This is a study of the vital role that Norway played in the life and work of Frederick Delius. Norway was a primary source of inspiration for Delius: 20 summers of his adult life were spent there, and almost 40 works express his experiences of Norwegian nature or were composed to Norwegian texts. Yet, although his attachment to Norway was at the core of his creative life, this book is the first in-depth study of the influence the country and its artists had on the composer. It includes significant new material regarding Delius’s friendships with Edvard Munch, Edvard Grieg and Knut Hamsun. Previously unknown visits to Norway are detailed, as are close ties to a whole raft of Norwegian artists and political figures that have never previously been documented. For the first time, Delius’s alter ego is uncovered, several mythologies regarding the composer are clarified, and the Norwegian background to some of his most well-known works is considered. The Delius that emerges from these pages is little known, even to most enthusiasts of his music: a driven and energetic personality and an artist searching for a language with which to express the existential crisis facing modern man in the early twentieth century.

ANDREW J. BOYLE is an author and musician. He gained his PhD on the music of Frederick Delius from the University of Sheffield.