Concert Band - Level 5 - Digital Download
SKU: A0.1430031
Composed by Frederick Septimus Kelly. Arranged by John Ivor Holland. 20th Century,Classical,Multicultural,Romantic Period,World. 67 pages. John Ivor Holland #1010645. Published by John Ivor Holland (A0.1430031).
Born in Sydney in 1881, the seventh child of a wealthy family, Kelly was educated at Sydney Grammar School before being sent to England where he attended Eton College and Oxford University. At Eton his musical talents were nurtured under the tutelage of Dr Charles Harford Lloyd. He also developed a passion for rowing, eventually winning a gold medal for England in the 1908 London Olympics. After graduating from Oxford, Kelly began five years of musical study in piano and composition at the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt, Germany. He made his professional debut as a pianist in Sydney in 1911. His London debut followed in 1912. His career was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War.
Elegy for String Orchestra In Memoriam Rupert Brooke was written during his war service in the final year of his life. It is an accomplished and moving work in the English pastoral style of the time, its lush modal string-writing sounding not unlike his famous English near-contemporary Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). In the Australian context it stands out as a mature and beautiful musical statement by an Australian composer in relation to actual personal experiences of the tragedy of the First World War. As such it's unique in the Australian classical canon, and also part of that wider generational tragedy of what might have been if such an accomplished composer had lived on to create music into his old age. Arranged from the original string orchestra for symphonic wind ensemble and harp.
