Frederick Keel

James Frederick Keel (8 May 1871 – August 1954) was an English composer of art songs, baritone singer and academic. Keel was a successful recitalist and a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music. He combined scholarly and artistic interest in English songs and their history. His free settings of Elizabethan and Jacobean lyrics helped pioneer the revival of interest in the genre. He was also an active member of the English folksong movement. During World War I, Keel was interned at the Ruhleben Prisoner of War Camp in Germany, where he played an active role in the musical life of the camp, giving many recitals to help boost the morale of the fellow civilians detained there. Keel was one of the few singer-songwriters of English art songs of his day. Among his better known compositions are settings of Salt Water Ballads by the poet John Masefield, including 'Trade Winds', the popularity of which has given Keel a reputation for being a "one-song composer".

Contents

Biography

Early life

Frederick Keel was born in London and attended Wells Cathedral School.[1] After teaching in several preparatory schools, in 1895 he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) to study singing.[2] Keel was a baritone and is said to have had a pleasant voice and singing style which made him a popular recitalist in the pre-war years.[1][2] In addition to his studies at the RAM, Keel completed his training with stays in Milan and Munich. It was while in Munich that Keel first became fascinated by folk music, an interest which would blossom on his return to England where he was able to meet fellow enthusiasts such as Lucy Broadwood, J A Fuller Maitland and, eventually, Cecil Sharp.[2]

Folk Song Society

Having first joined the Folk Song Society in 1905, Keel became its Honorary Secretary between 1911 and 1919.[1][2] He also edited various issues of the society journal, especially when Lucy Broadwood was unavailable.[3] In 1948, long after standing down, Keel published a brief history of the society, charting events since its inception in 1898.[3] As a singer, Keel had a vast repertoire folk songs,[4] which he regularly drew on in his recitals.[2] As regards fieldwork, apart from noting down a couple of London street cries[5] Keel's own collecting activity seems to have been largely confined to a clutch of folk songs from Hindhead and Haslemere in Surrey,[6] identified and notated in 1913 with the collaboration of fellow society members Clive Carey and Iolo Williams.[2] However, he also edited sets noted down by others, including a collection titled Folk songs from Scotland and 'cries' from Kent (1944).[7]

Elizabethan love songs

Keel's interest in traditional and early music was both historical and artistic. Acquaintance with A H Bullen's anthologies of Elizabethan lyrics[8] sparked a lasting musical and literary interest.[2] This fascination led Keel to publish in 1909 and 1913 respectively two sets of his own free arrangements for piano and (low or high) voice of late Tudor and early Jacobean lute songs under the title Elizabethan love songs.[9][10] Keel's arrangements were based on compositions by John Dowland, Thomas Campion, Thomas Morley, Philip Rosseter and Tobias Hume, among others. His initiative was to be roundly criticised by fellow art song composer and early music enthusiast Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), who deplored Keel's use of the piano and disregard for the original tablature.[11] Nevertheless, Keel's composerly transcriptions helped popularise an area of early music which, at the time, was seldom performed.[1] Seven arrangements by Keel were later selected for inclusion in a musical play by Hilda Wilson entitled Nymphs and Shepherds (published 1930), which showcased some contemporary settings of Elizabethan and Jacobean songs.[12]

Keel complemented his arrangement work with an essay titled Music in the Time of Queen Elizabeth in which he succinctly outlined his understanding of the social, literary and musicological context of Elizabethan vocal and instrumental music, focusing mainly on the songs and dances.[13] This 60 page booklet was privately printed in a limited edition in 1914 by the Sette of Odd Volumes, an elite bibliophile dining club dedicated to mutual admiration, of which he would later become President ("His Oddship").[14][n 1] Keel, who at the time was "Singer and Secretary to Ye Sette", had presented Music in the Time of Queen Elizabeth as an after dinner address illustrated by a few of his own settings.[n 2]

Life in Ruhleben, 1914–1918

The outbreak of World War I found Keel and his family on holiday in Bavaria. Keel himself was arrested and became one of several notable musicians detained at the Ruhleben Prisoner of War Camp near Berlin, where he immediately found himself sharing barracks with fellow composer and RAM colleague, Benjamin Dale.[17] The two would later send a letter to Alexander Mackenzie, Principal of the RAM, listing forty-two of the musicians detained there and outlining musical doings in Ruhleben at the time, including their teaching activities to fellow prisoners.[18] In the summer of 1915, Keel had been elected to chair the committee of the newly formed Ruhleben Music Society,[19] which would oversee the camp's burgeoning musical life.[20] Keel is said to have been by far the most popular singer in the camp, performing a wide repertoire of songs, including his own, at numerous concerts until his eventual release in March 1918.[19][20][n 3] Keel also penned an informal first hand narrative of his arrest and imprisonment, titled Life in Ruhleben, 1914–1918.[21] Again privately printed for the Sette of Odd Volumes, this essay provides a sketch of how this sizable community of civilian prisoners, who had been crammed into wet and dirty stables, eventually came to organise their own "University" facilities. During his internment, Keel set William Morris's poem 'In prison' (1915), as well as 'Tomorrow' (1918), one of John Masefield's Salt Water Ballads.[20][22][n 4]

