Caprice and Elegy for Cello and Small Orchestra (arr. Fenby)

• These two pieces were completed in 1930, four years before Delius’s death, when Fenby was working closely with Delius to transcribe his compositions.¹
• Caprice and Elegy was based on earlier unfinished sketches by Delius, completed with Fenby’s help, for cellist Beatrice Harrison.²

“Delius wrote his violoncello works with Beatrice Harrison in mind, and no wonder, for she had a poignant and luscious cantabile well suited to his music… She sang on her instrument and had an infallible instinct…and a tone at once powerful and sweet.”

Gerald Moore, collaborative pianist³

• Arranger: Eric Fenby (1906-1997) was a mostly self-taught composer and a writer on music who volunteered to help Frederick Delius as a composition assistant from 1923-1934. Delius was both blind and paralyzed at the time and Fenby managed to transcribe complicated new compositions from Delius’s dictation. Fenby also cared for Delius in his devastating illness.
• Arranger: Fenby wrote a book about his experiences with Delius, Delius As I Knew Him, which the BBC made into a TV film in 1968 (Song of Summer). After Delius’s death, Fenby assisted Thomas Beecham, wrote the score for Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn, and lectured on Delius.⁴

1. Lionel Carley, Robert Anderson, and Anthony Payne, “Delius, Frederick,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed September 3, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000049095.
2. “DCW 15: Frederick Delius: Caprice and Elegy,” Catalogue of Frederick Delius’s Works, accessed September 3, 2019, https://delius.music.ox.ac.uk/catalogue/document.html?doc=delius_capriceelegy.xml.
3. Gerald Moore, Am I Too Loud?, quoted in Janet Horvath, “Forgotten Cellists: Beatrice Harrison,” Interlude, accessed September 3, 2019, https://www.interlude.hk/front/forgotten-cellists-vii-beatrice-harrison/.
4. Palmer and Stephen Lloyd, “Fenby, Eric,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 29, 2019, http:// www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009462.