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In 1914 Ketèlbey wrote the orchestral work '' In a Monastery Garden'', which was published in the following year both as a piano piece and in full orchestral form. It was his first major success, his most famous piece, and became known all over the world; by 1920 over a million copies of the sheet music had been sold. There are two competing stories detailing the inspiration behind the piece: although Ketèlbey later said that he wrote the work for an old friend, he also stated that he composed it after visiting a monastery. The musicologist Peter Dempsey considers that "this piece ... remains to this day a world-renowned staple of the light-music repertoire, while McCanna opines that from the first bar, listeners "... might sooner expect such a device in the impassioned world of a ustavMahler symphony than in a genteel English salon piece". The success of ''The Phantom Melody'' and ''In a Monastery Garden'' led to Ketèlbey's engagement by 
In 1921 Ketèlbey moved from his home in
The obituarist for ''The Musical Times'' wrote that "Ketèlbey's especial fame ... consisted in his phenomenal success as a composer of light music. His remarkable gift for alluring tunes, rich in homely sentiment, was reflected in the immense popularity of ispieces". McCanna opines that Ketèlbey's popularity
Website dedicated to Ketèlbey
BBC news clip
Downloadable and streaming recordings of ''In a Monastery Garden''
performed by the Peerless Orchestra and male chorus. From an Edison Phonograph recorded in 1921. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ketelbey, Albert 1875 births 1959 deaths 19th-century British composers 19th-century classical composers 19th-century classical pianists 19th-century English musicians 19th-century conductors (music) 20th-century classical composers 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century British conductors (music) 20th-century English composers 20th-century British male musicians Alumni of Birmingham Conservatoire Alumni of Trinity College of Music British male conductors (music) English classical composers English classical pianists English conductors (music) English male classical composers Golders Green Crematorium Light music composers Male classical pianists People from Birmingham, West Midlands
Albert William Ketèlbey (; born Ketelbey; 9 August 1875 – 26 November 1959) was an English composer, conductor and pianist, best known for his short pieces of light orchestral music. He was born in
. In 1949 he moved to the Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
and moved to London in 1889 to study at Trinity College of Music. After a brilliant studentship he did not pursue the classical career predicted for him, becoming musical director of the Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each ...
before gaining fame as a composer of light music and as a conductor of his own works.
For many years Ketèlbey worked for a series of music publishers, including Chappell & Co
Chappell & Co. was an English company that published music and manufactured pianos. Founded by pianist Samuel Chappell, the company was one of the leading music publishers and piano manufacturers in Britain until 1980 when Chappell sold its reta ...
and the Columbia Graphophone Company
Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.
Founded in 1917 as an offshoot of the American Columbia Phonograph Company, it became an independent British-owned company in 1922 in a managemen ...
, making arrangements for smaller orchestras, a period in which he learned to write fluent and popular music. He also found great success writing music for silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...
s until the advent of talking films in the late 1920s.
The composer's early works in conventional classical style were well received, but it was for his light orchestral pieces that he became best known. One of his earliest works in the genre, '' In a Monastery Garden'' (1915), sold over a million copies and brought him to widespread notice; his later musical depictions of exotic scenes caught the public imagination and established his fortune. Such works as ''In a Persian Market
''In a Persian Market'' is a piece of light classical music for orchestra with optional chorus by Albert Ketèlbey who composed it in 1920. Subtitled ''Intermezzo Scene'', it was published by Bosworth in 1921. It evokes exotic images of camel-dr ...
'' (1920), '' In a Chinese Temple Garden'' (1923), and '' In the Mystic Land of Egypt'' (1931) became best-sellers in print and on records; by the late 1920s he was Britain's first millionaire composer. His celebrations of British scenes were equally popular: examples include ''Cockney Suite'' (1924) with its scenes of London life, and his ceremonial music for royal events. His works were frequently recorded during his heyday, and a substantial part of his output has been put on CD in more recent years.
Ketèlbey's popularity began to wane during the Second World War and his originality also declined; many of his post-war works were re-workings of older pieces and he increasingly found his music ignored by the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...
, where he spent his retirement, and he died at home in obscurity. His work has been reappraised since his death; in a 2003 poll by the BBC radio programme ''Your Hundred Best Tunes
''Your Hundred Best Tunes'' was a BBC radio music programme, always broadcast on Sunday evenings, which presented popular works which were mostly classical excerpts, choral works, opera and ballads. The hundred tunes which made up the playlist w ...
'', '' Bells Across the Meadows'' was voted the 36th most popular tune of all time. On the last night of the 2009 Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...
season the orchestra performed his ''In a Monastery Garden'', marking the fiftieth anniversary of Ketèlbey's death—the first time his music had been included in the festival's finale.
