After Delius was blinded and crippled by tertiary syphilis in the early '20s, his composing career seemed effectively to have ended. But the arrival of Eric Fenby, a young English man who had fallen in love with Delius' music, re-vitalized Delius, and, with Fenby's help and cooperation, Delius returned to composition. Arguably the best work of Delius' final creative period was A Song of Summer. Based on A Poem of Life and Love that Delius had written in 1918 but never performed or published, the vast and spacious opening of A Song of Summer was dictated by Delius to Fenby, who then interwove themes from the earlier work into the fabric of Delius' invention. The result is Delius purified and refined with themes of heart-quickening beauty and harmonies of opulent voluptuousness scored with supreme sensuousness. Of course, being composed by Delius, A Song of Summer has no rhythm and very little form: the harmonies move at their own ecstatically indolent speed and the form is essentially erotic, featuring a pair of orgasmic climaxes preceded by rising passion and followed by languor.

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