Delius "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring"

Delius's music was so closely associated with Sir Thomas Beecham that only a few other British conductors ever took it up and even fewer non-British ones. One exception was Eugene Ormandy. He recorded a selection of Delius's works in 1960 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and from it we hear the composer's best-known piece.

Background

While visiting Leipzig in 1887 Grieg met Frederick Delius, a British student at the Conservatory, and encouraged him to become a composer. In 1888, while on his first concert trip to Great Britain, he met Delius's father in London and presuaded him to let his son devote himself to a career in music. Delius later traveled in Norway with Grieg and was impressed by both the music of Grieg and by Norwegian folk music. His well-known composition, "On hearing the first cuckoo in spring," is based on a theme from Grieg's 1896 arrangement, Nineteen Norwegian Folk-tunes, op. 66.

Note that we also have Grieg on the site