Biography
Early life and education, 1875–95
Albert William Ketèlbey was born on 9 August 1875 at 41 Alma Street in the Aston area ofBirmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
, England. He was the second of five children of George Henry, a jewellery engraver, and his wife Sarah Ann, Aston. The grave accent was Albert's invention: the family name was spelled without it at the time of his birth and there had been several variants of the name in the previous generations. All the children were taught a musical instrument and Ketèlbey's brother, Harold, was later a violinist of note. Albert showed a natural talent for the piano and singing, and he subsequently became head chorister at St Silas' Church in nearby Lozells.
At the age of eleven Ketèlbey joined the Birmingham and Midland Institute
The Birmingham and Midland Institute (popularly known as the Midland Institute) (), is an institution concerned with the promotion of education and learning in Birmingham, England. It is now based on Margaret Street in Birmingham city centre. It ...
school of music (now the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is a music school, drama school and concert venue in Birmingham, England. It provides professional education in music, acting, and related disciplines up to postgraduate level. It is a centre for scholarly res ...
) where he was tutored by Dr Alfred Gaul in composition and Dr H. W. Wareing in harmony. At the age of thirteen Ketèlbey composed his first serious piece of music, "Sonata for Pianoforte", which, for Tom McCanna, his biographer, "shows a precocious mastery of composition". Ketèlbey competed for a scholarship to Trinity College of Music in London, and received the highest marks of all entrants; the future composer Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...
came second. Ketèlbey entered the college in 1889, studying under G. E. Bambridge (piano), Dr G. Saunders (harmony) and Frederick Corder (composition).
In 1892 Ketèlbey again won the annual scholarship competition and was appointed as the organist at St John's Church, Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon () is a district and town of Southwest London, England, southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes ...
. He held the post for the next five years, during which time he wrote several anthems and hymns, the latter of which included "Every Good Gift", "Behold! Upon the Mountains" and "Be Strong! All ye People". It was around this time he added the accent to his surname, with the aim of moving the stress onto the second syllable, rather than the first. In that year he appeared in a series of concerts in London and provincial cities. In March 1892 at the capital's Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect Thomas Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. Fro ...
he played Frédéric Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor; the reviewer for ''The Illustrated London News
''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication i ...
'' thought the "brilliant" Ketèlbey played "most beautifully". He won several prizes at the college before being awarded his certificate in 1895. During this period, ''The British Musician'' reports, some critics found likenesses between Ketèlbey's music and that of Edward German
Sir Edward German (17 February 1862 – 11 November 1936) was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of En ...
.
Towards the end of his time at the college Ketèlbey wrote lighter, mostly mandolin-based, compositions. As he still aspired to be a serious composer, he adapted the pseudonym Raoul Clifford in an effort to distance himself from the genre. On leaving the college he became one of its examiners in harmony. He wrote piano pieces as part of his role, and used the pseudonym Anton Vodorinski for the work; he subsequently used the name for more serious works, which he published with French titles.
Early career, 1896–1914
In 1896 Ketèlbey took up the post of conductor for a travellinglight opera
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a ne ...
company; his father, who wanted his son to be a composer of serious music, disapproved of what he saw as a lightweight role. After a two-year tour Ketèlbey was appointed as musical director of the Opera Comique
The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, between Wych Street, Holywell Street and the Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway. ...
Theatre—at age 22, the youngest theatrical conductor in London at the time. He moved into a house in Bruton Street
Bruton Street is a street in London's Mayfair district.
It runs from Berkeley Square in the south-west to New Bond Street in the north-east, where it continues as Conduit Street.
Notable residents have included Field Marshal John Campbell, 2n ...
, in London's Mayfair, where he wrote the song "Blow! Blow! Thou Winter Wind", to words from Shakespeare's '' As You Like It''. The Opera Comique staged a successful revival of the musical '' Alice in Wonderland'' between December 1898 and March 1899, and according to his biographer John Sant, it is possible that Ketèlbey wrote some of the music. This was followed by the comic opera ''A Good Time'' from April, for which Ketèlbey wrote the music and songs. Following poor reviews, the short run of the piece ended in May and the Opera Comique closed because of the losses brought about by the production. There, Ketèlbey began a relationship with the actress and singer Charlotte "Lottie" Siegenberg. The couple married in 1906 but the relationship was childless.
