A NEW ‘AMERICAN SYMPHONY’

English opera on a Swiss subject, Scandinavian songs and French Naturalism bear witness to Delius's European cosmopolitanism. Yet, even while he was preoccupied with A Village Romeo and Juliet, his propensity for revision had compelled him to revisit his old American Rhapsody. ‘I am at my American Rhapsody again’, he told Jelka from his Berlin apartment in March 1901. One suspects also that Koanga (some of which he had heard in London, and was also under revision) was still very much in his system as were the revived memories of Florida from his visit in 1897. Appalachia, ‘Variationen über ein altes Sklavenlied mit Schlusschor für grosses Orchestra’ (‘Variations on an old slave song with final chorus for large orchestra’), was, according to Heseltine, completed in 1902. Chop, on the other hand, dates it from 1903. By this time we know from correspondence with Haym that he was asking for the score which was in fact in the possession of Buths in Düsseldorf. In a long, detailed letter to Delius, Buths was evidently coming to terms with the new work, having already performed Paris in February 1903 and with plans to do Lebenstanz in 1904:

Buths was delighted with Appalachia and admired Delius's intuitive flair. Nevertheless, sensing his friend's reliance on artistic intuition, he reminded him of the cerebral imperative: ‘Instinct guides us, leads us, carries us away, inspires us, intellect must convince us’.