F. Delius. Autograph working manuscript of an unknown work for orchestra (probably c.1912-1916)

DELIUS, FREDERICK

Autograph manuscript of an unknown work for orchestra, probably c.1912-1916  

an incomplete working pencil draft (marked "...ruhiger"), the full score notated on up to twenty staves per page, with parts specified for oboe, cor anglais, bassons, harp, celesta, horns, trombones, bass sarrusophone, tympani and strings, with many alterations, deletions and revisions throughout, the music moving through rapidly changing metres, beginning in 3/4 (11 bars), alternating with 4/4, and then with 3/2 and 6/4, incomplete at the end,

12 pages, folio (34 x 27cm), 3 nested bifolios, 20-stave paper ("B.C. no.6"), no date [probably c.1912-1916]

It seems likely that this manuscript contains an early draft of a mature work that eventually took on a different form, since the distinctive thematic material does not survive in any of Delius's known works.  An approximate dating for this manuscript is suggested by the fact that the same 20-stave paper is used for a draft for 'On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring' (1912): see Threlfall, A Supplementary Catalogue (1986), pp.177-179; D. Grimley, Delius and the Sound of Place (2018), p.23. Delius's Dance Rhapsody no.2 (1916) could be one candidate; it uses a celesta although not the sarrusophone (Dance Rhapsody no.1 does). Delius calls for this double-reed brass instrument in several works dating from The Magic Fountain (1893) until Poem of Life and Love (1918), but it became hard to find such large bass instruments during the First World War.