It is fitting that two of Delius’s American-inspired works should appear on this recording performed by the Florida Orchestra and the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay under the direction of Stefan Sanderling. It was, after all, in Florida that the compulsion to compose was discovered by the young Delius, living out in the isolated tropical landscape of the St John River. It was this romantic context and the songs of the black workers that gave rise to the unique tone-poem Appalachia, a set of characteristic variations on an old slave song which culminates in a choral rendition of the song, harmonised in Delius’s inimitable chromatic manner. Sanderling’s interpretation of this imaginative score is sympathetic, especially in the protracted evocation of the dawn. The tempi are well chosen and the handling of Delius’s poetic orchestration, not least in its richer Straussian garb, is nicely poised. The chorus also evinces a sense of quasi-informality in its ‘free’ sound and delivery, ideal for the choral conclusion.

Of Walt Whitman’s Sea Drift, of an entirely different style and sensibility, I felt more uneasy. Surely the opening tempo – a portrayal of the throbbing, eternal sea – is too pedestrian for Delius’s Moderato e tranquillo? And Leon Williams, though the possessor of a fine instrument, is a little too stiff for Delius’s flexible declamation and his dynamics rather too generous for the more limpid, agonised passages. After the subtle variegations of texture in the recordings by Mackerras and Hickox, the balance of soloist, chorus and orchestra (and solo violin!) here lacks that delicate range of colour essential to Delius’s personal brand of polyphony and, most importantly in this work, to the underlying elegiac mood of profound sadness.