by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Composer Frederick Delius died on this date in 1934 in Grez-sur-Loing, near Paris, blind and paralyzed by syphilis. His music, a London Times critic wrote, “belongs to no school, follows no tradition and is like no other composer in the form, content or style of his music,” although other commentators have noted the influence of Debussy, Wagner and African American music — which Delius heard in England by the touring Fisk Jubilee Singers and on Florida plantations where he was sent by his father to manage a citrus grove.
Delius’s physical condition toward the end of his life prevented him from personally preserving his legacy as a composer, but the struggling young Yorkshire composer Eric Fenby stepped in and became his amanuensis during the last six years of Delius’s life. That period was captured in the 1968 b/w film Song of Summer, co-written, produced, and directed by Ken Russell for the BBC’s Omnibus series.
Cleveland hasn’t heard much of Delius’ music live, though British conductors like the Bramwell Tovey and Andrew Davis (both no longer among the living) brought his music along to their Cleveland Orchestra appearances, and a smattering of his smaller pieces have been played by university and avocational orchestras.
Here’s a seasonally appropriate work, Song for Summer, performed by the London Symphony under Sir John Barbirolli (you can follow along with the score).
And on what looks to be a perfect early summer day with nothing happening on the Northeast Ohio classical music calendar, consider taking a “Walk to The Paradise Garden” (a riverside pub in Delius’s A Village Romeo and Juliet) to hoist a pint in the composer’s honor.
To dig deeper into Delius’s life and music, visit the web pages of the Delius Society.
And on June 10, 1911, harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick was born in Leominster, Massachusetts. One of the early champions of the instrument, he gave his first recital while studying art history at Harvard in 1930, and went on to work with Nadia Boulanger and Wanda Landowska in Paris. While serving as a professor at Yale from 1940-1976, he wrote a biography of Domenico Scarlatti and devised a chronology of his harpsichord works, which are identified by their “K” numbers.
Since Kirkpatrick was active during the early period of the harpsichord revival, he favored the instruments built by Neupert in Bamberg, only later turning to copies of historical instruments by Frank Hubbard and William Dowd for his Bach recordings.
For a taste of Kirkpatrick’s style during the revival period, here’s a recording of 60 late Scarlatti sonatas he played on a John Challis instrument from Detroit (view the album booklet here, and heed Columbia Records’ warning to frequently change your phonograph needles: “‘Permanent needles’ may cause permanent damage”).
