Septimus Kelly: ‘Australia’s Chopin’
Septimus Kelly (F S 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 piano music has not been played publicly.
The Somme Lament, the last music that Kelly wrote, signed 0ctober 28, 1916.
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 his dugout by the light of a candle stub before dying in the last Battle of the Somme on 13 November 1916, 110 years ago.