 F.S. Kelly (John Singer Sargent, 1915) | ||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881-05-29)29 May 1881 Sydney, Australia | |||||||||||
| Died | 13 November 1916(1916-11-13) (aged 35) Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre, France | |||||||||||
| Education | Sydney Grammar School Eton College Balliol College, Oxford Hoch Conservatory, Frankfurt | |||||||||||
| Weight | 77 kg (170 lb) | |||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||
| Sport | Rowing | |||||||||||
| Club | Leander Club, Henley-on-Thames | |||||||||||
Medal record
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Frederick Septimus KellyDSC (29 May 1881 – 13 November 1916) was an Australian and British musician and composer and arower who competed for Britain in the1908 Summer Olympics.[1] He joined theRoyal Naval Volunteer Reserve duringWWI and, after surviving theGallipoli campaign, he was killed in action in theBattle of the Somme.[2]
Kelly, the fourth son and seventh child of Irish-born woolbroker Thomas Hussey Kelly and his wife Mary Anne (née Dick) was born in 1881 at 47Phillip Street, Sydney. Kelly was educated atSydney Grammar School when his family lived inGlenyarrah inDouble Bay. He then went with his family to England and was educated atEton College, where he stroked the school eight to victory in theLadies' Challenge Plate atHenley Royal Regatta in 1899.
Kelly studied music at Eton underCharles Harford Lloyd and was awarded a Lewis Nettleship musical scholarship atOxford in 1899. AtBalliol College, Oxford (BA, 1903; MA, 1912), he was mentored byDonald Tovey.[3] He was a protégé ofErnest Walker.
Kelly took upsculling while at Oxford and won theDiamond Challenge Sculls at Henley in 1902, beatingRaymond Etherington-Smith in the final.[4]
He rowed in the four seat forOxford againstCambridge in the 1903Boat Race. Oxford lost the race by six lengths. Kelly went on to win the Diamond sculls at Henley again that summer, beatingJulius Beresford in the final. He also won theWingfield Sculls, the Amateur Championship of the Thames, beating the holderArthur Cloutte. This was the only occasion on which he entered.[5]
On leaving Oxford in 1903, he started rowing atLeander Club and was in the Leander crews, which won theGrand Challenge Cup at Henley in 1903, 1904, and 1905 and theStewards' Challenge Cup in 1906. In 1905, he won the Diamond Sculls again, beatingHarry Blackstaffe. In 1908 he competed at theLondon Olympic Games for the Leander crew in theeights. The crew won the gold medal for Great Britain.[6]
Contemporary reports of Kelly's oarsmanship were glowing: 'his natural sense of poise and rhythm made his boat a live thing under him'; 'Many think [Kelly] the greatest amateur stylist of all time'.[7]
In 1907, Kelly became worried about problems with his hands and arms that were impeding his performance, especially as a musician. He also developed a facial tic. He sought hypnotherapeutic treatment for this condition fromJ. Milne Bramwell, the specialist medical hypnotist in London. He attended Bramwell's rooms for treatment over an extended time.[8]
After leaving Oxford with fourth-class honours in history, Kelly studied composition withIwan Knorr and piano with Ernst Engesser at theHoch Conservatory in Frankfurt.[3] At this time, he met and became a close friend ofLeonard Borwick, probably England's finest pianist at the time.[3]
He performed withPablo Casals. He helped organise a concert in London byMaurice Ravel, on 17 December 1913 at theBechstein Hall.[8] At the concert, Kelly played four solo piano pieces byAlexander Scriabin and performed thePhantasy piano quintet byJames Friskin, with theEnglish String Quartet.[9]
Following the outbreak of war in 1914, Kelly was commissioned into theRoyal Naval Volunteer Reserve for service with theRoyal Naval Division with his friends—the poetRupert Brooke, the critic and composerWilliam Denis Browne, and others of what became known as the Latin Club.
At Gallipoli, he wrote his scores in his tent at base camp, including his tribute to Brooke,Elegy for String Orchestra: "In Memoriam Rupert Brooke" (1915), conceived in the wake of Brooke's death. Kelly was among the party who buried him on Skyros.
