Delius continued to be an inveterate traveller – sometimes with Jelka accompanying him – happily now more often than not attending rehearsals for, and performances of, his music. In the January and February of 1906 he was in Berlin helping Oscar Fried with Appalachia; in May it was Essen for the premiere of Sea Drift; and in the high summer he was in Norway for the tenth time, spending over two months at Aasgaardstrand, where he did a lot of walking. From September until the end of the year, however, he was at home, revising the Piano Concerto and making a start on Songs of Sunset.

Delius had had seventeen songs published in London and Paris between 1890 and 1896, but otherwise all his attempts to interest publishers in his music failed completely. Between 1896 and 1905 nothing else was published, despite his having to his credit forty-five completed works (or movements of suites, etc., and including two operas), another twenty-five or so songs, and a few piano pieces. All performances were therefore given from copyists’ manuscripts, or possibly, early on, from the original autograph full scores and orchestral parts in Delius’s own hand. The use of copyists’ parts of a number of Delius’s works continued not only up to the end of his life, but even after it – for example Paris was not published until 1909; Cynara was written in 1907, first performed in 1929, but not printed and published until 1931; while, even more remarkably, the Drei symphonische Dichtungen of 1889–90, premiered in 1946, only appeared in print in 1951.

Finding a sympathetic publisher simply proved extremely difficult – although certainly not for the lack of trying on Delius’s part. He approached the Danish firm of William Hansen and, in Germany, Aibl Verlag, Forberg, Kahnt, Kistner, Lauterbach & Kuhn and Siegel – all to no effect. However, in 1906, he did eventually establish a relationship with Harmonie, who agreed to publish Appalachia and Sea Drift (see above, Chapter 4). In 1906 and 1907 Harmonie went on to publish Five Songs, A Village Romeo and Juliet, A Mass of Life and the Piano Concerto.