REGISTER NOW AND GET • 5 FREE tracks! • 101 tracks for $9.99
ClassicsOnline Home » DELIUS: On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring > Review List
The ten short orchestral works by Frederick Delius that are performed in chronological order on this recording span the whole of his creative life. They also illustrate the cosmopolitan aspect of his art, his love of the four countries that most inspired him - England, America, Norway and France - and his love of nature in all its bitter-sweet transience. Displaying to the full Delius’ late Romantic mastery of chromatic harmony and orchestration, they constitute a perfect distillation of his very personal kind of genius.
Delius, the vernal master
Frederick Delius (1862–1934) is another one of those British composers who are far more famous at home than abroad. The latter part is undeserved, because (unless you are really allergic to the pastoral vein running through most of this British music) this is well-crafted, tuneful and rewarding music, and in the end a quite individual blend of romanticism and impressionism. You can hardly ask for a better introductory disc to the works of Delius than this programme compiled on one Naxos disc. Ten of his delightful miniatures, none lasting longer than 10 minutes, often inspired by spring, and including his most famous works, such as The walk to the paradise garden, and On hearing the first cuckoo in spring. Interestingly, they are laid out in chronological order on the CD, spanning most of his career (1889–1934). Great and well-recorded performances by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under David Lloyd-Jones. If you want only one Delius disc in your collection, make it this one.
All right, so the pastel prettiness of Frederick Delius' miniature tone poems is a guilty pleasure. But if we're free to luxuriate in Monet's rustles and washes of color, why not their musical counterparts? And with daffodils and redbud abloom all over Dallas, the English composer's gentle-voiced cuckoo is right in time and tune. Conductor David Lloyd-Jones and the Scottish orchestra trace a timeline from the early Marche Caprice (1889) to the aptly titled Fantastic Dance (1934). Winter Night (Sleigh Ride) would fit right into a Delibes ballet score, and the American Rhapsody is cheapened by intrusions of "Dixie" and "Yankee Doodle," but The Walk to the Paradise Garden is sheer enchantment. Loving performances are captured in silken, spacious sonics.