List of compositions by Frederick Delius


The musical compositions of Frederick Delius cover numerous genres, in a style that developed from the early influences of composers such as Edvard Grieg and Richard Wagner into a voice that was uniquely Delius's. He began serious composition at a relatively advanced age, and his music was largely unknown and unperformed until the early 20th century. It was a further ten years before his work was generally accepted in concert halls, and then more often in Europe than in his home country, England. Ill-health caused him to give up composition in the early 1920s and he was silent for several years, before the services of a devoted amanuensis, Eric Fenby, enabled Delius to resume composing in 1928. The Delius-Fenby combination led to several notable late works.

Chronological list of principal works

The "principal" works are those identified as such by Eric Fenby. A division of Delius's work into phases such as "apprentice" and "middle period" has been suggested by many commentators, notably Anthony Payne in "Delius's Stylistic Development".

Apprentice works, 1887–1899

"Middle period" works, 1900–06

Mature works, 1907–24

Late works

  • 1929–30: A Song of Summer
  • 1930: Sonata for violin and piano No. 3
  • 1930: ''Songs of Farewell''

List of works by genre

A definitive catalogue of the works of Delius was produced by Robert Threlfall in 1977, and a supplement to it in 1986. It is abbreviated as RT. The Threlfall sectioning is a categorization where works are assigned nominal numbers according to a roman-numeric genre numbering scheme. For example, A Village Romeo and Juliet is, according to Threlfall's counting, the sixth piece of dramatic work Delius composed. Thus, the piece is in Section I, number 6, so is designated RT I/6.