The following is a description of Kelly's close connection to Brooke, taken fromRace Against Time: the Diaries of F.S. Kelly:
On 22 April 1915, Kelly became aware that Rupert Brooke was dangerously ill. The following day Brooke died and was buried on Skyros by his close circle, the officers known as the Latin Club – the critic and composer, W. Denis Browne; Arthur (Ock) Asquith (later Brigadier-General Arthur Asquith); the scholar and son of Lord Ribblesdale, Charles Lister; Patrick H. Shaw-Stewart, scholar and, at the age of 25, a director of Barings Bank; Bernard Freyberg (later General Lord Freyberg VC and Governor-General of New Zealand); and 'Cleg' Kelly. Kelly's measured description of both the death and burial of the poet have been extensively quoted in the Brooke literature. It was W. Denis Browne and Kelly who sorted Brooke's belongings as their ship left Skyros for the Gallipoli peninsula, and it was Kelly, methodical as ever, who copied the contents of the poet's notebook against its loss in transit to his family. After the Hood Battalion left England, the friendship between Kelly and Brooke had deepened. There are frequent references to their being together on group outings on leave, nights spent together at the dinner table, of W. Denis Browne and Kelly entertaining their fellow officers with Brooke to the fore, and, towards the end, accounts of Brooke coming alone to Kelly's cabin to read his poems and to discuss literature. Brooke's death was a personal loss. Kelly is said to have begun composing his Elegy dedicated to Brooke as the poet lay dying nearby.[10]
Kelly returned to active service after Gallipoli and died atBeaucourt-sur-l'Ancre, France, when rushing a German machine gun post in the last days of theBattle of the Somme in November 1916. He was 35. Kelly is the only one of the dozen composers killed at the Somme to have a marked grave. His men retrieved his body and carried it back through No Man's Land. He was buried inMartinsart's British Cemetery not far from where he fell at the age of 35.[11]
Kelly's final piece was theSomme Lament, completed in October 1916, just two weeks before he died during the Somme campaign. It was completed in piano score. Christopher Latham orchestrated the work for a 2020 recording.[12] At the memorial concert held at theWigmore Hall, London on 2 May 1919, some of his piano compositions were played by Leonard Borwick, and some of his songs were sung byMuriel Foster. The centrepiece of the concert was theElegy for String Orchestra, written at Gallipoli in memory of Rupert Brooke, a work of profound feeling.Frank Bridge was the conductor – he had conducted its first performance atRugby School on 28 March 1916.[13]
On 6th March 1918, Fellow Australian composerErnest Truman played a tribute in memorial to Frederick Septimus Kelly written by his former tutorCharles Harford Lloyd.[14]
Kelly's "Serenade for Flute" with accompaniment of Harp, Horn, and String Orchestra (Op. 7), written in 1911, received its first recording 100 years after he composed it, by the Canadian flautist Rebecca Hall for Cameo Classics. José Garcia Gutierrez was the horn soloist with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by its Musical Director, Michael Laus.[15]
His piano works include the 12 Studies, Op. 9 (1907–13) and 24 Monographs, Op. 11 (1911–16) in all the major and minor keys, as well as a set of etudes, modelled onChopin andScriabin. The Preludes and Monographs have been recorded by Alex Wilson.[3][16] There are two recordings of the Violin SonataGallipoli from 1915.[17] In 2023 Toccata issued first performance recordings of three chamber music works: the first Violin Sonata in D minor (1901), the Piano Trio (1905), and the Serenade for flute and piano, Op.7 (1911).[18]
Unmarried, he had lived at his home, Bisham Grange, nearMarlow, Buckinghamshire, with his sister Mary (Maisie). There is a memorial to him in the village ofBisham.[7] His elder brother,William Henry "Willie" Kelly, was a politician who held the seat ofWentworth in theAustralian House of Representatives from 1903 to 1919.
Kelly's papers are held in theNational Library of Australia.
