Frederick Delius
Life's Dance
Lebenstanz
DCW 29
RT VI/13 and VI/15
DCE 24a
Composer: Frederick Delius
Life's Dance is another work with a complex history of revisions and different versions, going through three versions, dated 1899, 1901, and 1912 respectively. Delius took some time to reach a definitive title, a process further complicated by the fact that performances took place in Britain and Germany, so it is variously referred to in letters and manuscripts as Lebenstanz, A Dance of Life, Ein Tanz des Lebens, Und Weiter geht der Tanz, Dansen Gaar, and La Ronde se déroule. The versions have prompted mixed cataloguing practices. Threlfall originally designated the first version, La ronde se déroule, as a separate work (unlike Lowe), but in the preface to vol. 24a of the Collected Edition he acknowledges this version as part of the continuous development of a single work (see RL, 69-73, RT, 136-9). Consequently here La ronde se déroule is considered a version of the work with a single DCW number. Indeed, the thematic material is substantively the same in all three versions, but its development is greatly extended in the second and third versions (the third version retains the orchestration of the second and many of the revisions, but Delius recomposed the final section).
The original version was inspired by the Danish drama Dansen Gaar (The Dance Goes On) by Helge Rode, and is headed by a quotation from this source. Jelka Delius, however, considered the final work to have become detached from this origin, quoting Delius as saying 'I wanted to depict the Turbulence, the joy, energy, great striving of youth - all to end at last in the inevitable death' (RL, 72).
Composition: Between 1898 and 1912.
Sources
Miscellaneous material
[Classification: notated music, manuscript, autograph]
This manuscript contains the missing title page of the 1901 version, as well as a draft page of full score for La ronde se déroule.
Sketch material
[Classification: notated music, manuscript, autograph, short score, sketch, fragment]
A fragmentary pencil sketch featuring the Lebenstanz motive.
Sketch material
[Classification: notated music, manuscript, autograph, short score, sketch, fragment]
This manuscript contains four folios with short score sketch material for Life's Dance and Paris. Two folios have the word 'Lebenstanz' written on in pencil (hand unknown).
1. La ronde se déroule
Date: 1898-1899.
Instrumentation:
Orchestra : picc., 3 fl., 3 ob., 3 cl., cl.b., 3 fg., cfg., 4 cor., 3 tr., 3 trb., tb., timp., gr.c., cym., trgl., arp., str.
Sources
Autograph score
[Classification: notated music, manuscript, autograph, score, fair copy, complete]
Title page: "La ronde se déroule"|Symphonische Dichtung|zu "Dansen Gaar" drama von Helge Rode|von|Fritz Delius|1899.
The following nine lines of the play, in Danish, are written below (translation R. Woods, 1965, cited by RL, 69):
'The dance of life. My picture shall be called the dance of life! There will be two people who are dancing in flowing clothes on a clear night through an avenue of black cypresses and red rose bushes. The earth's glorious blood will gleam and blaze in the roses, Claire. He holds her tightly against himself. He is deeply serious and happy. There will be something festal about it. He will hold her to him so firmly, that she is half sunk into him. She will be frightened - frightened - and something will awake inside her. Strength is streaming into her from him. And in front of them is the abyss.'
Performances
| 30 May 1899 |
St James's Hall, London (conductor: Alfred Hertz). The concert programme gives the title of the work as 'The Dance goes on'.
Evidence: Delius Orchestral Concert, programme. |
2. 1901 version (Life's Dance)
Date: 1901.
Instrumentation:
Orchestra : picc., 3 fl., 3 ob., cor.ingl., 3 cl., cl.b., 3 fg., cfg., 4 cor., 3 tr., 3 trb., tb., timp., trgl., cym., gr.c., glsp., arp., str.
Sources
Autograph score
[Classification: notated music, manuscript, autograph, score, fair copy, complete]
Title page: None, but the first page of score is headed 'Life's dance'|(a tone poem)|Frederick Delius 1901.
This score has conductor's markings in blue pencil, including names of instruments in German, and various corrections, indications of tempo and expression in Italian and English, and short score workings below the full score, in the hand of the composer.
Performances
| 21 January 1904 |
Düsseldorf (conductor: Julius Buths). |
| 24 October 1904 |
Elberfeld (conductor: Hans Haym). |
| 19 January 1908 |
London (conductor: Enrique Arbos). |
3. 1912 version (Life's Dance)
Date: 1912.
Instrumentation:
Orchestra : picc., 3 fl., 3 ob., cor.ingl., 3 cl., 3 fg., cfg., 4 cor., 3 tr., 3 trb., tb., timp., trgl., cym., gr.c., glsp., arp., str.
Sources
Partial autograph score
[Classification: notated music, manuscript, partly autograph, score, fair copy, complete]
Dedicatee: Oskar Fried
Title page: Life's Dance|Lebenstanz|(Der Tanz des Lebens)|Lebenstanz|Frederick Delius|Grez sur Loing|(S & M)|1912
This score is primarily in the hand of a copyist. However, ff 39-42 (the last four folios) are in Delius's hand, and the composer has also added various directions and remarks in English and German. Lowe suggests that Delius annotated the MS during a rehearsal for the 1912 Berlin performance, and then translated his comments into German for the benefit of the conductor (RL, 71).
Published score
[Classification: notated music, print, score, first edition, complete]
Tischer & Jagenberg, Cologne 1912.
Collected Edition
[Classification: notated music, print, score, later edition, complete]
Editor: Eric Fenby
Stainer & Bell, London 1988.
This edition is largely the same as the Tischer & Jagenberg printed edition of the definitive 1912 version of the work, with a small number of corrections and some editing of dynamics by Eric Fenby.
Performances
| 15 November 1912 |
Berlin (conductor: Oskar Fried). |
| 25 February 1914 |
London (conductor: H. Balfour Gardiner). |
Documents
Letters:
| 14 September 1898 |
from Helge Rode to Fritz Delius (LC I, pp. 130-2)
|
| 5 January 1899 |
To Jelka Rosen (LC I, pp. 143-4)
|
| 4 January 1900 |
To Ida Gerhardi (LC I, p. 166)
|
Last changed 2020-10-26T14:17:17+00:00
