On the title page of the manuscript Delius quotes several lines from Longfellow -
"Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain shower and the snow storm,
And the rushing of great rivers
Through their palisades of pine trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,
Whose innumerable echoes,
Flap like eagles in their eyries."
Artwork: "Spellbound" by Hermon
Adams
Hiawatha: Orchestral
Excerpt (9:47)
Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra
This is a recording from a 1984
Norwegian television broadcast. The orchestra performed a large portion
of HIAWATHA; the
first
two sections are missing. Thanks to Dr. Andrew Joseph Boyle
for his efforts in bringing this recording into existence.
NOTE: Click here
to access excerpts from Dr. Boyle's thesis, which contains more
information about HIAWATHA.
This performance is not available commercially, and no other recording of this work, in whole or in part, is currently available.
HIAWATHA Orchestral Excerpt
(RealAudio
format: 1 MB) - hiawatha.ra
HIAWATHA Orchestral
Excerpt (MP3 format: 9 MB) - hiawatha.mp3
Please E-Mail me
if you have any problems accessing these files!
Themes from Hiawatha (arr.
B.
Thompson) in MIDI format
This is an arrangement of the
melodies from HIAWATHA as described and excerpted in "The American
Sources
of Delius' Style" by Philip Jones (see below) and "Delius:
Portrait
of a Cosmopolitan" by Christopher Palmer. (NOTE: This arrangement
was prepared prior to hearing the live orchestral excerpt above.
It has been enhanced to play on wavetable sound cards.)
An Analysis of Delius' HIAWATHA by Philip Jones
Another early work showing Delius' attempt to recreate the strong impressions made on him by his American experiences is the tone poem HIAWATHA, after Longfellow's poem. According to the manuscript full score, it was completed in January 1888 and Beecham states it was begun in 1887, presumably after Delius had finished FLORIDA SUITE and was still under Grieg's supervision. Unfortunately the manuscript is now incomplete with two substantial portions of the score missing. This material must have disappeared after Beecham had finished his book, as he describes the work as being an "attempt to capture the atmosphere of wild woodland life...it is a longish piece with two main sections of a serious and flowing character divided by a sprightly dance movement."
The first three pages of the score are all that remain of the opening, yet these are fascinating because they show how strongly the pentatonic/added sixth harmony was determining the young Delius's style. HIAWATHA begins in A major and opens with the familiar tonic pedal then open fifth in the horns followed by the pentatonic melody in the muted violas with pentatonic semiquaver passage-work in the first violins, also muted. The rest of the opening is missing, but the score resumes its course on page 18, and a few bars later a very strongly defined pentatonic melody emerges in the cello section in F major. The music continues on its pentatonic way developing this melody and other associated melodies rather in the manner of FLORIDA SUITE until the score runs out before the end of the section on page 45. The score picks up again at page 54 with what must be the middle section described by Beecham above. This music begins clearly after the opening of this middle section with part of a melody in D major but the key soon returns to B minor, which is obviously the main key centre of this section, with the melody which certainly accords with Beecham's description of it as "a sprightly dance movement." This is developed at some length, alternating with a bright little D major tag which turns into a cadential phrase, which seems almost a forerunner of the SONG OF THE HIGH HILLS. The music gradually reaches a climax as the dance increases in tempo and comes to a sudden end on a chord of B minor. The last section is slow and somewhat languorous and comes to a close with a return of the "very strongly defined pentatonic melody" first heard on page 18, this time in the form of a canon with shimmering, tremolando strings. Above the ending Delius has written the following lines from Longfellow:
"Westward, westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset
Sailed into the purple vapors
Sailed into the dusk of evening.
Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the Beloved,
In the glory of the sunset,
In the purple mists of evening."
It is frustrating that the work is now in an incomplete state for although, as Beecham says, Delius "was as yet only experimenting with that grand vehicle of sound, the full orchestra," it is a fascinating insight into the early development of his style.