John Delany

[semloh]

I wonder if anyone knows the Mass in A flat by the Australian composer/conductor John Delany (sic)?  I heard the Gloria on ABC radio the other morning and, although I am not a great fan of vocal music, found it immediately engaging, full of charm and melody.

Here's the beginning of his biography at http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/delany-john-albert-3389

John Albert Delany (1852-1907), musician, was born on 6 July 1852 at Ratcliff, London, son of John Daniel Delany, journalist, and his wife Marie, née Walters. He went with his parents to New South Wales in infancy and had his first musical tuition at Newcastle where his father established a newspaper. Educated in Sydney by the Benedictine monks at Lyndhurst College, he began to study music with William John Cordner, organist of St Mary's Cathedral, and joined the orchestra of the Victoria Theatre as a violinist. .....
[coincidentally we were discussing one of the Cordner family recently here]

The Mass in A flat is recorded on Walsingham, with his Ave Maria as a top-up.

[mikehopf]

Ah! The Delany Mass! It was the first CD that I bought upon arriving on these blessed Antipodean shores. His Captain Cook Overture has also been recorded.

If you are interested in Missae Australiense, I can offer you a Mass by Alfred Hill together with one of my rarer CDs: Mass in D by G.O. Rutter (fl.1851-1866). He is such a little known composer that they cannot even conclusively name him George !

The music is a little derivative  -  well, quite a lot, actually- of Gounod & Mendelssohn with a bit of Beethoven thrown in for good measure. Worth a listen though....

[semloh]

Ah, Mike, thanks for responding. It seems Delany has never reached the Mother Country!

Oh, yes, certainly derivative - but so enjoyable. When I turned on the radio, toward the end of the Mass, I thought for a moment that it was Puccini's Messa di Gloria!

By the way, I wonder what you think of Don John of Austria - our first home-grown opera. I found it astonishing when I first heard it.

[mikehopf]

Ah! Isaac Nathan! Over the past thirty years, I've built up quite a collection of recordings; broadcasts; books and articles about this enigmatic composer whose life story is even more fantastic than that of Vincent Wallace.

Don't spread this around as it may somewhat sully Australia's world wide reputation for producing great romantic composers... but, the first Australian opera was not the regally entitled " Don John of Austria " ; it was the more prosaic and even risible " Merry Freaks in Troublous Times " also by Nathan.

Nathan's Hebrew Melodies ( Byron's texts) are well worth a listen.

[eschiss1]

Nathan's music on IMSLP seems interesting (including a book and a piano reduction of the overture of Don John of Austria...)