Prom 41: Delius-'A Mass of Life', BBCSO&SC/LPC,J.Davis/Huckle/Philip/R.Williams/Elder

[bluestateprommer]

Monday 18 August 2025
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Delius: A Mass of Life

Jennifer Davis, soprano (Proms debut artist)
Claudia Huckle, contralto
David Butt Philip, tenor
Roderick Williams, baritone

BBC Symphony Chorus
London Philharmonic Choir

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sir Mark Elder, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ej5fbp

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2025/elder-conducts-a-mass-of-life

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002h0qh

[french frank]

in the interval, writer and musicologist Daniel Grimley discusses with Martin Handley the genesis of Delius's musical response to Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra .

[smittims]

I'm hoping this will be the most memorable Prom for me this year. I can't remember the last live performance of this work I heard (as opposed to listening to a recording).

I wonder if Delius would object to its being called a 'secular cantata'. Maybe he asked for it by including the word 'Mass' in his title, but it's an inadequate description.

Hearing Sir Charles Groves conduct it in Liverpool in 1970 was a formative experience for me. Its always been a 'cult' piece since.

[Roger Webb]

I'm hoping this will be the most memorable Prom for me this year. I can't remember the last live performance of this work I heard (as opposed to listening to a recording).

I wonder if Delius would object to its being called a 'secular cantata'. Maybe he asked for it by including the word 'Mass' in his title, but it's an inadequate description.

Hearing Sir Charles Groves conduct it in Liverpool in 1970 was a formative experience for me. Its always been a 'cult' piece since.

Yes, as kean to hear this as you Smittims. I last heard it 'live' at Three Choirs about 10 (perhaps more!) years ago with Richard Hickox conducting....before that at the Proms with Del Mar in'88.

I still love the Groves recording.......do you know Vernon Handley picked this version when he was on Desert Island Discs.

[mopsus]

Yes, as kean to hear this as you Smittims. I last heard it 'live' at Three Choirs about 10 (perhaps more!) years ago with Richard Hickox conducting....before that at the Proms with Del Mar in'88.

I still love the Groves recording.......do you know Vernon Handley picked this version when he was on Desert Island Discs.

It would have been well over 10 years ago as Richard Hickox died in 2008. Sadly missed in the Bath area where he did much for local music, including helping to revive the Bath Festival Chorus.

[Roger Webb]

It would have been well over 10 years ago as Richard Hickox died in 2008. Sadly missed in the Bath area where he did much for local music, including helping to revive the Bath Festival Chorus.

Yes Mopsus it was longer ago than I thought, 25 years ago! it was Sunday 19th August 2001 and Susan Gritton was indisposed so Claire Rutter sang, along with Catherine Wynn-Rogers, Adrian Thomson and Alan Opie.

I remember meeting people after (Roger from Bristol Classical Discs, which I still ran then, and Phil Lancaster, etc at The New Inn).

I remember Hickox starting off at such tempo he was in danger of leaving everyone behind!

[smittims]

I was delighted by Mark Forrest's Freudian slip yesterday, ' A Mass for Life'.

Been doing your shopping at ASDA, Mark?

[gurnemanz]

Tom Service talks to Mark Elder about Mass of Life and other matters. Elder says that he spoke to a choir member, who, amazingly, had who also sung in the first complete Prom performance under Malcolm Sargent in 1966. Includes a nice reminiscence describing Sargent's reaction to the work.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_three. Around 10.15 to 10.30.

[Roger Webb]

Tom Service talks to Mark Elder about Mass of Life and other matters. Elder says that he spoke to a choir member, who, amazingly, had who also sung in the first complete Prom performance under Malcolm Sargent in 1966. Includes a nice reminiscence describing Sargent's reaction to the work.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_three. Around 10.15 to 10.30.

Yes, heard that, and have on Elder's Bergen recording of the 'Mass' (Elder said he wished Delius hadn't used the word!) on now.

Even amongst 'Delians' this work is not well known.

I was at a screening of a Norwegian film about Delius presented by Andrew Boyle at the '85 Delius festival, and after the film had been shown there was a question and answer session where someone piped up that one of the pieces of music used was 'not any piece of Delius that I know'! No one answered with any suggestions as to what it might be, so I put my hand up and volunteered the suggestion that it was a magical section of the 'Dance Song' where maidens dance in a meadow to the exquisite orchestral tapestry Delius weaves, with the gorgeous female sub-chorus that Delius uses. Back then I was half the age of anyone in the room, so they just ignored my suggestion.......

...........I didn't stay in the Delius Society long!.

[LMcD]

I was delighted by Mark Forrest's Freudian slip yesterday, ' A Mass for Life'.

Been doing your shopping at ASDA, Mark?

I would say that ranks as only a veery liddle mistake.

