On 30 October 2021, Alex Wilson gave a piano recital at Southwark Cathedral celebrating the life and work of the Australian pianist and composer Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881-1916), whose highly promising career was tragically cut short when he was killed at the Battle of the Somme. The carefully constructed programme consisted of a selection from Kelly’s Twelve Studies, Op.9 (1907-13) and 24 Monographs, Op.11 (1914-16), interspersed with movements from a new work by the Australian-born, Dorset-based composer Sadie Harrison, written in tribute to Kelly.
Alex Wilson’s selection of Kelly’s piano music presented a rounded musical personality, from bravura, barnstorming showpieces to intimate confessional miniatures. Inspired by Chopin and Skryabin, the Studies were patently the product of a composer with a dazzling keyboard technique, and they made a bold impression in Wilson’s fluent and agile accounts. By contrast, the pithy, impromptu-like Monographs were more varied in tone and character and revealed the private composer to a greater extent. Of the Studies, the substantial 12th was the most imposing and freely expressive, while the Monographs ranged widely from the brief, but stately, chordal 19th to the more expansive and anguished 22nd.
Each movement of Sadie Harrison’s ‘To dear Cleg’: 10 portraits of Frederick Septimus Kelly is prefaced in the score by a quote, either from Kelly’s diary or from a letter written by a friend or fellow soldier, and Alex Wilson helpfully read out the quotes to the audience before playing the music. The score charts chronologically events in Kelly’s life, covering love, loss, and war, but also marks his rowing prowess and includes a charming episode featuring a clockwork wooden boat. With an exceptionally delicate sensibility, Sadie Harrison alluded to Kelly’s own material, echoing gestures from the piano pieces featured in the concert, but also weaving in ideas from his works for other forces, such as his songs, ‘Gallipoli’ Violin Sonata and perhaps his most renowned piece, the orchestral Elegy, In Memoriam Rupert Brooke, a moving tribute to a friend lost during World War One. ‘To dear Cleg’ (the title alludes to Kelly’s nickname) also referenced music by composers at the heart of Kelly’s repertoire, such as Beethoven and Schumann, together with traditional tunes associated with Kelly’s life, such as The Bridge of Athlone (Athlone being his father's birthplace), Waltzing Matilda and the bagpipe lament, The Battle of the Somme. The result was a gloriously rich and often poignant homage, which provided invaluable autobiographical context to the Kelly pieces. It was also an audacious, yet fiercely valid example of Sadie Harrison’s striking ability to use eclecticism and inclusivity in her own writing to create an authentic and convincing piece of substance and integrity.
Kelly’s directly expressive, often headily romantic writing and Sadie Harrison’s sympathetic and perceptive reflections on his life and works complemented each other superbly well. Alex Wilson made a compelling case for regarding Kelly as one of Australia’s most natural composers of keyboard music, constantly finding the composer’s individual touches and turns of phrase within the crowd-pleasing, virtuosic passagework. Commissioned by Wilson, ‘To dear Cleg’ also benefitted from his responsive approach, and it is a tribute to the breadth and empathy of his craft, as much as the thoughtfulness of Sadie Harrison’s musical salute, that two very distinctive soundworlds, separated by a century, never sounded incongruous when heard in succession.
This concert provided a warm and worthy tribute to Kelly’s memory. It also signalled the generosity of spirit that lies behind Sadie Harrison’s inclusive and insightful creativity.
Paul Conway - Musical Opinion April-June 2022
Alex Wilson’s selection of Kelly’s piano music presented a rounded musical personality, from bravura, barnstorming showpieces to intimate confessional miniatures. Inspired by Chopin and Skryabin, the Studies were patently the product of a composer with a dazzling keyboard technique, and they made a bold impression in Wilson’s fluent and agile accounts. By contrast, the pithy, impromptu-like Monographs were more varied in tone and character and revealed the private composer to a greater extent. Of the Studies, the substantial 12th was the most imposing and freely expressive, while the Monographs ranged widely from the brief, but stately, chordal 19th to the more expansive and anguished 22nd.
Each movement of Sadie Harrison’s ‘To dear Cleg’: 10 portraits of Frederick Septimus Kelly is prefaced in the score by a quote, either from Kelly’s diary or from a letter written by a friend or fellow soldier, and Alex Wilson helpfully read out the quotes to the audience before playing the music. The score charts chronologically events in Kelly’s life, covering love, loss, and war, but also marks his rowing prowess and includes a charming episode featuring a clockwork wooden boat. With an exceptionally delicate sensibility, Sadie Harrison alluded to Kelly’s own material, echoing gestures from the piano pieces featured in the concert, but also weaving in ideas from his works for other forces, such as his songs, ‘Gallipoli’ Violin Sonata and perhaps his most renowned piece, the orchestral Elegy, In Memoriam Rupert Brooke, a moving tribute to a friend lost during World War One. ‘To dear Cleg’ (the title alludes to Kelly’s nickname) also referenced music by composers at the heart of Kelly’s repertoire, such as Beethoven and Schumann, together with traditional tunes associated with Kelly’s life, such as The Bridge of Athlone (Athlone being his father's birthplace), Waltzing Matilda and the bagpipe lament, The Battle of the Somme. The result was a gloriously rich and often poignant homage, which provided invaluable autobiographical context to the Kelly pieces. It was also an audacious, yet fiercely valid example of Sadie Harrison’s striking ability to use eclecticism and inclusivity in her own writing to create an authentic and convincing piece of substance and integrity.
Kelly’s directly expressive, often headily romantic writing and Sadie Harrison’s sympathetic and perceptive reflections on his life and works complemented each other superbly well. Alex Wilson made a compelling case for regarding Kelly as one of Australia’s most natural composers of keyboard music, constantly finding the composer’s individual touches and turns of phrase within the crowd-pleasing, virtuosic passagework. Commissioned by Wilson, ‘To dear Cleg’ also benefitted from his responsive approach, and it is a tribute to the breadth and empathy of his craft, as much as the thoughtfulness of Sadie Harrison’s musical salute, that two very distinctive soundworlds, separated by a century, never sounded incongruous when heard in succession.
This concert provided a warm and worthy tribute to Kelly’s memory. It also signalled the generosity of spirit that lies behind Sadie Harrison’s inclusive and insightful creativity.
Paul Conway - Musical Opinion April-June 2022
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