Over the Hills and Far Away, fantasy overture for orchestra, RT vi/11
Small Tone Poems (3), for orchestra, RT vi/7: 'Winternacht'
Brigg Fair (An English Rhapsody), for orchestra, RT vi/16
Florida, suite for orchestra, RT vi/1: Daybreak - Dance
Florida, suite for orchestra, RT vi/1: By The River
Florida, suite for orchestra, RT vi/1: Sunset - Near The Plantation
Florida, suite for orchestra, RT vi/1: At Night
Petit Suite, for orchestra, RT vi/6: Marche Caprice
Track Listings (8) - Disc #2
A Dance Rhapsody (No. 2), for orchestra, RT vi/22
Small Tone Poems (3), for orchestra, RT vi/7: Summer Evening
Pieces (2) for small orchestra, RT vi/19: On Hearing The First Cuckoo In Spring
Pieces (2) for small orchestra, RT vi/19: Summer Night on the River
A Song Before Sunrise, for small orchestra, RT vi/24
Fennimore and Gerda, opera, RT i/8: Intermezzo
Irmelin, opera, RT i/2: Prelude
Songs of Sunset, for mezzo-soprano, baritone, chorus & orchestra, RT ii/5
Sir Thomas Beecham enjoyed a career-long association with the music of Delius. As Grieg provided the encouragement to Delius to keep composing, Delius in turn helped Beecham choose conducting as his path. In return, Beecha... more »m championed the composer's music as no other interpreter has or ever will. There is a delicacy in these sunny accounts, a lightness of touch and of texture that sets them apart. While one encounters occasional out-of-tune notes as well as ensemble problems in the playing by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the spirit of Sir Thomas easily carries the day. The performances were captured in good early EMI stereo, which, while it comes with some tape hiss, is eminently listenable and has a wonderful presence. --Ted Libbey« less
Sir Thomas Beecham enjoyed a career-long association with the music of Delius. As Grieg provided the encouragement to Delius to keep composing, Delius in turn helped Beecham choose conducting as his path. In return, Beecham championed the composer's music as no other interpreter has or ever will. There is a delicacy in these sunny accounts, a lightness of touch and of texture that sets them apart. While one encounters occasional out-of-tune notes as well as ensemble problems in the playing by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the spirit of Sir Thomas easily carries the day. The performances were captured in good early EMI stereo, which, while it comes with some tape hiss, is eminently listenable and has a wonderful presence. --Ted Libbey
CD Reviews
A gramophone classic
05/28/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This set has the power to bring back a sense of wonder to even the most jaded of today's listeners. Something of the magic of the early stereo era is conveyed. If the LP equivalents sounded half as good as this, they must have been some kind of landmark in the history of recording. I would love to have been there to experience the sense of revelation that these recordings brought to their first listeners. Beecham was and is the undisputed master of this music. Following along with the score of "Brigg Fair", "A Dance Rhapsody" and "Two Pieces for Small Orchestra" as I listen to Beecham conduct them, I fully appreciate how complete Beecham's seduction of his players was. There is no feeling that an interpreter is imposing his will but rather of complete identification with the spirit of the music, a sense of fantasy and, again, wonder. It's as if Delius is speaking directly to us and surely that is the mark of a great performance!"
Landmark Delius recordings by his greatest conductor
ADB | Colorado Springs, CO United States | 12/08/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Here you've got probably the most essential set of Delius recordings ever made. Thomas Beecham, the composer's ardent champion of many decades, made the most of this opportunity to record (and re-record) many key works in stereo. The playing of his Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is exemplary, with some gorgeous woodwind soloing.
Delius is an elusive but highly original composer with a rhapsodic style; an acquired taste, he can definitely grow on one with repeated listenings. A kind of English impressionist (born the same year as Debussy), he was also a major inspiration to Duke Ellington. Here you'll find some of the finest short tone poems ever composed, such as "Summer Evening," "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring," "Summer Night on the River," and "A Song before Sunset"--all gloriously poetic evocations of the natural world and presented here in definitive interpretations. The early four-movement "Florida Suite" is another favorite, and it's recorded here, as are several other works, in Beecham's own editions.
The highlight, however, is the final and longest piece on this set, "Songs of Sunset," a choral work with baritone and contralto soloists that sets passages by Ernest Dowson (a short-lived and largely forgotten nineteenth-century English poet who contributed several immortal phrases to the language, including "days of wine and roses" and "gone with the wind"). Australian baritone John Cameron is wonderful with his rich, mahogany voice, and Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester is simply transcendent, as she is also in the classic Bruno Walter recording of Mahler's 2nd. The passage "and dream we shall lie,/ Red mouth to mouth, entwined" is ecstatic--pure aural magic.
As an introduction to Delius's music, this can't be topped. And for the true Delian, it's desert island material.
"
Hard to top Beecham conducting Delius
Hiram Gomez Pardo | 05/25/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Want to check out Delius? Start here. Ah, the days when conductors like Sir Thomas Beecham roamed the earth... Highly recommended."
"Delius was an eminent landscape painter musician if I may; he might be catalogued as late Impressionist. Temperament and lyric refinement are basically the most relevant features of his artistic profile.
To my mind there just have been three eminent conductors who have been able to capture with all fervor and slender elegance the magic of his compositions: Thomas Beecham, John Barbirolli and Anthony Collins.
The eulogizing devotion of Beecham to play the most of his compositions is worthy to admire, and in this sense he must be considered as the most genuine herald, pioneer and defender of his music, especially when Sir Edward Elgar seemed to cover practically all the spectral universe in the early decades of the XX Century.
Don't miss this album that will always keep for us the minim facets of that illuminated and talented composer.
Track Listings (8) - Disc #1