Frederick Delius
Frederick Delius By Unidentified - "Fritz Delius.” Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Frederick Delius was fortunate in his admirers. The great conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, who fell under the spell of Delius' music in 1907, then promoted Delius' cause for the next half century. One of Beecham's classic recordings was of Delius' incidental music to the "oriental fantasy" called "Hassan, or The Golden Journey to Samarkand."
On this week's Classics of the Phonograph, Saturday at 11 am on WILL-FM, we will hear Beecham's 1958 recording of Delius' Hassan music.