In Memoriam, Rupert Brooke - F.S. Kelly

[IanA]

 

Poignant and well played.

 

Ian

[michaeldr]

Wonderful, Ian; very many thanks indeed for posting that

 

Frederick Septimus (known as 'Cleg') Kelly :

slightly wounded 4th June in right heel, to hospital Alexandria 9^th June 1915 & returned to Gallipoli 11 July 1915

It is probable that this period was when he wrote Elegy for String Orchestra

Killed in Action at the Ancre, 13^th November 1916

 

After the burial of Brooke, then Asquith, Freyburg, Lister, Browne and Kelly stayed behind to gather lumps of pink and white marble, which they heaped into a cairn over the grave.

Kelly wrote “...the scent of wild sage gave a strong classic tone.." and "When the last of the five of us his friends had covered his grave with stones and took a last look in silence – then the scene of the tragedy gave place to a sense of passionless beauty engendered both by the poet and the place.”

 

 

 

[details from Len Sellers' book 'The Hood Battalion' and Christopher Page's 'Command in the Royal Naval Division - a Military Biography of Brigadier General A. M. Asquith DSO**']

Edited 27 April , 2017 by michaeldr

[michaeldr]

he quoted Callimachus in the foreword to his Elegy for Rupert Brooke:

 

“Still your works live on, and Death,
the universal snatcher,
cannot lay his hand on them.”

 

 

[from http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/features/f-s-kelly-unsung-australian-hero]

[b3rn]

http://contextjournal.music.unimelb.edu.au/context/files/2016/07/40_Radic-1ke0ito.pdf

 

A good piece on this piece.

[michaeldr]

My post No.2 above was edited more than once

the reason being the conflicting accounts in various publications regarding Kelly's wounding(s) and the time which he spent in Alexandria (during which he wrote the Elegy to Brooke)

 

His records are available on line from the NA and they are worth the price of a couple of drinks.

Kelly was wounded on 4^th June 1915 “Slight wnd. shrapnel wound right heel” and evacuated from Gallipoli to 15 Gen Hospt Alexandria

He was discharged to duty on 29^th June 1915 with the additional note “Slight wnd head”

NB: I think that here 'head' is a miss-typing of heel (and that he was wounded only once, not twice)

Kelly was discharged from the hospital 30^th June

and sailed to rejoin his unit 9^th July 1915 on HMT Nile

While all this was going on, he was promoted from Temp. Sub Lieutenant RNVR to Temp Lieutenant RNVR (7.6.15)

 

Kelly was promoted Temp Lieutenant Commander RNVR 30^th May 1916

His DSC 'for services with the R N Divn in Gallipoli Peninsula' was gazetted 6^th September 1916

Kelly was also Mentioned in Despatches by General Hamilton (gazetted 1^st November 1916)

 

 

 

A couple of coincidences or pieces of serendipity if you wish

 

Kelly's record entry in adm/337/117 appears on the top half of the page

while on the bottom half of the page is that for 'Sub Lieutenant Tempy Rupert Brooke'

 

Returning to Kelly's record, his next of kin is given as his sister Mrs M A Kelly.

After marrying his sister retained the same family name, as she wed a naval officer also called Kelly,

and he had served at the Dardanelles as the captain of HMS Dublin [John Donald Kelly, later Admiral of the Fleet]

[David_Underdown]

On ‎27‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 19:30, michaeldr said:

Kelly's record entry in adm/337/117 appears on the top half of the page

while on the bottom half of the page is that for 'Sub Lieutenant Tempy Rupert Brooke'

If you look here http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C10779207/cnext/C10779207/D7715683 you'll see it runs Kelly and Brooke on p 187, then p188 Browne.  Probably not coincidental at all, Brooke is supposed to have refused a commission until Browne's was also arranged, and given his connections through the Georgian Group to Edward Marsh to Churchill had the clout to make it happen.

[michaeldr]

24 minutes ago, David_Underdown said:

Brooke is supposed to have refused a commission until Browne's was also arranged

 

Thanks for that snippet, David. 

I had not heard that before.

