Editing Frederick Delius (section)

===Early years===
[[File:Bradford_GS.jpg|thumb|upright|Delius's school (he attended the previous building) [[Bradford Grammar School]]]]
Delius was born in [[Bradford]] in [[Yorkshire]]. He was baptised as Fritz Theodor Albert Delius,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jones |first=Philip |title=The Delius Birthplace |journal=The Musical Times |pages=990–992 |volume=120 |date=December 1979 |jstor=963502 |doi=10.2307/963502}} {{subscription}}</ref> and used the forename Fritz until he was about 40.<ref name=dnb/> He was the second of four sons – there were also ten daughters – born to Julius Delius (1822–1901) and his wife Elise Pauline, ''née'' Krönig (1838–1929).<ref name=dnbarchive>{{cite web |last=Hadley |first=Patrick |title=Delius, Frederick |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/32775 |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography archive |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1949 |access-date=21 January 2011}} {{subscription}}</ref> Delius's parents were born in [[Bielefeld]], [[Westphalia]],{{refn|Now part of the [[Ostwestfalen-Lippe]] region of Germany.|group=n}} and Julius's family had already lived for several generations in German lands near the Rhine but was originally Dutch.{{refn|According to Sir Thomas Beecham, the Dutch Delius family had changed its patronymic from Delij or Deligh to a latinized form of the name some time in the sixteenth century, a common practice at the time.<ref name=mingledchime>Beecham (1944), p. 72</ref>|group=n}} Julius's father, Ernst Friedrich Delius, had served under [[Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher|Blücher]] in the [[Napoleonic Wars]].<ref name=mgobit>{{cite news |title=Frederick Delius |newspaper=[[The Manchester Guardian]] |date=11 June 1934 |page=6}}</ref> Julius moved to England to further his career as a wool merchant, and became a naturalised British subject in 1850. He married Elise in 1856.<ref name=dnb>{{cite web |last=McVeagh |first=Diana |author-link=Diana McVeagh |title=Delius, Frederick Theodor Albert (1862–1934) |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32775 |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |access-date=21 January 2011}} {{subscription}}</ref>

The Delius household was musical; famous musicians such as [[Joseph Joachim]] and [[Carlo Alfredo Piatti]] were guests, and played for the family.<ref name=dnb/> Despite his German parentage, the young Fritz was drawn to the music of [[Chopin]] and [[Grieg]] rather than the Austro-German music of [[Mozart]] and [[Beethoven]], a preference that endured all his life.<ref name=dnbarchive/> The young Delius was first taught the violin by Rudolph Bauerkeller of the [[Hallé Orchestra]], and had more advanced studies under [[George Haddock (musician)|George Haddock]] of [[Leeds]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The life and times of Frederick Delius |url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/9500404.The_life_and_times_of_Frederick_Delius/ |work=Bradford Telegraph and Argus |date=30 January 2012 |access-date=9 January 2013}}</ref>

Although Delius achieved enough skill as a violinist to set up as a violin teacher in later years, his chief musical joy was to improvise at the piano, and it was a piano piece, a waltz by Chopin, that gave him his first ecstatic encounter with music.<ref name=mgobit/>{{refn|The Chopin piece was the posthumously published [[Waltz in E minor (Chopin)|Waltz in E minor]].<ref name=dnb/>|group=n}} From 1874 to 1878 he was educated at [[Bradford Grammar School]], where the singer [[John Coates (tenor)|John Coates]] was his slightly older contemporary;<ref>Beecham (1975), p. 18</ref> Delius then attended the [[London International College|International College]] at [[Isleworth]] (just west of London) between 1878 and 1880. As a pupil he was neither especially quick nor diligent,<ref name=mgobit/> but the college was conveniently close to the city for Delius to be able to attend concerts and opera.<ref name=grove>{{cite web |last1=Anderson |first1=Robert |last2=Payne |first2=Anthony |title=Delius, Frederick |url=http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/49095 |work=Grove Music Online |publisher=Oxford Music Online |access-date=20 October 2010}} {{subscription}}</ref>

Julius Delius assumed that his son would play a part in the family wool business, and for the next three years he tried hard to persuade him to do so. Delius's first job was as the firm's representative in [[Stroud]] in [[Gloucestershire]], where he did moderately well. After being sent in a similar capacity to [[Chemnitz]], he neglected his duties in favour of trips to the major musical centres of Germany, and musical studies with [[Hans Sitt]].<ref name=grove/> His father sent him to Sweden, where he again put his artistic interests ahead of commerce, coming under the influence of the Norwegian dramatists [[Henrik Ibsen]] and [[Gunnar Heiberg]]. Ibsen's denunciations of social conventions further alienated Delius from his commercial background.<ref name=dnb/> Delius was then sent to represent the firm in France, but he frequently absented himself from business for excursions to the [[French Riviera]].<ref name=grove/> After this, Julius Delius recognised that there was no prospect that his son would succeed in the family business, but he remained opposed to music as a profession, and instead sent him to America to manage an orange plantation.<ref name=grove/>