A man whose music has been lost - until now

Frederick Septimus Kelly was a noted pianist and deeply gifted composer, as well as an Olympic gold medal winning rower.  Born in Sydney in 1881, he ironically is hardly remembered even in his own country, probably because he was educated and lived in the UK, and then was killed at the age of 35 in the final Battle of the Somme. He is  Australia’s most important cultural loss of the Great War. The vast majority of his music has not been played since his death, let alone recorded. A leading figure in London musical society prior to WW1,  he joined the British Royal Naval Division and served at Gallipoli and in France in the famous Latin Club alongside Rupert Brooke, William Denis Browne, the British PM's son Ock Asquith and NZ's Bernard Freyberg. We are about to launch the first portrait recording of Kelly's music on a brand new double CD, on ABC Classics, in Australia, France and the UK.  But at this stage the recording, the wonderful musicians who play and the upcoming CD launches and concerts are unfunded.

I realised Australia needed to hear Kelly's music 

My name is Chris Latham and when one of the few pieces of music by Kelly that anyone knew of,  his Elegy for Rupert Brooke,  first came out in 2008,  I played  the recording to Australia's leading composer, the late Peter Sculthorpe. We used to enjoy a game where we rated works as A, B or C, A being Masterworks, B being Good Pieces and C Also Rans. After he had listened to the Elegy I asked him if it was an A,B or C piece and he replied It was clearly an A piece.

I wish Peter had lived long enough for me to play him the CDs we have created. I know he would have shared my fascination at Kelly’s expressive range and would have admired his sophistication and skill as a composer. I believe that Kelly was an equivalent talent to the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams - if you take both their compositional catalogues at 35 they are almost identical in scale and quality. As well as being a genius composer, Kelly  was also a brilliant pianist (he was Pablo Casal's recital partner) and was a leading figure in London musical society prior to WW1, perform as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony and others.  

He joined up with the Royal Naval Division (Churchill’s private army) at the outbreak of war and served with them at Gallipoli, where he wrote his haunting Elegy to Rupert Brooke, his friend and fellow officer. Later in the campaign he wrote the Gallipoli Sonata for the leading violinist Jelly D’Aranyi, for whom Ravel wrote his Tzigane, Vaughan Williams his violin concerto, and Bartok both his violin sonatas. Finally in France, he wrote music in a bombed out basement trenches by the light of a candle stub before finally being killed in the liberation of Beaumont-Hamel on November 13 1916, one hundred years ago.

We are creating the first portrait double CD of his music in order that he can be known for the first time in his own country and abroad.  

Kelly wrote more music in the trenches while serving in WW1 than any other composer. This is the end of Kelly's last completed work, his Somme Lament, signed 0ctober 28, 1916,  written in the destroyed hamlet of Mesnil near Thiepval, just a fortnight before his death.

Many years of detective work, 39 premiere recordings

I have  invested eight years of research and detective work in this project, tracking down Kelly's original manuscripts in Florence, Frankfurt, Scotland and England as well as Australia. 

The CDs will present 27 premiere recordings and the digital release will present 39 premiere recordings, increasing by six-fold the number of Kelly’s recorded works. The Flowers of War hopes to rewrite Australian musical history to show that in Kelly we lost, and have now recovered, a talent of international significance. We cannot bring back Australia's 60,000 dead but we can bring back Kelly's music. 

Kelly The Olympic rower. 

This double CD of Kelly’s music will make him known for the first time in his own country and abroad. It is time for Australia to claim its forgotten son.

The Musicians

Musicians: Louise Page | soprano

Christina Wilson | mezzosoprano

Andrew Goodwin | tenor

Tamara-Anna Cislowska | piano

Alan Hicks | piano

Christopher Latham | artistic director & violin

The support of all the musicians who have helped me in this project has been incredible. Those below have recorded Race Against Time and are principal artists in The Flowers of War.

 Louise  Page                                

Christina Wilson  Tamara-Anna Cislowska      

Alan Hicks

Andrew Goodwin

The Flowers of War is a not for profit organisation and supported by a number of volunteers, for whom a special thankyou. This CD recording is a Flowers of War project - a pacifist project to measure and demonstrate the cultural cost of war, in order that we do not do it again. 

More details on the Flowers of War 

The Flowers of War Project

The funds will be used to pay for the musicians who have recorded the FS Kelly portrait CD, for the sound engineer's fees and for the concert launches of the discs this October and November in Australia, France and England. Any additional funds will allow for us to create a followup CD of Kelly's two piano music and his chamber music and a disc of his orchestral music. 

Chris Latham's research and the other concerts in the Flowers of War series, both in Australia  and in France are currently funded through a fellowship awarded to Chris Latham through the Anzac Centenary Fund and the Mission Centenaire as well as from a grant from the Franco-German Cultural fund and the Catalyst fund. Additional support has come from the Australian War Memorial, The National Gallery of Australia, the Embassies of France and Germany, the High Commission of Great Britain, the Alliance Francaise, The Goethe Institut, and in France the Australian Embassy, the Musée de l’Armée, Historial de la Grande Guerre, the Orchestre de Picardie and Somme Tourism.

Not everyone wants to hear about World War One, and some people don't realise there is anything new to say about our losses there. There is a natural resistance to the idea that there could be a composer from that period of great cultural value who is not already known. The basic assumptions of most people are that (a) if Kelly was any good we would have heard about him already (b) given he died young he could not have written things of enduring value and (c) that music from that period is not of real interest today. There will be a small window around the centenary of Kelly's death to attract media and public attention so as to be able to tell his story as widely as possible. Timeliness is crucial and therefore the work needs to be done at this time. Australia's small population did not have composers to spare and the death of Kelly meant we lost someone who would have been a major figure in our cultural life, had he chosen to return to Australia, or one of our greatest cultural exports, had he chosen to remain in England. The CDs will be titled a Race Against Time reflecting the race that Kelly faced in his short life to record on paper as many of his compositions as possible, and in many ways we also face a similar challenge.