Delius Sea Drift

 Day 32

Delius Sea Drift

Thomas Hampson

BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales

Richard Hickox

I've never really 'got' Delius. The short orchestral pieces such as On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring are lovely but anything on a grander scale has largely passed me by. I did see A Village Romeo and Juliet on stage once and I must admit that it was the most tedious evening at the opera that I have ever experienced. It is a long wait until you get to the Walk to the Paradise Garden, and it is something of a surprise to find that the Paradise Garden is in fact a pub! 

My impression of Delius is that all too often his music meanders along rather aimlessly. Derek Cooke wrote an important essay on the Delius Violin Concerto to argue the case that the piece (and by extension much of Delius) was in fact was tightly constructed but when I heard a rare live performance of the concerto I couldn't really grasp what Cooke was saying.

But this project is about exploring new pieces and it was time for some Delius.  Most of the writers on Delius regard Sea Drift as one of his masterpieces so it was an obvious choice for today. Alas it didn't change my perceptions of the composer.

The beginning is undoubtedly rather beautiful but once the piece got going my interest waned. I find the constant chromatic shifts in the harmony cloying and the vocal line, which I think is meant to be ecstatic, simply monotonous. I just couldn't find any way into the music at all.

Perhaps there are treasures in Delius that I will finally appreciate one day, but for the moment he is not on my list of composers that I must explore further.