Beecham, Fenby, Warlock, Grainger, and other well-known "classical" musicians are closely associated with Delius. But Delius' music has also influenced many popular music artists and programs through the years. Here are a few of those "Delius Connections". Let me know if you find more.

Felix Slatkin was a violinist and conductor in Hollywood in the 50's and early 60's. In my childhood days, one of my favorite LPs in my dad's collection was "CHARGE!", conducted by Felix Slatkin. It consisted of drum and bugle corps music and other military band music. In fact, the "Olympic Theme" (Bugler's Dream by Leo Arnaud) was drawn from this album.

The book "Sinatra Sessions: Frank Sinatra and the Art of Recording" by Charles Granata provides great insight into Sinatra's working methods as a great musical artist and performer. Felix Slatkin was Sinatra's favorite violinist on his sessions, and Mrs. Slatkin was his favorite cellist. Their sons Leonard Slatkin and Fred Zlotkin are both musicians. Leonard is now the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, and Fred is Principal Cellist for the New York City Ballet and for the Lyric Piano Quartet.

Felix Slatkin also conducted the orchestra on many Sinatra sessions, and was the arranger on at least one song for a Sinatra session ("Monique"). The Slatkins also formed the nucleus of the Hollywood String Quartet (HSQ), whose recordings are now available on the Testament CD label. The Sinatra album "Close to You" featured the HSQ on every track, only supplemented by solo wind instruments, playing arrangements by Nelson Riddle.

Only in recent years did I discover that Felix Slatkin recorded an LP's worth of Delius miniatures in 1952 (Capitol P-8182 and Music For Pleasure 2065).  Only "First Cuckoo" is currently available on CD (EMI Classics CD 7243-5-67099-2-8) in a collection with Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite. The LP also featured Summer Night on the River, Intermezzo and Serenade from Hassan, Caprice and Elegy and Prelude to Irmelin.

So certainly Slatkin was a Delius fan. He brought that musical perspective to the Sinatra sessions, particularly on "Close to You", Sinatra's acknowledged masterpiece.

Fred Zlotkin informed me that one of Felix Slatkin's Delius recordings was played during his memorial service in 1963.

Delius is mentioned in Charles Granata's "Sessions with Sinatra"  in a section about Nelson Riddle. Riddle was influenced by the impressionist composers as he developed his style of arranging for Sinatra.

Peter J. Levinson's book "September in the Rain: The Life of Nelson Riddle" (2001) makes the following references to Delius as an influence on Riddle's arranging style:

"The ever musically conscious teenager (Riddle) wore out many cactus needles listening to these records. After that he began enjoying the Impressionist composers - Ravel, more Debussy, and later on Delius." (p. 28)

(While touring with the Tommy Dorsey band as a trombonist and fledging arranger:)

"Nelson would get up early every morning even though we worked late the night before...he would walk to a coffee shop before going over to a publisher's office. there he would listen to his records - mostly the hot classical records of the day: Delius, and of course, Debussy, Ravel - all very romantic music with beautiful chord structures. He was able to make use of them in arranging popular music." (p. 55)

(Nelson's arrangements for Sinatra's "In the Wee Small Hours" album) "were maudlin-sounding charts written without any brass, but rather for a concentration of woodwinds, celli, and violins. As Nelson once observed, 'Bill Finegan taught me to enjoy and appreciate the classics as the primary source of musical richness.' Listening now to the arrangements from "In the Wee Small Hours", one is struck by the symphonic quality of Nelson's backgrounds."

This information comes from an excellent article by David J. Eccott in the Autumn 2007 Delius Society Journal:

In 1960, Nelson Riddle orchestrated Delius' Three Piano Preludes for a concert at the Hollywood Bowl.  

These orchestrations were revived for a concert at the University of Arizona School of Music on April 5, 2007.

Here is a link to an MP3 file of the concert recording (3.5 MB):

http://web.cfa.arizona.edu/keithp/DeliusPreludes.mp3

In another great book about Sinatra, Will Friedwald in "The Song is You" states that the arranger Axel Stordahl was also influenced by the impressionist composers, including Delius.

It is well documented that Duke Ellington was an aficionado of Delius' music. Ellington acknowledged that Delius was an influence on his musical style. Ellington composed and recorded a work which takes its name from one of Delius' most innovative orchestral works. "In a Blue Summer Garden" is not obviously derivative, but rather is Ellington's tribute to a fellow composer and innovator.

The popular singer Mel Torme' (who wrote the music for "The Christmas Song") was an avid fan of Delius and was a member of The Delius Society. He was interviewed by Christopher Redwood  for The Delius Society Journal in 1977 (Number 55). Torme' also conducted Delius works in England in the early 1980's (see Number 74).

Torme' made many recordings and concert appearances with pianist George Shearing, who was also a Delius Society member. Their recording of "It Might As Well be Spring" featured musical quotations from Delius works.  Here is Torme's description of how this arrangement came about:

"I had walked into a little club in Chicago, and George Shearing, who is mad about Delius - we spend hours talking about it - he surprised me by sitting there and playing, in dead silence, the first few bars of "First Cuckoo".  Then he turned it around and tied it into a lovely setting of "It Might As Well Be Spring", and then in the middle he played a little droplet of "Brigg Fair", and then at the end there was a snatch of "Appalachia".  Well, at the end I went round and said, "George, please, I won't steal it from you, but would you allow me...?" and he said "By all means", so I wrote an arrangement wherein I play the first three or four bars of "Cuckoo" and then play and sing "It Might As Well Be Spring".  Then in the middle the orchestra comes in and at the end they stop and I play one full stanza of "Brigg Fair".  Then they come in with the last portion of "It Might As Well Be Spring" and when I sing the last word they play the horn-calls from "Appalachia" and then a very pure triad, and I run up the piano.  I must say it's got absolutely brilliant notices....Rex Reed, who can be very difficult, called it "the most beautific piece of music I've heard in a night-club in aeons."

