We read in Sydney Grew's marvellous book "Our Favourite Musicians" that "Delius had a good deal of attention directed upon him because of the uproar created in Norway by his music to the political play 'Folkeraadet' [The Parliament], a revolver being fired at him by a member of the audience for his satirical use of the National Anthem." This would have been in Oslo in 1897 we presume; of course Norway did not become an independent nation until 1905 - before that date it was a kind of Scandinavian Scotland - and Oslo was not really Oslo then but rather Christiania.

We would like to find out more about this event with which we have hitherto been unfamiliar but the only relevant internet links are run by people shamelessly attempting to sell their information for money.

Perhaps this thread should be renamed "Little-known facts about composers," so that others may be added. Nor does there appear now to be a separate Delius thread although we seem to remember having at one time somewhere seen one . . .

It might interest Mr Grew to learn that Folkeraadet complete with the Delius music was once broadcast complete on Radio3.

(Since the on-line catalogue is at present 'experiencing difficulties', I am unable to cite the actual date, but I'm guessing either the late seventies or possibly early eighties: a copy of the broadcast exists in the Dough Archives, though in that rather large portion still in storage. I'm able to estimate the transmission date because I can see the inlay of the cassette used in my mind's eye - a reddish-orange Agfa C120, and it was around that time that I had an account with that particular distributor. There's scant chance that there'd be a repeat of it under the present management, of course, even were it still to exist in the archives.)