MUSIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23107, 5 February 1937, Page 5

MUSIC

By Allegro

NOTES AND RECORDS

One of the most moving tales in the history of music is told in “ Delius as I Knew Him,” by Eric Fenby, which is reviewed in an English paper. It is the story of the doom of a great, artist, dreadfully stricken by fate, and of a disciple’s devotion, maintained in circumstances which the world already knew of, without having been until now apprised of all the poignant particulars. Infatuated with Delius’s music, Eric Fenby, a young Yorkshire musician, hardly more than a boy, wrote in 1928 to the blind and paralysed composer, offering his services as amanuensis. Delius—an active, unimpaired mind in a totally disabled body accepted with alacrity. Mr Fenby went to Grez in October, 1928, and lived in the tragic household until the summer of 1933. He returned there in the following spring, when Mrs Delius was away in hospital, crucially ill, and the composer was sinking: and he was with Delius when he died on June 10, 1934.

The first thing to acknowledge vthe reviewer observes) is that Mr Fenby has not romanticised his story. “Hard, stern, proud, cynical, Godless, completely self-absorbed ” —that is the Delius he knew. Equally he does not idealise himself, but unaffectedly admits moments of revulsion from his self-imposed servitude. “ Was it to mean the complete sacrifice of all my youthful years? ’* he asked himself on one occasion. And, again: “It would have been so refreshing if, after a hard day’s work, one could have listened to music just a little less chromatic in character! ” But Delius was a thorough composer in caring really for no music but his own. The early days were difficult, but collaboration was effected, and it represents a triumph for both musicians —on Delius’s part it was a grand triumph of the spirit to create still, despite his half-dead body, but not much less on the part of the younger man. “ I have gone for as long as five months at a time without speaking to a soul outside their tiny household.” Delius had been blind for eight years, and no one but Fenby conceived the possibility of his composing again. Laboriously they evolved a technique—described in detail in this book —and “A Song of Summer,” “ Songs of Farewell,” and the adaptation of “ Margot la Rouge ” were the outcome. “ Songs of Farewell ” —a monument, as Mr Fenby well says, of what, when the body is broken, the will can still achieve — can never again be heard without a mental picture of the two musicians at Grez. Their labour, wearing in itself, was interrupted by Delius’s bouts of suffering, which were fearful to witness. “ Yet it did me good, for I saw the iron nature and courage of the man, and I learnt how a man should bear suffering and misfortune. There was nothing of the sickly, morbid blind composer, as known by popular fiction, here, but a man with a heart like a lion and a spirit as untamable as it was stern.” Intellectually isolated, inhumanly aloof, penetratingly truthful, wholly indifferent thereby whether he hurt people or not—so Mr Fenby furthermore characterises Delius, adding, “ colossal egotism, dreadful selfishness, splendid generosity ... a true artist if ever there was one.” “To the end,” remarks Mr Fenby, “ he continued to taunt me for my persistence in being a Christian. Every time I vent down to lunch or supner I was always in danger of a heavy bombardment.” The book is scattered with Delius’s sayings, in which all who ever heard him talk will (the reviewer thinks) recognise nis voice. Thus: “ How much better Mendelssohn uses the orchestra than Beethoven!

.. . Berlioz? A vulgarian. .. . Parry would have set the whole Bible to music if he had lived long enough. . . . Now it’s Sibelius (talking of London fashions), and when they’re tired of him they’ll boost up Mahler and Bruckner. . . . Perfect! Thomasperfect! (on hearing a broadcast from London). . . . God? I don’t know him.”

Evidently a new admiration for Elgar has been excited in Germany. The Frankfurter Zeitung speaks of the Variations as “ a music whose range of expression and imaginative power we admire, whose artistic and human sincerity, humour and noble sentiment we feel.”

Writing on the Berlin concert given by Sir Thomas Beecham and the London Philharmonic Orchestra on their visit, Paul Schwers, in the Kolnische Zeitung, expresses amazement that such an orchestra can make both ends meet without a subsidy. He found that the total tone of the L.P.O. needed getting used to, differing radically, as it struck him. from the “ transparent colouring ” of the Berlin Philharmonic. While praising highly a brilliant Berlioz performance, he was most taken by the Elgar Variations, and expressed very handsome appreciation of the composition as well as of the playing.

Karl Westermayer (Berliner Tageblatt) wrote concerning Elgar’s work of the “ surprising inventiveness and virtuoso’s scoring ” of the Elgar Variations.

Wagner music played by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra has been recorded. The Prelude to Act I from “ Lohengrin,” “ Siegfried Idyll,” “ Dawn and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey ” are all fine recordings. The British Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bruno Walter has made a recording of “ Symphony No. 4 in E minor ” by Brahms. Another record by this orchestra is Beethoven’s “ Egmont Overture.” opus 84. Beethoven’s “ Sonata in C minor " for violin and piano has been put on discs by Adolf Busch and Rudolf Serkin. They give it musicianly playing and interpretation. The pipes and drums of the 2nrl Battalion of Scots Guards, under Pipe-major J. B. Robertson, have made a record of “ Eightsome Reel ” and “ Highland Schottische.”