• Frederick Delius’s A Mass of Life (1905), or Eine Messe des Lebens, opens with a choral explosion, only fitting for what turns out to be a battle of the will as expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche in Also sprach Zarathustra. The Bradford-born Delius used passages from the German philosopher he so admired – and who had great influence at the time of the work’s composition – for his humanist cantata for four soloists, double choir and orchestra, premiered at London’s Queen’s Hall in 1909. Many consider this overwhelming work the masterpiece of a composer still, nearly a century after his death, awaiting critical redemption. It doesn’t hold back, which makes others squirm.
