Great Composers and Their Lives

Frederick Delius was an English composer born into a family of fourteen children. He grew up in Bradford located in the north of England, but his parents, who were wool-merchants, were actually German. His musical training during his youth consisted of piano and violin lessons, although it has to be said that his music at that time was considered more of a hobby at an amateur level. Nonetheless, he showed a lot of musical promise and wanted to be a musician. His father was dead-set against it, having impressed upon Frederick Delius that a future in the wool business had been where his destiny lay.

After finishing grammar school, he decided to enter into the family business, giving in to his father's wishes. This did not last very long, for he proved not to be a very talented businessman. Yet, having had to go on many business trips abroad to Paris and Norway during that time did spark a great interest for travel and led him to the United States. Little did he know at that time, his travels to Paris and Norway would be important to his musical career in the future.

At the age of twenty-two, he persuaded his father to help him set up as a grower of citrus fruit in Florida. During his stay, he negleted his work as a farmer and was finally able to dedicate himself to his true passion, music. He ended up meeting Thomas Ward, a local musician, who became his teacher in composition. It was here on the desolate plantation in subtropical weather where his first compositions were written. Following this, he moved to Virginia for several months, earning his keep by playing the organ, singing and giving music lessons.

In 1886, two years after his arrival in America, Frederick Delius ended up returning to Europe. His father finally gave in to his wishes and granted him the support he needed to study for a while at the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany. The academic training at the conservatory did very little to benefit his very instinctive talent, yet he met a person that would change his whole life, namely the Norwegian composer Edward Grieg. Grieg not only became a life-long friend who encouraged his music, but also persuaded Delius's father to fully support his son's ambitions as a composer.

After eventually moving to Paris, Delius started composing a great deal of works and became known in artistic circles by many of the greats. It was not until 1896 that he met his wife-to-be, a young artist named Jelka Rosen, marrying her only a year after they had met. The two of them settled down in a little French village named Grez-sur-Loing.

Continuing to devout his life to music, he wrote his first true masterpieces between the age of thirty-seven and fourty - Paris and A Village Romeo and Juliet – two compositions that are truly representative of his style and musical ability. He composed many works after that such as Sea Drift, Appalachia, Brigg Fair, A Mass of Life, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, among many others. Due to his acquaintanceship with Thomas Beecham, a famous English conductor who advocated Delius's music, he not only became famous in Germany, but also in his fatherland, England, and the rest of the English-speaking world.

In 1918, Deilius contracted syphilis and eventually stopped composing due to becoming blind and paralyzed. It was not until a man by the name of Eric Fenby, a composer, teacher and great fan of Delius, offered his services as a scribe (as an amanuensis) that Delius was able to dictate his final works over a period of six years. Frederick Delius, aided by Fenby, painstakingly composed some of his most noted works, among which were A Song of Summer and Songs of Farewell.

To listen to music by this great composer, click here.