Jelka Rosen
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Helena Sophie Emilie "Jelka" Delius (née Rosen) (1868, Belgrade–1935, Kensington, London) was a painter, and wife of composer Frederick Delius.
The granddaughter of the composer and pianist Ignaz Moscheles, Jelka Rosen studied and practised art in Paris, exhibiting in the Salon des Indépendants. She met Delius in 1896 through a shared interest in Nietzsche. In 1897 he moved into her Grez-sur-Loing house, owned by her and her mother, and they married in 1903. She was heiress to a modest fortune from her distinguished Schleswig-Holstein family [1] and her wealth gave Delius financial security.
She remained devoted to Delius despite his affairs with other women. In the last twelve years of Delius' life, after he became blind and paralysed with syphilis, she gave up her work to be his carer. Towards the end, she herself became ill with bowel cancer, sending for Eric Fenby to manage the household during her convalescence from an operation, although she returned from a nursing home to be at Delius' side when he died. Delius had wished to buried in England, but as she was too ill to travel, he was temporarily buried at Grez.
A year later, having failed to recover fully, she contracted pneumonia during a Channel crossing to attend his reinterment. Hospitalised in Dover, she was taken by ambulance to London, where she died.
She was buried with him in the churchyard of the Church of Saint Peter, Limpsfield, Surrey. Her estate funded a trust, managed by Sir Thomas Beecham, to promote the works of Delius.
[edit] References
- ^ Frederick Delius, Thomas Beecham, Hutchinson, 1959
- Mrs. Delius, Obituaries, The Times, Wednesday, May 29, 1935;
- Diana McVeagh, "Delius, Frederick Theodor Albert (1862–1934)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 subscription required, accessed 14 June 2007
