Delius: Appalachia
It was a performance of Appalachia in 1907 which really caught the imagination of Thomas Beecham who thereafter acquired a reputation as being a great champion of the Yorkshire composer.
Another little known fact was that Delius's music was one of the items on the programme when John Barbirolli gave his first concert with the Halle in Bradford in 1943.
A look at the autograph score shows that Appalachia "mirrors the moods of tropical nature in the great swamps bordering on the Mississippi River, which is so intimately associated with the life of the old negro slave population. Longing melancholy, an intense love of nature, childlike humour and an innate delight in singing and dancing are still the most characteristic qualities of this race.."
Delius sub-titled Appalachia "Variations on an old slave tune".
The opening is magical, surely a gentle sunrise, with clouds of mist hanging low over the river: Two horns, an octave apart, announce a soft fanfare in E flat, the First Horn answers as if echoing the theme(example 1).
A rising arpeggio on harp follows. At one point a motive recalling the
Walk to the Paradise Garden intrudes.
In the second section the curtain rises on a busy scene of feverish activity on the waterfront. A dance tune springs to life, an orchestral climax follows (a splash of "Ol' Man River"?) . The music subsides and we move into the next section.
Time now for the Theme of the Variations. Introduced simply on the cor anglais:
During the course of the work we are treated to scenes of American life.
In one episode there is a society ball taking place, an elegant waltz is heard; and, at the end of this scene, the voices of the former slaves can be heard. It is a moment which recalls the end of Wagner's Das Rheingold; when, as the gods waltz into Valhalla, the voices of the "creatures of the river" rise up.
An unaccompanied chorus is heard:
"After night has gone comes the day,
The dark shadows will fade away
To'rds the morning lift a voice,
Let the scented woods rejoice,
And echoes swell across the mighty stream."
After this comes another episode with a theme heavily laden with a life of toil - almost predicting a Hollywood cliche of slavery -, a quiet statement of the theme is heard ushering in the baritone soloist:
"Oh honey, I am going down the river in the morning", accompanied by the chorus of fellow plantation workers. The end of this contains a reference to "My own sweet Nelly Gray" and there was a song referring to her written by Benjamin R. Hanby in 1856. However, might this not be a ruse on the part of Delius to make the listener think this, when it is so nearly:
"My own sweet Jelly Grez" - playing on the name Jelka, living at Grez-sur Loing?
The work ends quietly.
I called in on the orchestra in the middle of rehearsing the work. (About 15 bars from the end of the first half). The orchestra was below full strength, some instruments were missing and there was no choir, but from what I heard this should be a good performance...
* * *
The above was written before the concert. The next section was written afterwards:
I was mistaken. This was a great performance. Appalachia does not often get performed (why ever not?) and this performance had attracted someone from as far away as Walsall. At the end cries of "Bravo" punctuated the applause.
This was a night to remember. "Pure gold" was how one member of the Delius Society described it.
Deep River
I wonder whether the various references to the river (
the mighty stream in this work, and in many negro spirituals are intended to refer, not to a river, but to the Atlantic Ocean.
"My home is over Jordan" - might this refer to the African homeland left in the past?