Ketèlbey wrote music in the style of the Gilbert and Sullivan works for a comic opera ''The Wonder Worker'', which was staged at the Grand Theatre, Fulham in 1900. The reviewer for the ''London Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'' thought Ketèlbey's score was "attractive though conventional ... No originality is shown in conception or treatment, but the conception is appropriate, and the treatment effective." The same year Ketèlbey began undertaking transcription work at the music publisher A. Hammond & Co, making arrangements of music for smaller orchestras. In 1904 he also began to work for a second music publisher, Chappell & Co
Chappell & Co. was an English company that published music and manufactured pianos. Founded by pianist Samuel Chappell, the company was one of the leading music publishers and piano manufacturers in Britain until 1980 when Chappell sold its reta ...
, a third in 1907, the Columbia Graphophone Company
Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.
Founded in 1917 as an offshoot of the American Columbia Phonograph Company, it became an independent British-owned company in 1922 in a managemen ...
, and a fourth in 1910, when he worked for Elkin & Co. McCanna considers that "this hack-work may have been tedious, but the experience was invaluable in moulding the composer's fluent writing for both piano and orchestra". Throughout the time working for the companies he continued to compose and publish his own work, comprising organ music, songs, duets, piano pieces and anthems. He worked for Columbia for over twenty years and rose to the position of Musical Director and Adviser, working with leading musicians across a range of musical styles; Columbia released more than 600 recordings with Ketèlbey conducting.
In 1912 the composer and cellist Auguste van Biene offered a prize for a new work to complement his popular piece ''The Broken Melody''. Ketèlbey was the winner of the competition with a new composition, ''The Phantom Melody'', which became his first major success. In the following year he won two prizes totalling £200 in a competition held by '' The Evening News'': second place with a song for female voices, and first place with his entry for male voices. The latter song, "My Heart Still Clings to You", is described by Sant as "a typical tragical-love ballad of this time, and its almost Victorian sentimentality comes through in its words". In the early to mid-1910s Ketèlbey began to write music for silent films
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, whe ...
—a new growth industry in Britain from 1910 onwards—and he had great success in the medium until the advent of talking films in the late 1920s.
Rising reputation and success, 1914–46
In 1914 Ketèlbey wrote the orchestral work '' In a Monastery Garden'', which was published in the following year both as a piano piece and in full orchestral form. It was his first major success, his most famous piece, and became known all over the world; by 1920 over a million copies of the sheet music had been sold. There are two competing stories detailing the inspiration behind the piece: although Ketèlbey later said that he wrote the work for an old friend, he also stated that he composed it after visiting a monastery. The musicologist Peter Dempsey considers that "this piece ... remains to this day a world-renowned staple of the light-music repertoire, while McCanna opines that from the first bar, listeners "... might sooner expect such a device in the impassioned world of a ustavMahler symphony than in a genteel English salon piece". The success of ''The Phantom Melody'' and ''In a Monastery Garden'' led to Ketèlbey's engagement by André Charlot
André Eugène Maurice Charlot (26 July 1882 – 20 May 1956) was a French impresario known primarily for the successful musical revues he staged in London between 1912 and 1937. He also worked as a character actor in numerous films.
Early li ...
as the musical director for the 1916 revue ''Samples!'' at the Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each ...
. The appointment led to similar positions at other London theatres, including the Adelphi, Garrick Garrick may refer to:
* Garrick (name), for the name's origin and people with either the surname or given name, the most famous being:
** David Garrick (1717–1779), English actor
* Garrick Club, a London gentlemen's club named in honour of David ...
, Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset, being built about above sea level on a ...
and Drury Lane theatres.
Because of the rise in Ketèlbey's popularity, and in sales of his sheet music, in 1918 he became a member of the Performing Rights Society
PRS for Music Limited (formerly The MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited) is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertakes ...
. Except for a brief interval in 1926 when he resigned over a dispute about the allocation of funds to its members, he remained a lifelong member. In 1919 he composed the romantic work ''In the Moonlight'', which his publisher considered to be "a work of striking beauty". In the following year he wrote ''Wedgwood Blue''—a gavotte
The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. A ...
—and ''In a Persian Market''; the latter became one of his more popular works. The musicologist Jonathan Bellman
Jonathan Bellman (born 1957) is a musicologist and pianist currently employed at the University of Northern Colorado. He is noted for his research on exoticism and music.
Bellman is the author of ''The ‘Style hongrois’ in the Music of Western ...
, calling ''In a Persian Market'' "immortal", describes it as "an 'intermezzo scene' for band or small orchestra; reprehensibly demeaning or delightfully tacky". The work was not without its critics; the composer and conductor Nicolas Slonimsky quotes the view of a Russian journal that "the suite ... had its 'immaculate conception' in imperialistic colonial England. The composer's intention is to convince the listener that all's well in the colonies where beautiful women and exotic fruits mature together, where beggars and rulers are friends, where there are no imperialists, no restive proletarians." In ''The Musical Times'', the pseudonymous reviewer "Ariel" described the work as "naive and inexpensive pseudo-orientalism", which led to heated correspondence in the journal over the following months between the composer and the critic. ; and
In 1921 Ketèlbey moved from his home in St John's Wood
St John's Wood is a district in the City of Westminster, London, lying 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Charing Cross. Traditionally the northern part of the ancient parish and Metropolitan Borough of Marylebone, it extends east to west from ...
