Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Delius: Eine Messe des Lebens

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Every year I devote the last Sunday in August to the music of English composer Frederick Delius (1862-1934) because Delius' impressionistic style is so exquisitely evocative of those lazy, hazy days at the end of Summertime. Over the course of more than three decades of lyric theater broadcasting I have presented several times in cycle the recordings of all of Delius's seven operas. Delius considered his greatest work to be not one of them, but Eine Messe des Lebens ("A Mass of Life," 1909).

This paean to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche could never be mistaken for a musical setting of the Roman Catholic liturgy. Delius' amanuensis Eric Fenby wrote of him," Delius was at heart a pagan." "A Mass of Life" is a secular oratorio conceived on a grand scale like Mahler's symphonies, calling for a gigantic orchestra, even bigger chorus and vocal soloists. Delius selected his text from the most poetic and least polemical passages of Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra. There's nary a hint of Nazi propagandizing in his libretto. Curiously, Hitler's pagan National Socialist regime in Germany never made use of Delius' oratorio for political purposes. Delius' music transcends all politics. The joy of living was what he was extolling in "A Mass of Life."

Way back in April of 1986 I broadcast the 1953 mono LP recording of "A Mass of Life" with Delius's personal friend and artistic champion Sir Thomas Beecham conducting. Beecham led his own Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Choir. Featured as the voice of Zarathustra is baritone Bruce Boyce. In 2001 Sony Classical reissued Beecham's "A Mass of Life" in digitally upgraded sound on two compact discs. The reissue includes a recording of Beecham himself giving an introductory talk about Delius' music. There are several other, more recent recordings of "A Mass of Life." There's the Intaglio CD issue of a 1971 BBC radio broadcast of the "Mass" under Norman Del Mar's direction. That one I aired in April of 1993. Another big name interpreter of English music, Richard Hickox recorded "A Mass of Life" for the Chandos label. Hickox led the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Those Chandos CD's went over the air twice before on Delius Sundays in 1997 and 2011. The Bournemouth Symphony made a new recording of the "Mass" for Naxos. David Hill conducted the orchestra and the Bach Choir. The 2012 Naxos release I broadcast on Sunday, August 31, 2014.