Introduction

‘The musical dictionaries are silent concerning Mr. Fritz Delius’, noted The Standard, suddenly aware of the fragility of its information on the composer and floundering, like all the other papers, in a sea of half-truths. The music palpitates with excitement, and sends the blood tingling through one’s veins.’ New music is a concept as seamless as the unrolling of life itself. Alfred -Hertz wanted plenty of time for preparation. He had heard only one of Delius’s works before – in November 1897 in Elberfeld, where at the time he had been opera conductor – and this was the piece eventually chosen to open the programme. Little wonder that Delius would shortly write to a friend of expenses that were ‘simply awful’. ‘Every bar of Mr. Delius’ music’, wrote The Saturday Review ‘shows high musicianship, an astonishing mastery of notes, and a degree of vital energy quite as astonishing’.