Overview

This is a paperback edition of Eric Fenby's famous book which has not been available in authorised form for some years. It is a memoir of the last six years of the composer's life when Fenby, then a young organist from Scarborough, volunteered to live in Grez-sur-Loing to help the blind and partly paralysed Delius to continue to compose. The vivid account of the painful and exasperating process whereby Fenby was able to help Delius commit to paper such great works as Songs of Farewell and A Song of Summer is unforgettable. Equally gripping is the description of life in the strange household in which Frederick and Jelka Delius received visitors such as Balfour Gardiner, Roger Quilter, Philip Heseltine, Percy Grainger, Thomas Beecham and Elgar. Delius died in 1934 and Eric Fenby heeded Ernest Newman's advice not to wait but to write down his impressions at once. This he did and Delius As I Knew Him was published in 1936. In 1968 the book inspired Ken Russell's masterly film about the composer Song of Summer. In 1980, Delius and Fenby made an appearance in the song Delius by Kate Bush and subsequently their extraordinary story has influenced other artists too. Today Delius As I Knew Him remains one of the most remarkable books about a composer ever written.

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9781916116627

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May I express my wholehearted admiration for your Delius Book...It is an amazing story and an amazing human and musical feat that you accomplished in taking down his last musical thoughts - an enviable feat! Percy Grainger, 6th Dec 1936; A courageous book and worthy of a Yorkshireman. Sir Matthew Smith, Nov 1936; I have read this book many times and never without being deeply moved by its unusual and perhaps unique emotional impact. Sir Malcolm Sergeant, Icon Edition 1966.

Author Information

Eric Fenby died in 1997 at the age of 91 and is buried in his native Yorkshire with Rowena, his wife for over 50 years. His time as Delius's Amanuensis was the formative experience that was to govern his entire life. During the war he was in the Royal Army Education Corp and afterwards he founded the Music Department at the North Riding Training College. In 1962 he was the Artistic Director of the Delius Centenary Festival and later that year he received the OBE for services to music. He went on to become Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music and was awarded several Honorary Doctorates. As a composer, his own best known work is the parody overture Rossini on Ilkla Moor played at the proms in 1941. In later life he made various outstanding recordings, accompanying the Delius Violin Sonatas and then conducting the dictated orchestral works, fittingly entitled The Fenby Legacy.

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