Sea Drift (Delius)

Sea Drift is among the larger-scale musical works by the composer Frederick Delius. Completed in 1903-1904 and first performed in 1906, it is a setting for baritone, chorus and orchestra of words by Walt Whitman.

The poem adaptation

Sea Drift takes its name from a section of Walt Whitman's poetical compilation Leaves of Grass, Sea-Drift, which contains several poems about the sea or the shore. The text is drawn from the poem Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, though it does not use the full text. In the poem, the speaker describes how, as a boy, he watched a pair of seagulls nesting, until one day the she-bird flew away and never returned. In a long section usually printed in italics, the he-bird, unable to leave in case his mate should return and find him gone, waits forever and calls his sorrowful song to the moon, the stars and the sea, which are heavy and drooping with his lost love.

The text employed by Delius closes with the gull's apostrophe, 'translated' by the boy, who seems to understand it, or projects it from his own awakening feelings. The poem however continues to explain how the boy's feelings suddenly burst out tumultuously, and he ran weeping down to the sea in the moonlight as the gull's call unlocked the questions in his own heart. Knowing that he will never escape the unknown want aroused in him, 'the sweet hell within', he begs for some word more of understanding. The unhurrying sea

'Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,
And again death, death, death, death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,
But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
Death, death, death, death, death.'

The setting

Throughout the work, which lasts about 25 minutes, the motion of the waves is suggested by the orchestra. The chorus opens (the beginning of the poem, 'Out of the cradle...' is omitted) at 'Once Paumanok, when the lilac-scent was in the air...', two sections weaving the words to suggest the two birds. Then the baritone is the narrator, and tells ('And every day...') how the boy went and watched, and the chorus responds with the gulls singing together ('Shine! shine! shine!'). The baritone interrupts ('Till of a sudden...') to tell how the she-bird disappeared, and the he-bird was left. The chorus gives the gull's cry, and the baritone responds with the lyrical passage describing how the boy listened to the song, 'Yes my brother, I know: The rest might not, but I have treasured every note...'

The remainder the of the setting is from the text of the bird's song (somewhat edited), (beginning 'Soothe! soothe! soothe!') overlapping as the baritone sings 'Following you, my brother...': from this point on the baritone takes important sections of the gull's song ('You must know who I am, my love!'), with the chorus singing other parts of the text at the same time, interweaving, reinforcing, echoing and punctuating the singer's narrative. Love becomes the power which drives the effects of nature ('O madly the sea pushes upon the land,/With love, with love'). The choral phrases 'O rising stars! Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you' pivots between two passages where despair alternates with the delusional hope for a glimpse or an echo of the beloved. This culminates in the fortissimo 'O in vain!', repeated by the chorus as the climax, and then the long coda, mainly sung by the baritone ('O I am very sick and sorrowful'), lamenting the loss of their life together ('We two together no more), and the words 'no more' echoed like the murmuring sea and wind by the choir, bring the work to a close.

By this blending of the narrator with the choir in the words of the gull's song, Delius has achieved the union of the boy's spirit with what he witnesses, in the way that is explained in the later part of Whitman's poem, and Delius does not have to tell us about the 'low and delicious word death.'

Performance and recording

Sea Drift was completed by Delius between 1903 and 1904, not long before his A Mass of Life. It was dedicated to the conductor Max von Schillings, and (at a time when Delius found it very difficult to obtain performances of his works in Britain) the first performance was given in 1906 at the Essen Tonkünstler Verein (Composers' Society) in Germany, with Joseph Loritz as soloist and Georg Witte conducting. The first performance in England was given by the baritone Frederic Austin, conducted by Henry J. Wood, in autumn 1908 at the Sheffield Festival. It was repeated, with the same soloist and with the New Symphony Orchestra and the North Staffordshire Choral Society, under Sir Thomas Beecham, at Hanley, Staffordshire on 3 December 1908 and at Manchester on 4 December.

The first recording was made by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1928, for His Master's Voice, with the baritone Dennis Noble, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Manchester Beecham Opera Chorus. However the acoustics of the recording were inadequate and it remained unissued, though it has since been released on CD., The second recording, and the first to be issued, was sung by Roy Henderson for Decca in a pioneering effort in 1929, though the sound quality was compromised because the set was restricted to six sides of 78rpm, and there was a squeeze for groove-space. The choice fell on Henderson owing to his distinction in the Delius Festival under Sir Thomas Beecham in 1929. This was rapidly withdrawn (before 1936) owing to a dispute over the contract of the conductor, Anthony Bernard. The third recording was with John Brownlee and the London Philharmonic Orchestra and London Select Choir, under Sir Thomas Beecham, in 1936, for the Delius Society (HMV), later reissued on vinyl for World Record Club (Retrospect Series). Beecham made two later versions, first with the baritone Gordon Clinton, the BBC Chorus and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, in January 1951 (again unissued), and finally the well-known version with Bruce Boyce (and the same orchestra and choir) in 1954 (CBS 61224).

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