Welcome

Welcome to the Delius Catalogue of Works. This is a free resource created through a collaborative project between the University of Oxford, the British Library, and the Royal Library, Denmark, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Using the menu bar, you will be able to browse or search the catalogue. Additional sections contain a complete scholarly introduction, a full appendix to the catalogue, and information on the project and the people involved.

The Delius Catalogue of Works (DCW) is the first thematic catalogue of the composer’s works, and the first to be digital. Previous cataloguing has been undertaken by Rachel Lowe and Robert Threlfall, yet for all their value and expert scholarship these sources now present a number of problems. There is a disparity between Lowe’s object of study (Delius’s manuscripts as held by the Delius Trust) and Threlfall’s (Delius’s complete works), which presents a challenge for a non-specialist trying to compare information in each source. With the handing-over of a huge amount of material from the library of Sir Thomas Beecham to the Delius Trust in 1982, and the subsequent deposit of the complete collection in the British Library, the catalogues’ information on sources and manuscript locations is now out of date. While Threlfall’s supplementary catalogue gives an invaluable detailed description of the Beecham material, it cannot be used without reference to the original catalogue. Moreover, the lack of availability of manuscript material before this juncture resulted in areas of confusion in Threlfall’s original numbering system. An unfinished work that may, or may not, be entitled A l’Amore is denoted as a work, while the Petite Suite d’Orchestre (DCW A 6; RT VI/6) and the Suite de 3 Morceaux Caracteristiques (DCW Coll. 1; RT VI/6(a)) are two distinct works/collections that were originally conflated by Threlfall. Finally, given that the British Library’s catalogue of manuscripts is fully available online, and that many interested parties (scholars, musicians, enthusiasts) are increasingly likely to start a search for authoritative information on the internet, it makes sense to produce a fully digital resource. This decision was given further impetus by the development of the MerMEId software by the Danish Centre for Music Editing at the Royal Library, Denmark ( http://www.kb.dk/en/nb/dcm/) . The software, developed in the course of creating a digital thematic catalogue of the works of Carl Nielsen, has facilitated the creation of a clear, accessible, and user-friendly resource.

We are grateful to the Danish Centre for Music Editing, the British Library, and the Delius Trust for providing expertise and access to Delius’s manuscripts, and to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding the project.