Overwhelmed, as often in the past 40 years or so, by Delius’s Sea Drift (Beecham, Bruce Boyce, 1954). This is a piece, and a performance, that have so often left me deeply moved. Beecham knew instinctively the need to keep music such as Delius’s moving. Left me feeling quite moist of eye.
Preceded Sea Drift with more Beecham: Grieg’s incidental music to Peer Gynt (sparked by a telephone query from my daughter Tabitha). The period 1880 to 1910 was so rich in music! Grieg and much of Delius; and also Strauss, Brahms, Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner, Debussy, Elgar, Chausson … This may even be my favourite musical period (despite all my Bach listening over Christmas).
Resisted the temptation to follow the Grieg and Delius with Chausson’s Poèmes de l’Amour et de la Mer, or with Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Elgar’s cello concerto. But they will surely follow …