, where he had been living for the previous seven years, to Frognal
Frognal is a small area of Hampstead, North West London in the London Borough of Camden. Frognal is reinforced as the name of a minor road, which goes uphill from Finchley Road and at its upper end is in the west of Hampstead village.
History ...
, an area of Hampstead, north west London. He installed a billiards
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as .
There are three major subdivisions ...
table in the basement, which became his favoured form of relaxation. He produced a series of orchestral pieces in the first half of the 1920s, including '' Bells Across the Meadows'' released in 1921, and ''Suite Romantique'' (1922), which the music critic Tim McDonald considers "impressive". In the following year Ketèlbey wrote '' In a Chinese Temple Garden'', followed in 1924 by ''Sanctuary of the Heart'' and ''Cockney Suite''. The last of these contained the finale "'Appy 'Ampstead", which the writers Lewis and Susan Foreman describe as "... a kaleidoscope of passing images, mouth organs, a cornet playing, ... a band, ... shouts of a showman ... with his rattle and a steam engine and roundabout".
In 1923 the composer Frederic Austin wrote the opera ''Polly'', closely based on the 1729 work of the same name by John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch; recordings of Austin's work were published by Columbia's main rival, the Gramophone Company
The Gramophone Company Limited (The Gramophone Co. Ltd.), based in the United Kingdom and founded by Emil Berliner, was one of the early recording companies, the parent organisation for the '' His Master's Voice (HMV)'' label, and the Europe ...
. At Columbia's request Ketèlbey produced his own version of Gay's original. Austin considered that it copied elements of his, and sued for copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
. Acting as a court expert witness
An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...
, the composer Sir Frederick Bridge thought that the case "... is an awful bore. ... These two good men are good musicians, and they have no business to be fighting over the game. It is not worth the trouble. ... It is rubbish. I am sick of ''Polly''." After three weeks the case ended with the judge finding against Columbia.
Such was Ketèlbey's popularity that by 1924 his works could be heard several times a day in restaurants and cinemas, and in that year the Lyons tea shops spent £150,000 on playing his music in their outlets. He continued to build on his success in 1925 with ''In a Lovers' Garden'' and ''In the Camp of the Ancient Britons''—inspired by a trip he took to Worlebury Camp, near Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare, also known simply as Weston, is a seaside town in North Somerset, England. It lies by the Bristol Channel south-west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. It includes the suburbs of Mead Vale, Milton, Oldmix ...
. He undertook annual tours of Britain, conducting his music with municipal orchestras, and also worked with the BBC Wireless Orchestra. He was invited to conduct several international orchestras, and spent time in Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland and particularly in the Netherlands, where he built a strong relationship with the Concertgebouw
The Royal Concertgebouw ( nl, Koninklijk Concertgebouw, ) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" translates into English as "concert building". Its superb acoustics place it among the finest concert halls in ...
and Kursaal Grand Symphony orchestras. His music was popular on the continent and his obituarist in ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' later reported that one Viennese critic considered that Ketèlbey's music was behind only that of Johann Strauss
Johann Baptist Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (german: links=no, Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed ove ...
and Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár ( ; hu, Lehár Ferenc ; 30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is ''The Merry Widow'' (''Die lustige Witwe'').
Life a ...
. Continental audiences often called him "The English Strauss".
Ketèlbey was financially successful enough to leave Columbia Records in 1926 to spend more time composing, although he continued to conduct for them on an occasional basis, particularly between 1928 and 1930 when he conducted sixteen of his own works with the company, published as ''Ketèlbey Conducting his Concert Orchestra''. He spent his time undertaking annual conducting tours and composing, and in 1927 he published '' By the Blue Hawaiian Waters'' and the suite ''In a Fairy Realm'', while in the following year he wrote another suite, ''Three Fanciful Etchings''. His works continued to sell well, and in the October 1929 issue of the ''Performing Right Gazette'' his publisher described him as "Britain's greatest living composer"; when the advertisement was mentioned in ''The Musical Times
''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country.
It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainzer ...
