Frederick Delius, in full Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, (born January 29, 1862, Bradford, Yorkshire, England—died June 10, 1934, Grez-sur-Loing, France), composer, one of the most distinctive figures in the revival of English music at the end of the 19th century.
The son of a German manufacturer who had become a naturalized British subject in 1860, Delius was educated at Bradford Grammar School and the International College, Isleworth, London. After working as a traveler for his father’s firm, he went in 1884 to Florida, U.S., as an orange planter and devoted his spare time to musical study. In 1886 he left Florida for Leipzig and there underwent a more or less regular musical training and became a friend of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. Two years later he went to live in Paris, and from 1897 he made his home at Grez-sur-Loing (Seine-et-Marne), near Paris, with the painter Jelka Rosen, whom he married in 1903. Some songs, an orchestral suite (Florida), and an opera (Irmelin) were all written before he had a work published, that being Legend for violin and orchestra (1893). These were followed by more ambitious works that aroused considerable interest, especially in Germany, during the first decade of the 20th century. Three of his six operas (Koanga, 1895–97; A Village Romeo and Juliet, 1900–01; and Fennimore and Gerda, 1908–10) and several of his larger choral and orchestral works (Appalachia, 1902; Sea Drift, 1903; Paris: the Song of a Great City, 1899) were first heard in Germany. Later his reputation spread to England, mainly through the persuasive advocacy of Sir Thomas Beecham, who was his finest interpreter.
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