Missionary to the English

The world's No. i admirer of the music of English Composer Frederick Delius (1862-1934) is crusty Sir Thomas Beecham, founder of a society in Delius' honor, conductor of most of the available recordings of the composer. He once (in 1934) called the career of Delius "the greatest and most far-reaching incident in music during the last 50 years," and he meant every word of it.

Still crusading last week, Sir Thomas took his famed Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to Oxford's New Theater for the world premiere of Delius' 61-year-old opera, Irmelin. For four hours, the wistful music wended its peaceful way. The Princess Irmelin rejected her 100th suitor, explaining, in effect, that she was not frigid, just waiting for her dream man. She finally got him in the last scene, in the person of a swineherd.

The London Times called it "an exquisite opera," but the review otherwise showed no deep enthusiasm for the work. The Manchester Guardian faint-praised it as "full of sweet sounds that give delight and do not hurt or exacerbate in the least ... A very moving act of homage." The Daily Express said bluntly that "the piece is not stageworthy. The plot is too insipid. The music ... is too syrup-sweet."

Sir Thomas roared with indignation. "What do you want in opera?" he demanded. "Imagination, feeling, poetry, romance. You don't want thinking. Musicians don't think. Delius is a world of fantasy, the miracle of English music. Yet these people who have the ears of Midas haven't the sense to vaunt him."

As for English music critics, added Sir Thomas, they can be divided into three groups: "The first consists of three or four people who write about music in a scholarly, accurate, knowledgeable manner. After them conies a handful which write brightly and amusingly about music. They know little about it, are clever in avoiding the use of technical terms--and might just as well be reporting cattle shows. The third group is much larger. Its members are quite hopeless--drooling, driveling, doleful, depressing dropsical drips. All English critics, without exception, are timid and conventional."

But he still saw hope for his composer: "I must have produced 100 operas which the press has described as negligible; they all entered the repertoire. It took the press nearly 150 years to appreciate Mozart's operas. Delius has only been dead 20. There is a chance--by the end of the century."

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