(NOTE: "It Might As Well Be Spring" in the "Delian" arrangement by Mel Torme' and George Shearing is available on CONCORD JAZZ CD CCD-4190)

From an article in Newsweek magazine dated March 22, 1982:

"My main love in life is to open the blinders.  I feel sorry for people who only love jazz, only love rock, only love classical, only love country.  I'm a great fan of Steely Dan, and my favorite all-time composer is Delius - his orchestral tone poems.  He was (Duke) Ellington and Gene Krupa's favorite, too."

From an interview with Les Tomkins in 1984:

"I go on the road and do an enormous amount of symphony dates. I conduct Grainger, I conduct Delius; I sing a few things that are not in the popular or the jazz idiom—and the truth of the matter is that I detest being labelled. I don’t like to be labelled a pop singer and/or a jazz singer -  I’m a singer."

"...my awareness of it (classical music) grew as I was able to lay my hands on more and more classical records... For the romantics—absolutely Number One—Delius."

Mel Torme' passed away on June 5, 1999.

In May 1977, Peggy Lee appeared on the British radio programme "Desert Island Discs", where the guest names the recordings that they just could not do without.   The eight records she selected included music by Respighi, Brahms, Bach and Delius.  When asked to narrow her choice down to just one work, Peggy Lee opted for "The Walk to the Paradise Garden" by Delius.

Ms. Lee also appeared as vocalist on the recording of fellow Delian Mel Torme's "California Suite".

Mel Torme' credited David Rose with turning him on to the music of Delius.   He quoted Rose as saying, "Everything I write I got directly from Delius."

Delius was Judy Garland's favorite composer (see article about J. Garland and D. Rose).

Baxter had been a  member of Mel Torme's vocal group, The Mel-Tones.  He owned all the Delius Society record sets, and would often play them for friends, including Torme.

Krupa was "a mad Delius fan, a real admirer, knew everything.  We used to talk for hours about the varying moods of Delius..."
(Mel Torme')

Bernard Herrmann claimed Delius as his favorite composer.  He included Delius works in many of his radio performances over the years, and included "A Late Lark" on one of his last record releases (Unicorn RHS 340).  His scoring of the film of the Bronte novel "Jane Eyre" led to his composition of his opera "Wuthering Heights".  He was quoted as saying that since Delius had planned to do an opera on "Wutherering Heights" but never got around to it, he (Herrmann) would do it for him (Delius).

"Wuthering Heights" was recorded in 1966 with Herrmann conducting.

LP: Pye CSCL-30173 (4-LP set)

LP: Unicorn UNB 400 (4-LP set)    Photo of 4-LP Unicorn set

CD: Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD 2050/1/2 (3 discs)  CD Insert - Front     CD Insert - Back        CD Booklet - Back

Essay on Herrmann's "Wuthering Heights"

Website:  The Bernard Herrmann Society

Dudley Moore was best known for his talent as a comedian, but was also an accomplished and dedicated musician. He graduated with degrees in music and composition from Oxford.  He performed many concerts of classical and jazz piano music.  In an interview during his 1992 concert tour of America, he said that his "fairly small"  repertoire included works by Schumann, Bartok, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Delius.

Dudley Moore passed away on March 27, 2002.

The innovative British pop singer Kate Bush wrote and recorded her tribute song "Delius (Song of Summer)" in 1980. It appeared as a single and also as a track on her album "Never for Ever". She had seen the Ken Russell film "Song of Summer" and it made a strong impression on her. The lyrics of "Delius (Song of Summer)" refer to "summer night on the water", and also to Delius' dictation of music to Eric Fenby. Bush also appeared on a BBC interview program along with Eric Fenby, where they discussed Delius and his music.

Jeff included a track called "Delius" on his solo acoustic guitar CD "Lakeside Drive." He maintains an excellent website that includes several pages of information about Delius and his music.

In an audio documentary about the late and lamented Nick Drake, producer Joe Boyd says that Nick mentioned Delius when describing to the arranger what kind of string arrangement he wanted on his song "River Man".

Film composer extraordinaire John Williams recorded "Brigg Fair" by Delius.  This recording was included on the 1988 CD release "Pops Britannia."

The Hollywood arranger Herbert Stothart utilized selections from Delius' music on the soundtrack of the 1946 film made of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Yearling". The music is very appropriate for the setting of the story, which takes place in the forests of Florida; the ambience of the river, plantation life, and Florida itself had left indelible impressions upon Delius that found musical expression in works such as "Florida", "Koanga", and "Appalachia". An excerpt from the soundtrack is included on "The Lion's Roar: M-G-M Film Scores 1935-1965" Turner Classic Movies RHINO R2 75701 [157:16]. The film itself is available on VHS videotape (a DVD release is expected).

During the early 1980's, the "previews" segment at the conclusion of many episodes of "Dynasty" featured on its soundtrack approximately 15 seconds of music lifted directly from the climactic moments of "A Walk to the Paradise Garden" by Delius.

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