Frederick Delius

In their often frank writing, the characters and interaction of the two men is highlighted and in their informal and often gossipy way, they illuminate the musical life and many personalities of the time."--Jacket.

Frederick Delius is among the most celebrated English composers of the 20th century. Widely studied and performed, his works are considered models of the British impressionist school and continue to fascinate students and scholars centuries later. This research guide serves as a ready reference for students and scholars, but will also be interesting to read and useful for anyone who wants to know where to begin to learn more about this important composer.

First published in 1998, Carley collates twelve essays by an international group of contributors reflects the truly cosmopolitan nature of Delius’s life and his music. They reveal the manner in which he absorbed the culture of the nations he came to know, their music, art and literature, and the influences they brought to bare on his own work. Also discussed are some of the often mixed, but rarely equivocal reactions that performances of his music have reactions over the years, with Lionel Carley’s in-depth study of the first production of Foleraadet in 1897, and a wide ranging analysis by Don Gillespie and Robert Beckhard of the critical reception of Delius’s music in the United States between 1909 and 1920.

This book examines Delius's individual approaches to genre, form, harmony, orchestration and literary texts which gave the composer's musical style such a unique voice.

An intimate portrait of Delius by the man who notated many of the disabled composer's last works. Includes 33 musical examples.

In the last decade of the 19th century, modernist sensibilities reached a critical mass and emerged more frequently in music as composers began employing dissonance, polyrhythm, atonality, and densities. Conversely, many 20th-century composers eschewed modernist devices and wrote accessible works in a tonal idiom, which drew chiefly on classical, romantic, and folk models. Then the postmodern sensibility followed, with its enthusiasm for the unprecedented availability of virtually every type of music, and it engendered numerous sub-groups, including multiculturalism, minimalism, multimedia, and free improvisation. Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music focuses on modernist and postmodern classical music worldwide from 1890 to the present. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries, with more than 60 entries explaining the methods, styles, and acoustic and electronic media peculiar to new music, and over 350 entries giving essential information on the lives and work of the people who have composed and performed that music. Those entries also include pop, jazz, and rock composer/musicians whose work either overlaps the realm of classical music or else is so radical within its own field that it merits discussion in this context. This book is a must for anyone, musician or non-musician, student or professional, who seeks to research and learn more about any significant aspect of modern and contemporary classical music worldwide.