A man whose music had been lost - until now

Frederick Septimus Kelly was a noted pianist and deeply gifted composer, as well as an Olympic gold medal winning rower. Ironically he is hardly remembered even in his own country, partly because he was educated in the UK and spent considerable time overseas. Kelly is Australia’s most important cultural loss of the Great War. Much of his music – some 36 pieces – have never been played publicly, let alone recorded.

Kelly was a brilliant pianist (he was Pablo Casal's pianist) and was a leading figure in London musical society prior to WW1, returning to Sydney to perform with the Sydney Symphony in 1911. He joined 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 and Bartok both his violin sonatas. Finally in France, he wrote music in the trenches by the light of a candle stub, and while on leave, before finally being killed in the liberation of Beaumont-Hamel on 13 November 1916, more than one hundred years ago.