Page "Frederick Delius" Paragraph 34

A young English admirer, Eric Fenby, learning that Delius was trying to compose by dictating to Jelka, volunteered his services as unpaid amanuensis.

For five years, from 1928, he worked with Delius, taking down his new compositions from dictation, and helping him revise earlier works.

Together they produced Cynara ( a setting of words by Ernest Dowson ), A Late Lark ( a setting of W. E. Henley ), A Song of Summer, a third violin sonata, the Irmelin prelude, and Idyll ( 1932 ), which reused music from Delius's short opera Margot la rouge, composed thirty years earlier.

McVeagh rates their greatest joint production as The Songs of Farewell, settings of Walt Whitman poems for chorus and orchestra, which were dedicated to Jelka.

Other works produced in this period include a Caprice and Elegy for cello and orchestra written for the distinguished British cellist Beatrice Harrison, and a short orchestral piece, Fantastic Dance, which Delius dedicated to Fenby.

The violin sonata incorporates the first, incomprehensible, melody that Delius had attempted to dictate to Fenby before their modus operandi had been worked out.

Fenby's initial failure to pick up the tune led Delius to the view that " boy is no good ... he cannot even take down a simple melody ".

Fenby later wrote a book about his experiences of working with Delius.

Among other details, Fenby reveals Delius's love of cricket.

The pair followed the 1930 Test series between England and Australia with great interest, and regaled a bemused Jelka with accounts of their boyhood exploits in the game.