'', the anonymous writer wrote "we sympathise with Mr Ketèlbey in being thus raised to a pinnacle which he himself, we are sure, would be very far from claiming." Sant writes that Ketèlbey subsequently became Britain's first millionaire composer. In February 1930 he began what became an annual series of concerts at the Kingsway Hall
The Kingsway Hall in Holborn, London, was the base of the West London Mission (WLM) of the Methodist Church, and eventually became one of the most important recording venues for classical music and film music.
It was built in 1912 and demolished ...
, conducting a new work, '' The Clock and the Dresden Figures''. In a review of the 1933 concert, the critic S.R. Nelson wrote that "as a descriptive writer Ketèlbey really does take some beating. He has the happy knack of combining infinitely melodious themes and the cleverly diluted likeness of the authentic atmosphere."
The introduction of talking films in 1927 with ''The Jazz Singer
''The Jazz Singer'' is a 1927 American musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music score as well as lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolate ...
'' and the subsequent growth of the medium had a serious impact on composers and music publishers involved in the film industry as it heralded a decline in the sales of sheet music. Although Ketèlbey's income from this source declined, the period was also marked by a rise in the popularity of the radio and gramophones and his new compositions were successful with audiences at home. By the early 1930s over 1,500 broadcasts of his work were made on BBC Radio
BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...
in a year, and more than 700 on continental radio stations, including a weekly Sunday programme of his music, sponsored by Decca Records on Radio Luxembourg
Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg).
The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...
. For this programme he wrote the theme music, "Sunday Afternoon Reverie", with the melody based on the musical notes D E C C A.
Ketèlbey wrote an intermezzo
In music, an intermezzo (, , plural form: intermezzi), in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work. In music history, the term ha ...
—''A Birthday Greeting''—in 1932, on the sixth birthday of Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II). His connection to royalty continued in 1934, when his march ''A State Procession'' was played to accompany the arrival of King George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...
at a Royal Command Performance
A Royal Command Performance is any performance by actors or musicians that occurs at the direction or request of a reigning monarch of the United Kingdom.
Although English monarchs have long sponsored their own theatrical companies and commis ...
; the king requested that the march should be played again during the interval, and he and the queen stayed in the royal box to listen to the piece. In the following year Ketèlbey wrote the march ''With Honour Crowned'' for the King's silver jubilee; the work was played for the royal family at Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history.
The original c ...
before Ketèlbey conducted its first public performance at Kingsway Hall. The work was played at that year's Trooping the Colour
Trooping the Colour is a ceremony performed every year in London, United Kingdom, by regiments of the British Army. Similar events are held in other countries of the Commonwealth. Trooping the Colour has been a tradition of British infantry regi ...
and at the Jubilee Thanksgiving Service at St Paul's Cathedral.
Ketèlbey continued to conduct on his annual tours during the Second World War, but these were on a smaller scale because of travel restrictions. He also continued with his annual concerts at Kingsway Hall, and introduced a new march, ''Fighting for Freedom'', which he had written in a supportive response to Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
's "We shall fight on the beaches
"We shall fight on the beaches" is a common title given to a speech delivered by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 4 June 1940. This was the second of three major sp ...
" speech. Apart from composing and conducting, he also acted as a Special Constable during the war.
Post-war; retirement and death, 1946–59
The winter of 1946–47 was harsh, and in February the sub-zero temperatures burst the water main outside Ketèlbey's Hampstead home. With his house partially flooded, he lost most of his correspondence, manuscripts and papers, and he and his wife both contractedpneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
. The couple were taken to the Regent's Park Nursing Home, where Lottie died two days later. He sold his house and moved temporarily to the Hendon Hall Hotel, where he had a nervous breakdown. He spent the remainder of the year staying in hotels in southern England
Southern England, or the South of England, also known as the South, is an area of England consisting of its southernmost part, with cultural, economic and political differences from the Midlands and the North. Officially, the area includes ...
; in Bournemouth he began a relationship with Mabel Maud Pritchett, a hotel manageress, and the couple married in October in the following year.
In 1949 Ketèlbey and his new wife moved to the Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...
, and purchased Rookstone, Egypt Hill, in Cowes, where he partly retired, although he composed occasionally. Tastes in popular music had changed during and after the war and his music declined in popularity; his income in 1940 had been £3,493, which dropped to £2,906 in 1950—a particularly steep drop when wartime inflation is considered. McCanna writes that apart from a commission for the National Brass Band competition in 1945, Ketèlbey produced nothing memorable after the war, and his biographer Keith Anderson considers that in the postwar period Ketèlbey's work "... lacked novelty. Of the handful of works published ... most were reworkings of old material, although the composer attempted to disguise the origins". The BBC also began to ignore his work. In their 1949 Festival of Light Music, none of his compositions were played, which he found distressing. In his letter to the Director-General of the BBC
The director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and (from 1994) editor-in-chief of the BBC.
