Two Songs to be sung of a summer night on the water
composition by Frederick Delius
Two Songs to be sung of a summer night on the water, Op. 91, were composed by Frederick Delius in 1917. He set the wordless works for choir a cappella. The songs were published in 1920 and first performed in 1921.
History
Delius composed the songs at Grez-sur-Loing in 1917. He set them for six-part choir, SATTBB, without words, but vocalises on the syllable "uh". The first song is marked "slow but not dragging", the other which features a solo tenor is marked "gaily, but not quick". A reviewer noted that especially the first song is an example of his "chromatic harmonic language". The wordless pieces have been described as among the composer's "most transcendently ecstatic moments ... as if no words could adequately convey the peculiar fullness of the moment".
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2239147. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1920 and 1921.
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This entry incorporates text from “Two Songs to be sung of a summer night on the water” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.