English composer Frederick Delius (1862-1934) is best-known and admired for a multitude of masterfully orchestrated tone poems depicting the peaceful, quiet, bucolic essence and character of nature. Works like In a Summer Garden, Brigg Fair, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring for example, have been performed and recorded many times and sought-after by music enthusiasts. But there is also an extroverted, text driven, operatic, philosophical aspect of Delius that is often overlooked.

The cantata A Mass of Life (1905), based on the German text of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is a powerful, lavishly orchestrated and scored work for multiple forces including a large orchestra, four soloists and three choirs. Some of its segments rival the ecstatic, out-of-body sense of elation within the Symphony No. 8 (Symphony of a Thousand) by Gustav Mahler, composed just over a year later.

Wagnerian in scope, and with colorful Richard Strauss orchestration and Gustav Mahler vocal gymnastics, it brings together many of man's artistic endeavours. The brunt of the music is embodied by the baritone voice, which portrays the prophet of Nietzsche's book. In this recording, baritone Roderick Williams well captures and projects the heroic character of the text. He is supported by a stellar cast which includes soprano Gemma Summerfield, contralto Claudia Huckle, and tenor Bror Magnus Tødenes. All of this bolstered and underpinned by the Bergen Philharmonic Choir, the Collegium Musicum Choir and the Edvard Grieg Kor. These combined Norwegian and British musicians deliver a convincing account of this elaborate and complex, yet highly expressive work. As the booklet notes point out: "A Mass of Life also owes its existence to Norway. It was in this country that the composer first read Friedrich Nietzsche's 'Also sprach Zarathustra'. Nietzsche became a sort of surrogate spiritual father to Delius, providing a positive philosophical alternative to the Christianity of which the composer so abjectly disapproved."

This is a watershed work from the early years of the 20th century which has gone mostly unnoticed and neglected. It seems that only two or three recordings of it are on the market, including one by conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, who actually led the work's premiere performance back in 1909. This new recording certainly demonstrates that the power of collaborative efforts can bring into focus the uplifting nature of music.