The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC (for the period of 1927 to 2007) and then t ...
, Sir William Haley, Ketèlbey said the exclusion was "a public insult". His music still found an audience: in 1952 and 1953 ''With Honour Crowned'' was again played as a slow march at the Trooping the Colour ceremony.
Ketèlbey died in his Cowes home of heart and renal failure on 26 November 1959. By the time of his death he had slipped into obscurity. Only a handful of mourners attended his funeral, which was held at Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000 (the equivalent of £135,987 in 2021), ...
in London.
Music
Under his own name and at least six pseudonyms, Ketèlbey composed several hundred works, about 150 of them for the orchestra. In the ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', Phillip Scowcroft writes, "His gifts for melody and sensitive, colourful scoring ensured continuing popularity with light orchestras and bands until after 1945. The most popular of his hundreds of pieces emphasize emotionalism and sometimes exaggerated effects at the expense of structure and harmonic subtlety."Early works and serious music
Ketèlbey's early compositions are classical and orthodox in form, reflecting the training at Trinity College. The first substantial work was a piano sonata (1888); it was followed by aCaprice
Caprice, from the Italian ''capriccio'', may refer to:
Art and entertainment
* ''Caprice'' (1913 film), a film starring Mary Pickford
* ''Caprices'' (film), a 1942 French comedy film
* ''Caprice'' (1967 film), a film starring Richard Harris ...
for piano and orchestra (1892), a Concertstück for piano and orchestra (circa 1893) and a piano concerto in G minor (1895). Ketèlbey's piano writing was notable for its brilliance, and the composer's own performance of the solo part of the Concertstück brought out that quality. As a student, Ketèlbey composed a cadenza for the first movement of Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, judged "clever and effective" in performance in 1890.
For the chamber repertoire, Ketèlbey composed a string quartet (c. 1896) and a quintet for piano and wind (1896) which won the Costa Prize and the College Gold Medal. His 1894 Romance for violin and piano was praised as "a charming, musicianly work". His other early works include choral pieces, including the anthems "Every good Gift"; "Behold upon the mountains", and "Be strong, all ye people" (all 1896). After these works he moved professionally into conducting light opera, and serious music became the exception rather than the rule in his compositions.
Ketèlbey's concert music was less well known in England than in continental Europe, where he conducted many programmes of his own works for the Concertgebouw Orchestra
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra ( nl, Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, ) is a Dutch symphony orchestra, based at the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw (concert hall). Considered one of the world's leading orchestras, Queen Beatrix conferred the "R ...
and others. The composer's more avowedly serious music was less widely esteemed by his compatriots. In a 1928 profile the magazine ''The British Musician'' commented, "There is no need to explain here why his serious music, whether written thirty years ago or as recently as 1927 ... has not won the popularity of, say, Edward German
Sir Edward German (17 February 1862 – 11 November 1936) was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of En ...
's dances: it is pleasant music, delightfully scored; but it is not so fascinating as that from which it derives—the music of the Viennese writers of dance music, of Delibes and Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
and the like." The reviewer added, "Albert Ketèlbey's works of the ''Monastery Garden'' type are by far the best that anyone in this country has written, and they represent the end to which he was born."
Light orchestral
Ketèlbey, a capable player of the cello, clarinet, oboe, and horn, was a skilled orchestrator. He generally followed the normal style for light music of his day: picturesque and romantic, with colourful orchestral effects. Reviewing a collection of Ketèlbey's music, the authors of ''The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' commented in 2008, "when vulgarity is called for it is not shirked—only it's a stylish kind of vulgarity!" Many of Ketèlbey's pieces are programmatic, typically lasting between four and six minutes. His penchant for arranging his works for various combinations of instruments makes them harder to categorise than the works of many other composers. His first two pieces to make a mark with a wide public were ''The Phantom Melody'' (1911) and ''In a Monastery Garden'' (1915), both best known in their orchestral versions, but originally written for cello and piano and for solo piano respectively. For the familiar orchestral version of the second of these pieces the composer published a synopsis:
Ketèlbey followed the same basic formula for many of his most popular later works. For ''In a Persian Market'' his synopsis notes "the camel drivers approaching, the cries of beggars, entry of beautiful princess (represented by a languorous theme given at first to clarinet and cello and then full orchestra) ... she watches the jugglers and snake-charmers ... the Caliph passes by, interrupting the entertainment ... all depart, their themes heard faintly in the distance, and the marketplace becomes deserted." Ketèlbey establishes the eastern setting in the opening section, employing the distinctive melodic intervals, A–B–E. The orchestral players are instructed to sing at two points in the score, a descending motif representing beggars crying for baksheesh
''Baksheesh'' or ' (from fa, بخشش ) is tipping, charitable giving, and certain forms of political corruption and bribery in the Middle East and South Asia.
