No great composer of recent times has suffered such a curious fate as Frederick Delius. Beecham last conducted his music almost 30 years ago: since then eminent figures such as Kempe and Rozhdestvensky have given him fleeting attention and there has been very good work from some British conductors. But no interpreter has consistently matched Beecham's insight into Delius, and his records are still regarded as gospel. This is an unsatisfactory situation, and one hopes that Delius will find more great interpreters in years to come.
As we gather from the interview on page 1063, Eric Fenby is by no means an unqualified admirer of Beecham's Delius, and in the last decade he has himself made recordings which have an obvious and unique authority where he performs works dictated to him by the stricken composer. His insight into earlier Delius works is also profound yet I do not think he would claim to be a great conductor, and there is sometimes, I feel, a gap between his conception of a score and his realization of it in performance. For instance, he suggests in the interview that the Dance Rhapsody No. 2 is usually taken too slowly, and that he had difficulty in persuading the RPO to play the work more quickly than they had before. Yet the end result is in fact a good deal slower than either of the two Beecham recordings (the second of which is on EMI ( CDS7 47509-8, 6/87). And while Fenby's conducting here and in the Fennimore and Gerda Intermezzo has much insight it lacks Beecham's hypersensitive and magical fluidity of phrase and pulse.
Yet Fenby's account of An Arabesque is the first of the three versions so far recorded to make real sense of the work, and it is a revelation. Here slower tempos bring extra clarity and detail, and Fenby's particular affection for the score is evident in his care over balance and phrase. Thomas Allen sings with great sensitivity and a masterly work is revealed in an adequate light for the first time.
More fine singing from Allen and Sarah Walker illuminates the Songs of Sunset. In ''Exceeding sorrow consumeth my sad heart'' for example, Walker does not wallow in regret, but conveys a dry-eyed stoicism in facing the loss of a loved one. Fenby reports that Delius disliked Beecham's tempo for the opening chorus, but it is difficult to judge his own slower tempo fairly, for the chorus, as in some other parts of the work, become fractionally behind the orchestra to create an enervating effect, and things become quite unstuck at the words ''Of bearded barley and golden corn''. At the end of ''Pale amber sunlight'' chorus, orchestra and solo violin rather part company. Nevertheless, despite evidence of under-rehearsal and some tentativeness in the playing and singing, Fenby's insight comes across, for instance in the way he uniquely points the rhythms of ''I was not sorrowful'' to convey the movement of the river and the sound of rain on a window pane. Beecham's version in the two-disc set noted above is a safer recommendation, but all Delians should acquire Fenby's disc as well, for all its faults. The recording is excellently clear and atmospheric.'