Reviews:
Gramophone
American Record Guide
MusicWeb International
Frederick Delius
Koanga – excerpt from the opera
1. Palmyra’s aria
2. Martinez introduces Koanga
3. La Calinda
4. Koanga’s invocation
Appalachia – Variations on an old Slave Song with final Chorus
5. Introduction
6. Andante
7. Con moto
8. Andante con grazia
9. L’istesso tempo
Sea Drift for Baritone Solo, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra
10. Once Paumanok
11. Shine! Shine!
12. Blow! Blow up sea winds
13. O rising stars
14. O past! O happy life!
Henriette Bonde-Hansen, soprano
(Palmyra) [ 1 ], [ 3 ]
Johan Reuter, baritone
(Koanga) [ 2 ], [ 4 ], [ 9 ]–[14]
Simon Duus, baritone
(Martinez, Perez) [ 2 ], [ 4 ]
Aarhus Cathedral Choir and Aarhus
Symphony Orchestra Choir [ 7 ]–[14]
Aarhus Symphony Orchestra
Bo Holten, conductor
American Masterworks ©
In 1884 came a life-changing journey, when Delius embarked with a family friend of his own age for America, sailing from Liverpool for New York on 2 March.
Delius’s destination was Solana Grove, near Picolata Landing on the east bank of Florida’s longest river, the St Johns. Well south and upriver of Jacksonville by some 50
kilometres, his citrus plantation, named after two brothers, Bartolomé and Mathew Solana who had owned the site earlier, covered (as variously estimated) between 100 and 140
acres. Living on the adjoining plantation, at ‘Villa Solana’, was Jutta Bell, a Norwegian woman related by marriage to Grieg.
In the mid-1890s when they were both back in Europe she would play a part in advising Delius on the structure and libretti of his two ‘American’ operas, The Magic Fountain and
Koanga. Delius was joined for a time at Solana Grove by Thomas Ward, an organist originally from New York, who gave him musical instruction which he later admitted had been far more valuable to him than that which he was to undergo between 1886 and 1888 at Leipzig.
In the summer of 1885 Delius deserted his plantation for Danville, in Virginia, where for the only time in his life, he took up teaching.
If, on the riverside in Florida, he had been enchanted by the sounds of black workers harmonising, in Danville he could hear their counterparts singing in the tobacco factories.
All these new sounds he was hearing, ‘absorbing, translating’.
This initial American experience came to an end in 1886, when he returned to England.
He left Danville for New York in the middle of June, spending ten days on Long Island with a friend from his Isleworth days before embarking for Liverpool.In the spring and summer of 1897 Delius retraced his steps to both Solana Grove and Danville – it is understood to search for a child he had given to a black girl during his first stay in Florida. More prosaically,
however, he was looking for a way to make his failing plantation profitable. In the long run he failed in each of these quests. Although warmly encouraged by his great friend Percy Grainger, newly established in New York, some two decades later to return, Delius was not to set foot on American soil again. His real musical awakening had, however, taken place in the American south.
RELEASE DATE: September 2013
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 732
EAN: 5709499732007
