A YORKSHIRE GENIUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 242, 12 October 1929, Page 8

A YORKSHIRE GENIUS.

i "Paralysed and blind, the Yorkshire composer, Frederick* Delius, has returned to England from" France after fourteen years' absence. He is there to attend a festival performance of his own compositions." So runs a recent cable message. There is an undeniably pathetic touch to this home coining. As an old man, poor blind Handel was able to play the organ and direct his own concerts. Detius, completely paralysed and blind, will be unable to bear any part beyond that of a grateful listener to his own creations, thankful that Jie has powerful friends like Sir Thomas Beecham to devotb a score of years to gaining recognition for the fruits of an undoubted genius. Born at Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1863, Delius is the eon of a prosperous German merchant in the textile trade, who was naturalised in 1850. Young Delius fought parental opposition to a rmisical career from the outset, but the young composer persuaded his father to buy him an orange grove in Florida, where he had ample opportunity to develop in the mast congenial surroundings. After six months of solitude, which he regards as the decisive period of his career, he was fortunate enough to encounter an admirable musician, Thomas F. Ward,.who came to live with him, and proved a sympathetic friend as well as a. valued teacher. In August, 1885, ho left the orange grove and secured a post as music teacher in Danville, Virginia, with the object of becoming financially independent. He was successful . and his abvupt and long\xnexplained disappearance from Florida seemed to. convince his parents of the futility of their attitude towards his ambition. In the following year he went to Leipsig, where he learned nothing from the Conservatoriiim, but a great'deal from his association with Grieg,, who was living there at the time. Settling in Paris and scorning cliques and publicity, he laboured away . for. years, the most scrupulous self-critic that ever put pen to paper, and although acclaimed a great creative musician in Germany he received no .adequate recognition in England until he was nearly forty years old. .The Germans loved, played and sang his works, whilst England had tp . be.. almost dragooned into hearing them by that fiery prbpagandist Sir Thomas Beecham. ...« , . / For nearly forty years Delius has lived .quietly in France, working a\vay : at his composing, and when the Germans reached.the Marne during the war the heavy fire of the opposing armies shook the Delius liome day .and night. . .The .strain.. of intense work, combined with shattered nerves, brought on, in 1922, a strange case of almost complete paralysis. This, however, has never i damped his spirits, though he has since become blind, and his devoted wife has :beeqine\. his amanuensis, a difficult and exhausting • task of ' taking down musical work from dictation. • Before he was seven Delius delighted visitors by' ; - his improvising at the piano, and his first great musical;' experience was hearing the posthumous waltz of Chopin played when he was only ten. It made so extraordinary an impression on him that after hearing it twice he played the whole piece through from memory. Fifty-three years later he is honoured by his King with a Companions-hip of Honour and by his country with a festival of performance of his chief works. And. the pity of it is he cannot leave his invalid chair to conduct, he cannot sec tlie radiant smiles of his loyal friends. But he can revive the precious memories' of an absorbing and industrious -life spent in the service ■of his mistress, music, to whom he has paid tribute through many fruitful years. . —KARL ATKINSON.