by Delius
(sung in German)
Rosina Raisbeck (soprano) Monica Sinclair (contralto)
Charles Craiig (tenor)
Bruce Boyce (baritone)
London Philharmonic Choir
(Chorus-Master, Frederic Jackson )
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
CONDUCTOR:
SIR THOMASBEECHAM, BT. on gramophone records
A Mass of Life, the largest in scale of Delius's works, is a mighty song of praise to life, love, and joy, based on passages from Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathuslra. Beginning with a fervent invocation to the Will, it passes through moods of hilarity, joyous ecstasy, melancholy, foreboding, and nostalgia: the final movement, the core of the whole work, begins ' Come let us wander in night's darkness ' and ends with an exultant setting of the words ' Every joy craves endless day, eternal, endless day.' The Mass was completed in 1905 and first .performed four yeart later under Sir Thomas . Beecham D.C.