On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
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On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Orchestral work by Delius (1912), the first of his Two Pieces for Small Orchestra (the other is Summer Night on the River).
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On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is a tone poem composed in 1912 by Frederick Delius; it was first performed in Leipzig on October 2, 1913.
The piece opens with a slow three-bar sequence; its first theme is an exchange of cuckoo calls, first for oboe, then for divided strings. The second theme is scored for first violins, and is taken from a Norwegian folk song, "In Ola Valley", which was brought to his attention by the Australian composer and folk-song arranger Percy Grainger. (The theme was also quoted by Edvard Grieg in his 19 Norwegian Folksongs, Op. 66.) The clarinet returns with the cuckoo calls before the piece ends in pastoral fashion.
References
- David Ewen, Encyclopedia of Concert Music. New York; Hill and Wang, 1959.
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Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia
The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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Mentioned in
Summer Night on the River
(music)
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, tone poem for orchestra (Pieces for small orchestra, No. 1), RT vi/19/1
(Classical Work)
Small Tone Poems (3), for orchestra, RT vi/7
(Classical Work)
A Song Before Sunrise, for small orchestra, RT vi/24
(Classical Work)
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