, but it is part of the German cultural heritage. The consensus now is that European musical life is richer for it.
Where does Delius fit into all this? Much of his music shares the rich orchestration of other neglected late Romantics. Some of his operas and orchestral works received their premieres in Germany in the early years of this century, when the composer was ignored in Britain. The predominant influences in his family background and musical training were German. As musicians and audiences search out hidden corners of the repertoire to avoid the familiarity of the nineteenth century or the complexity of the moderns, new interest in Delius
... (1997 of 12153 Characters)
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