[smittims]

Thanks for that link , gurnemanz. Charles Ried's biography of Sargent mentions more than one occasion when he wept during performances. He was extremely volatile and would lose his temper and later be tearfully apologetic. He's often depicted as the quintessential Englishman, with his carnation buttonhole, but he was really more Mediterranean than English.

I love A Mass of Life so much I'd love to encourage others to listen to it, but these days the only words I could use have been cheapened by overemphaisis. 'It's a work that will make you laugh, make you cry, and will change your life'. Yes, but in this case, it happens to be true. I was glad to hear Mark Elder call it a masterpiece. One thing that occurs to me is that, apart from Janacek's Glagolitic Mass, I don't think anyone's written so thoroughly and positively uplifting a piece of music since. We don't seem to go in for that sort of thing these days.

On a lighter note, I sympathise with Roger's experience with the Delius Society. I've steered clear of all clubs and societies all my life. Inevitably there's a tendency for them to become exclusive cliques . An example is the sad story of LTC Rolt's involvement with a canal preservation soociety. Despite being a passionate enthusiast for canal revival, willing to devote his time amd resources, he ended up being banned and expelled because of internal politics. I'm sure many such societies include well-meaning people with a genuine love for the aims of the organisation, but it seem little birds in their nests cannot always agree.

[Roger Webb]

On a lighter note, I sympathise with Roger's experience with the Delius Society. I've steered clear of all clubs and societies all my life. Inevitably there's a tendency for them to become exclusive cliques . An example is the sad story of LTC Rolt's involvement with a canal preservation soociety. Despite being a passionate enthusiast for canal revival, willing to devote his time amd resources, he ended up being banned and expelled because of internal politics. I'm sure many such societies include well-meaning people with a genuine love for the aims of the organisation, but it seem little birds in their nests cannot always agree.

By a strange coincidence I have nearly as many Rolt books as I have about Delius, as I was a very early volunteer in the Inland Waterways Association - my father was an early member, and every weekend we would go away to live under canvas and restore canals....my parents' most memorable achievement was the Upper Avon Navigation, and they are commemorated on a plaque at the Colin P Witter Lock just west of Stratford upon Avon.

My father lived on his narrowboat at Stratford for years, a neighbour of David and Sheila Suchet, for whom they baby-sitted. I lived on my narrowboat on the Sharpness Canal near Peter Scott's Wildlife and Wetlands Trust.....which, incidentally, Tom MacKinney's breakfast show comes from on Monday. There is a connection between Tom Rolt and Peter Scott, as Scott too was an IWA early member and met his wife at IWA meetings, she being the author Elizabeth Jane Howard, who at the time was married to Robert Aikman, Rolt's co-founder and ultimately enemy!

Recommended reading is Rolt's first book 'Narrowboat', an elegiac reminder of a world now nearly vanished....despite/because of the number of boats on the canal system!

[Maclintick]

I still love the Groves recording.......do you know Vernon Handley picked this version when he was on Desert Island Discs.

Don't know the work at all, but just streaming it now in the Warners re-mastering in advance of my trip to the RAH on Mon. Wow -- incandescent ! Tried the Bergen recording but found it a bit lacking in oompff compared with Sir Charles, particularly in the choral contributions.

[Roger Webb]

Don't know the work at all, but just streaming it now in the Warners re-mastering in advance of my trip to the RAH on Mon. Wow -- incandescent ! Tried the Bergen recording but found it a bit lacking in oompff compared with Sir Charles, particularly in the choral contributions.

I wish I was going too Macl.....I went to the one conducted by Del Mar in '88, and it's terrific in that hall....I hope you enjoy it, its great charm for me is in the quieter moments in Part 2 the Dance Song (No 3) and 'In the Meadows' (No 4) this for me is the essence of Delius!....the orchestra is just sublime in its delicacy!

I played the Bergen one today too, and, as I said above, the Groves is the one for me although the Hickox on Chandos is fine too, and the Beecham (mono CBS) required listening.....oh, and I also have a real oddity, a live one from '71 on the Intaglio label recorded in London by Del Mar with John Shirley Quirk...and the big surprise, Kiri in the soprano part!

[Maclintick]

I wish I was going too Macl.....I went to the one conducted by Del Mar in '88, and it's terrific in that hall....I hope you enjoy it, its great charm for me is in the quieter moments in Part 2 the Dance Song (No 3) and 'In the Meadows' (No 4) this for me is the essence of Delius!....the orchestra is just sublime in its delicacy!

We shan't see the likes of the great Norman Del Mar again, I fear. Apart from his inspirational conducting, his scholarly volumes on Richard Strauss will be appreciated long after we're gone. Footnote -- he was loved and admired in the orchestral scene, but if a player was to ask of his colleagues "Who's conducting us next week ?" the affectionate soubriquet " The Mass of Life" would be instantly recognisable.