A SISTER'S ACCOUNT FP DELIUS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21714, 22 February 1936, Page 17

A SISTER'S ACCOUNT FP DELIUS

Frederick Delias. By Clare Delias. Ivor Nicholson and Watson Ltd. 277 pp. (15/- net.) Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. [Reviewed by ERNEST JENNER] -- This book aims at being neither a study nor an estimate of the music of Delius, but is a presentation, by a sister of the composer, of her outstanding memories of a deeply loved brother. It is an intimate biography covering the whole story of the composer's life, but, consisting as it does of memories, it is a story in which certain portions of the composer's life are accentuated—his childhood for instance —while otherperiods are of necessity more sketchily treated. Clare Delius makes perfectly clear the German descent of both father and mother of the composer, and thus finally disposes of the statement found in most biographies tipt the family was of Dutch or part-Dutch origin. The father, Julius Delius, w,as in the home a veritable Hitler: "He was a remote being, an iron disciplinarian, masking the affection which I am convinced he bore towards us with an air of severity which never varied. The guiding influence of our child-life was fear —fear of our father." The book dwells on the tyrannical severity of this otherwise generous man in order to explain his total inability ever to be reconciled to the career which his son Frederick had taken up, the "discreditable, . disgraceful, ungentlemanly occupation of a composer," anl in order to give a right picture of the fight that Frederick j had, to free himself from such powerful and crushing influences. One marvels even at the partial success that Grieg obtained when he interviewed the father to obtain leave for Frederick to abandon a commercial and pursue an artistic career that would give free rein to the young man's undoubted genius in musical composition. The miracle, however, was accomplished; but the parent, though he continued his son's allowance, never permitted the career of "Fritz" to be mentioned, nor did he on any occasion, even when Frederick was recognised, hear one of his compositions. Delius's beautiful house at Grez is well described in these pages, and in them one senses the delightful atmosphere of the home that was the birthplace of those great creations, "A Village Romeo and Juliet," "Appalachia," and "A Mass of Life," to mention but three. I

The concerts by which the compositions won recognition, the indefatigable work of Thomas Beecham on the composer's behalf, the friendship between Delius and Philip Hezeltine, th= composer's attitude to religion—an unexpected attitude from one whose works are so spiritually beautiful—his opinions on the future of opera as an art-form, his happy nature during his long and terrible illness: these and endless other topics are treated in this absorbingly interesting work, making the book a valuable addition to the writings upon the life and work of Delius, the most poetically beautiful composer that Britain has produced. ____