Frederick Delius In-depth Biography
A British composer of opera, vocal, choral, orchestral, and chamber music. The ear of the young Delius was engaged, one summer night in Florida, by the sound of close-harmony Afro-American singing gently wafting over the St. John River (he had been sent to manage an orange plantation). Delius suddenly realized that his vocation was to be a musician. A romantic with the musical vocabulary of the impressionists, he wrote often-imitated but never-matched tone poems of great subtlety and beauty in a very personal style that is not reducible to a formula. ~ Blue Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide