Frederick Delius

Frederick Delius was born in Bradford, England, in 1862, the son of a German wool merchant who expected him to join the family business. Instead, at 22, he was sent to manage an orange plantation in Florida, where he did little farming and a great deal of listening, especially to the singing of Black workers on the river, a sound he said taught him more than any teacher. Formal study in Leipzig followed, and then a settled life in the French village of Grez-sur-Loing, near Paris, where he stayed for the rest of his days.

His music is about atmosphere more than argument: slow-shifting orchestral colors, summer gardens, distant voices. In his last years he was blind and paralyzed, and dictated his final works note by note to a young assistant, Eric Fenby. He died in 1934.

Start with On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, six quiet minutes that tell you exactly who he was. Brigg Fair, his set of variations on an English folk song, is the natural next step.