Delius, Frederick 1862-1934
British composer

Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, of German-Scandinavian descent, he went to Florida in the USA as an orange planter at the age of 20, but studied music in his spare time. He entered the Leipzig Conservatory (1886) where he became a friend of Edvard Grieg. After 1890 he lived mainly in France. A prolific composer, he wrote six operas, including A Village Romeo and Juliet (1901), and a variety of choral and orchestral works, such as Appalachia (1902) and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (1912). By 1924 he was paralysed and blind from a syphilitic infection, but with the English musician Eric Fenby (1906-97) as his amanuensis from 1928, he produced a group of works, including the complex A Song of Summer (1930), Songs of Farewell (1930) and Idyll (1930-32).