Etymology and usage
''Baksheesh'' comes from the Persian word (), which originat ...
. Although one contemporary critic belittled the music as "pseudo-orientalism", McCanna comments that "The princess portrayed by the big romantic theme is a cousin of the princesses in Stravinsky's ''Firebird
Firebird and fire bird may refer to:
Mythical birds
* Phoenix (mythology), sacred firebird found in the mythologies of many cultures
* Bennu, Egyptian firebird
* Huma bird, Persian firebird
* Firebird (Slavic folklore)
Bird species
''Various sp ...
''".
Ketèlbey sought to repeat the exoticism of ''In a Persian Market'' in several later pieces. Among them is '' In a Chinese Temple Garden'' (1923), described as an "oriental phantasy", with episodes depicting a priestly incantation, two lovers, a wedding procession, a street brawl and the restoration of calm by the beating of the temple gong.Ketèlbey's synopsis, ''quoted'' at Another example is '' In the Mystic Land of Egypt'' (1931), which, like its Persian predecessor, opens with a vigorous march theme followed by a broad romantic melody. Again, the composer employs unconventional musical devices for colour—in this case a chromatic scale, descending at each appearance until the closing bars, where it is inverted. In 1958, the critic Ronald Ever wrote that Ketèlbey was noted for his use of "every exotic noisemaker known to man—chimes, orchestra bells, gongs (all sizes and nationalities), cymbals, woodblocks, xylophone, drums of every variety". Ever commented that Ketèlbey's exoticism had left an immovable impression of eastern music on western ears, to which "Oriental music is Ketèlbey music: the clashing cymbals; the little pinging bells; the minor modes; the amazingly graphic mincing step created by rapidly reiterated notes; the coy taps on the woodblock."
Among Ketèlbey's light orchestral works with a wholly British flavour is ''Bells Across the Meadows'' (1921), redolent, in the words of McDonald, of "rose-entwined thatched cottages standing amidst gardens full of hollyhocks with a gentle brook bubbling on its rustic way and cows grazing peacefully in the pastures beyond". Urban life was evoked in the five-movement ''Cockney Suite'' (1924), described by ''The Times'' as "character pieces complete with leering saxophone, cheeky mouth-organ, and some infernally catchy tunes". Ketèlbey depicts successively a royal procession from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...
; an East End pub, with a main theme based on the Cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...
ditty "'Arf a pint of mild and bitter"; a waltz at a '' palais de danse''; a sombre glimpse of the Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...
in Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Sq ...
; and in the finale, "'Appy 'Ampstead", a picture of the August Bank Holiday fair on Hampstead Heath.
Much of the music Ketèlbey wrote as accompaniment to silent films between 1915 and 1929, though lucrative at the time, has proved ephemeral, although he reused and rearranged some of it in solo pieces for amateur pianists. With the requirements of cinemas of all sizes in mind, his film music was published in the "Bosworth Loose Leaf Film Play Music Series" in versions for solo piano or for small orchestras. The titles offered included ''Dramatic Agitato'', ''Amaryllis'' (described by the composer as "suitable for use in dainty, fickle scenes"), ''Mystery'' ("greatly in favour for uncanny and weird picturizations"), "Agitato Furioso" ("famous for its excellence in playing to riots, storms, wars, etc.") and ''Bacchanale de Montmartre'' (for "cabaret, orgy and riotous continental scenes").