 

regards

Michael

[David_Underdown]

My citation in the Wikipedia article on WDB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Denis_Browne is not entirely clear at that point, but I'd have got it originally from one of the ODNB article, Grove or the MusicWeb Internation article

[michaeldr]

On 4/27/2017 at 10:06, michaeldr said:

Wonderful, Ian; very many thanks indeed for posting that

To my taste, this is a better work than his Gallipoli Violin Sonata - http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/topic/163664-gallipoli-violin-sonata/

which I have recorded and listened too a few times now, but cannot get enthusiastic about

 

On 4/27/2017 at 10:06, michaeldr said:

slightly wounded 4th June in right heel, to hospital Alexandria 9^th June 1915 & returned to Gallipoli 11 July 1915

It is probable that this period was when he wrote Elegy for String Orchestra

Killed in Action at the Ancre, 13^th November 1916

I must correct the above, as yesterday Cooksey & McKechnie's edited version of the diaries, 'Kelly's War', arrived here and on dipping-in I find that in fact he was adding to the elergy right up until the moment that he was killed.

page 292: "After dinner I wrote a harp part for my 'Elegy in Memoriam Rupert Brooke' and made a copy of it. I had not a score and had to write the number of bars rests from memory. Y day has been postponed"

that was part of his entry for Friday, 27 October 1916

 

edit/p.s: What happened to that harp part?

Edited 11 August , 2017 by michaeldr

[michaeldr]

22 hours ago, michaeldr said:

 What happened to that harp part?

 

Hastening on, reading the 'Afterword' before the rest of the book

the part for the harp was saved

The Elegy had its first performance on 28 March 1916 at a Memorial Concert for Rupert Brooke held at Rugby School and at that date it was of course, in the form as heard here

The first performance with Kelly's late addition for harp was at the Wigmore Hall, London, on 2 May 1919, at a memorial concert for Kelly himself. The conductor on both occasions was Frank Bridge.

Edited 12 August , 2017 by michaeldr

[michaeldr]

from Music Composed during the Gallipoli Campaign in F.S. Kelly’s Newly Discovered Wartime Diaries  by Thérèse Radic

http://contextjournal.music.unimelb.edu.au/context/files/2016/07/40_Radic-1ke0ito.pdf

 

"Kelly’s Elegy in Memoriam Rupert Brooke  has its genesis in the poet’s untimely death and the composer’s part in his burial on the island of Skyros on 23 April 1915 as the friends—both naval officers—were preparing for the Hood Battalion’s landing at Gallipoli. On 21 May, with the nine-minute work for string orchestra and harp still forming in his mind, Kelly wrote in his diary: ‘The modal character of the music seems to be suggested by the Greek surroundings as well as Rupert’s character, some passage work by the rustling of the olive tree which bends over his grave.’ 

Wounded at Gallipoli—he was shot in the heel—Kelly completed notating the Elegy on 27 June while he was recuperating in Alexandria. ‘It is,’ he wrote two days later, ‘so entirely bound up with Rupert Brooke and the circumstances of his burial that in a sense I feel myself the chronicler of its ideas rather than the composer … The work is a true portrayal of my feelings on that night—the passionless simplicity of the surroundings with occasionally a note of personal anguish.’ 

On leave in London, Kelly played the Elegy as a piano short score on 7 March 1916 at 10 Downing St. He later played it for the Gallipoli commander, General Sir Ian Hamilton, and again for his friend the pianist Leonard Borwick who suggested the addition of a harp part. Kelly demurred, but on 2 October at Mesnil, less than a month before his death at Beaucourt sur-l’Ancre in the last phase of the battle of the Somme, he wrote the part and posted it back to Borwick. It was later incorporated in the 1926 edition of the work."

Edited 12 August , 2017 by michaeldr

[NigelS]

A short article from Saturday's (23rd Feb '1) Daily Telegraph: Pianist determined to keep alive music of war hero killed at Battle of the Somme  details the efforts of Alex Wilson to get the piano music of FS Kelly recorded. (Crowd funding website)

 

NigelS

[michaeldr]

1 hour ago, NigelS said:

A short article from Saturday's (23rd Feb '1) Daily Telegraph: Pianist determined to keep alive music of war hero killed at Battle of the Somme  details the efforts of Alex Wilson to get the piano music of FS Kelly recorded. (Crowd funding website)

 

Many thanks for those links Nigel

Michael

[Hoping for a CD in October]

[Marilyne]

Just listened to the "Elegy".

Marvelous!!

 

A great piece.

I'll put on the Galipolli sonata later, when it's quieter.

 

M.

 

[michaeldr]

On 26/02/2019 at 09:33, NigelS said:

A short article from Saturday's (23rd Feb '1) Daily Telegraph: Pianist determined to keep alive music of war hero killed at Battle of the Somme  details the efforts of Alex Wilson to get the piano music of FS Kelly recorded. (Crowd funding website)

 

A brief taster of Alex Wilson playing a piece of Kelly's piano music