Delius: Appalachia/The Song of the High Hills ? review

BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Davis
(Chandos)

The music of Delius (1862-1934), full of wistful, pre-first world war English exoticism, is edging back into fashion, now some historical perspective has been achieved. He escaped the family wool business in Bradford merely to find industrial inspiration elsewhere: black tobacco-factory workers in Virginia. One of their old slave spirituals is woven into the rhapsodic Appalachia, which has banjo-like strings and a surging brass theme to suggest the great Mississippi river, which Delius probably never saw. The BBC forces and Andrew Davis conjure exactly the rich transcendence Delius would have enjoyed. The Song of the High Hills, suggested by a visit to the mountains of Norway, is performed with equal lustre.

• Classical music

Fiona Maddocks

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/mar/27/delius-appalachia-song-high-hills-review

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