A Song Before Sunrise, for small orchestra, RT vi/24
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A Song Before Sunrise, for small orchestra, RT vi/24
- Date: 1918
- Composer: Frederick Delius
- Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
Review
In the summer of 1918, with the Great War grinding slowly to its end and the troubling symptoms of syphilitic paralysis -- which over the next seven years would turn the vigorous Delius into a helpless invalid -- on the rise, the composer sought a cure in the baths at Biarritz, where he composed A Song Before Sunrise. In its brevity (playing about six minutes), keenness of orchestral detail, and evocative power, it might easily make a third to the Two Pieces for Small Orchestra -- "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" and "Summer Night on the River" -- from before the war. Indeed, it has the character of "'Cuckoo' revisited," though where the latter and its companion exude an elegiac, almost mystical, rapture, A Song Before Sunrise is redolent with tongue-in-cheek blitheness. Delius is even said to have likened the clarinet figure in the last bars to a rooster's sunrise greeting. Dedicated to Philip Heseltine -- known as Peter Warlock to all lovers of English song -- the piece was first given by Sir Henry Wood at a Promenade Concert in September, 1923. ~ Adrian Corleonis, RoviAlbums with Complete Performances of the Work
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