Instrumental works
In addition to arrangements for solo instruments of his popular orchestral works, Ketèlbey wrote a range of music for organ and for piano. Some of the more serious of these pieces were published under his "Vodorinski" pen name. Among the organ works are ''Pastorale'' and ''Rêverie dramatique'', both dating from about 1911. The piano works include the early classical pieces such as the 1888 Sonata, and shorter items in a more popular style, such as ''Rêverie'' (1894) and ''Les pèlerins'' (1925), by way of ''A Romantic Melody'' (1898), ''Pensées joyeuses'' (1888), ''In the Woodlands'' (1921), ''A Song of Summer'' (1922), and ''Légende triste'' (1923). The musical influences on his piano works were on the whole conservative: for the early works McCanna mentions Haydn and Mendelssohn in this context. Much of the piano music published in the years after the First World War was aimed at a domestic audience; it requires only a modest technical proficiency to play and is simple in structure with deft harmonies. The most commercially successful of the Vodorinski works was the Prelude in C minor (1907). McCanna comments that not only the title but the material is reminiscent of Rachmaninoff: "the music turns out to copy some of the more illustrious composer's features, notably the final fortissimo statement of the melody in the bass". Ketèlbey followed Chopin's model in several waltzes in the key of A major, including ''La grâcieuse'' (1907) and two different pieces under the title Valse brillante (1905 and 1911).Songs
Throughout his career Ketèlbey composed songs, providing the words for most of those written after 1913. His first, unpublished, song, "Be Still, Sad Heart" dates from 1892, and during the rest of the 1890s he wrote songs for children as well as sentimental ballads like "Believe Me True" (1897) for their seniors. Many had words by Florence Hoare, whose other lyrics included English words for songs by Tchaikovsky, Gounod and Brahms. Ketèlbey's popular ballads included " The Heart's Awakening" (1907), "My Heart-a-dream" (1909), "I Loved You More Than I Knew" (1912), "My Heart Still Clings to You" (1913), "Will You Forgive?" (1924), and "A Birthday Song" (1933). He wrote patriotic songs for use in three wars: "There's Something in the English After all" (1899, during theBoer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...
), "The Trumpet Voice of Motherland is Calling" (1914, for the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
) and "Fighting for Freedom" (1941, during the Second World War). His sole Shakespeare setting, "Blow! Blow! Thou Winter Wind" (1898, revised 1951), was written as incidental music for a production of ''As You Like It''.
Reputation and legacy
The obituarist for ''The Musical Times'' wrote that "Ketèlbey's especial fame ... consisted in his phenomenal success as a composer of light music. His remarkable gift for alluring tunes, rich in homely sentiment, was reflected in the immense popularity of ispieces". McCanna opines that Ketèlbey's popularity
lay in its memorable expressive melodies combined with its ability to set the scene by enhanced use of different kinds of colour: local colour in the choice of characteristic settings, often with explicit narrative captions printed above the music; musical colour in the form of exotic scales and harmonies; orchestral colour in the novel use of singing by the players and of sound effects executed by the drummer.During his tenure at Columbia, Ketèlbey promoted the works of several composers, including Haydn Wood, Charles Ancliffe, Ivor Novello, James W. Tate and Kenneth J. Alford, helping to increase the popularity of British light music.
Ronnie Ronalde
Ronald Charles Waldron (29 June 1923 – 13 January 2015), known professionally as Ronnie Ronalde, was a British music hall singer and siffleur. Ronalde was famous for his voice, whistling, yodelling, imitations of bird song and stage personalit ...
made ''In a Monastery Garden'' his signature tune from 1958, while Serge Gainsbourg used the theme of ''In a Persian Market'' for his 1977 song "My Lady Héroïne".
Dempsey, writing in 2001, considered that Ketèlbey's "late-Romantic tone miniatures ... are deserving of reappraisal". The composer's reputation has improved over time, and the cultural historian Andrew Blake identifies a "form of 'cult following'" for him. In the 21st century, Ketèlbey's music is still frequently heard on radio and in a 2003 poll by the BBC radio programme ''Your Hundred Best Tunes
''Your Hundred Best Tunes'' was a BBC radio music programme, always broadcast on Sunday evenings, which presented popular works which were mostly classical excerpts, choral works, opera and ballads. The hundred tunes which made up the playlist w ...
'', ''Bells across the Meadows'' was voted thirty-sixth most popular tune of all time. The last night of the corporation's 2009 Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...
season included ''In a Monastery Garden'' to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Ketèlbey's death; it was the first time the tune had been included in the festival's finale. Tim Page, the music critic for ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', considers that Ketèlbey's work expresses an "ornate, perfumed, genteel Orientalism hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
found expression in miniatures"; he adds that "all of Ketèlbey's music is pretty weird—deeply derivative yet unmistakably personal, tidy in form yet grandiose in execution, amiable and often touching despite its unashamed mawkishness."
Notes, references and sources
Notes
References
Sources
* * * * * * * * * * *External links
Website dedicated to Ketèlbey
BBC news clip
Downloadable and streaming recordings of ''In a Monastery Garden''
performed by the Peerless Orchestra and male chorus. From an Edison Phonograph recorded in 1921. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ketelbey, Albert 1875 births 1959 deaths 19th-century British composers 19th-century classical composers 19th-century classical pianists 19th-century English musicians 19th-century conductors (music) 20th-century classical composers 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century British conductors (music) 20th-century English composers 20th-century British male musicians Alumni of Birmingham Conservatoire Alumni of Trinity College of Music British male conductors (music) English classical composers English classical pianists English conductors (music) English male classical composers Golders Green Crematorium Light music composers Male classical pianists People from Birmingham, West Midlands