Frederick Delius was born in England, and is considered an English composer, though he spent most of his life elsewhere. In his young adult years, he was forced to move to Florida to work in the orange business, but his heart wasn’t in it. He moved to (where else?) Leipzig to study, where he befriended the Norwegian composers we listened to this week: Edvard Grieg and Christian Sinding. He later moved to Paris, and remained on the continent for the rest of his life, only moving back to England during World War I.

The English are known for their love of nature, and this pastorale tone poem by Delius particularly smacks of Vaughan Williams‘ nature-inspired works. Delius writes musical bird calls (it’s fairly easy to recognize the call of the cuckoo), and also quotes a Norwegian folk melody as a way of “tipping his hat” to his Scandinavian friends.