Salt Water Ballads and other songs

After the Ruhleben experience, Keel no longer held recitals but he did continue in his role as a Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music, a post which he had taken up before the war and retained until his eventual retirement in 1939.[1] In 1919, Keel published his settings of Three Salt Water Ballads (1919)[25] by John Masefield, including the once highly popular 'Trade Winds'. In addition to several other Masefield settings from Salt-water ballads and elsewhere, Keel wrote songs to words by various British poets, including Shakespeare, de la Mare, Hardy and Tennyson.

Family

Keel married Dora Compton in 1902, and the couple had a son and two daughters. Keel died in August 1954 at the age of 83.

Style and reputation

Keel was one of the few art song singer-songwriters of his day.[n 5] However, he composed only a relatively small body of original work. Indeed, the popular success of 'Trade Winds' has given Keel a reputation for being a "one-song composer".[20] Nevertheless, Keel's other Salt Walter Ballads settings used to enjoy considerable popularity, with one critic finding them "almost perfect".[27] Noting Keel's preference for prefer minor keys, another contemporary critic remarked on the "lively gait" of his melodies which made them sound as bright as in the major.[28] Keel's unsigned obituary in The Times spoke of his compositions as being "graceful and melodious rather than robust or profound".[1] In their heyday, Keel's songs were well represented on record, but the number of available recordings has shrunk.[29][n 6] Currently, Three Salt Water Ballads can be heard on a recording sung by Bryn Terfel.[31] 'Trade Winds' can also be heard on CD, as sung by Jonathan Lemalu.[32]

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ^ Keel, The Singer, joined the Sette of Odd Volumes in 1909, became Secretary in 1913, and was made President for the year 1921.[15] A society cartoon, dated 1922, humorously depicts the miniaturist singer-songwriter dressed as Napoleon while nonchalantly leaning on a bust of Wagner, affecting a conqueror's pose.[16]
  2. ^ Music in the Time of Queen Elizabeth concludes with a brief discussion of the dance repertoire, including popular dances such as the Morris and the Hey, both of which Keel links to contemporary observations by Cecil Sharpe.[13]
  3. ^ According to composer and fellow detainee, Edgar Bainton, "if a referendum had been taken for the most beloved singer, the choice would beyond all doubt have fallen on Mr Frederick Keel, the esteemed Professor of the Royal Academy of Music. Mr Keel sang at the first concert ever given at Ruhleben, and from that time his services were always in demand. He had a most amazing repertory. During the three and a half years of his internment he must have sung literally hundreds of songs, the best songs of all languages, but more particularly his own, which naturally endeared him to the vast proportion of the prisoners [...]. Perhaps Mr Keel's greatest successes were in the domain of folk-songs, of which he seemed to have an illimitable storehouse."[4]
  4. ^ Lewis Foreman believes that "in view of the fact that there were comparatively few patriotic or belligerent settings made in the camp, we may perhaps best remember Keel at Ruhleben for his bluff treatment of 'Tomorrow'".[20] This song enjoyed a certain vogue at the BBC Proms after the war, being programmed nine times, including three different performances in 1919 alone.[23] Elsewhere, it was also programmed in a morale boosting context during World War II.[24]
  5. ^ Keel's status as an early twentieth century singer-songwriter of English art songs is rare. In a study of twenty English art song composers spanning the period from Parry to Finzi, Trevor Hold includes Keel in a checklist of 117 such composers; at the start of the book, he declares that "the days of the singer-songwriter, in the art song at least, are long gone".[26]
  6. ^ One well received record included six of the Elizabethan love songs sung by Dora Labbette in arrangements with string quartet accompaniment.[30]
References
  1. ^ a b c d e f 'Mr J Frederick Keel' (unsigned obituary). The Times, 16 August 1954, p 8.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Williams, Iolo Aneurin (1954). 'J. Frederick Keel, F.R.A.M. 1871-1954' (obituary). Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol 7, No 3, December. Retrieved 2011-10-04 (subscription required).
  3. ^ a b Keel, Frederick (1948). 'The folk song society' (1898-1948). Journal of the English Folk Dance & Song Society, Vol 5, No 3, December. Retrieved 2011-08-22 (subscription required).
  4. ^ a b Bainton, Edgar L (1919). 'Musical personalities at Ruhleben'. Musical Opinion & Music Trade Review, No 497 (February), pp 279–80.
  5. ^ See: Sharp, Cecil J and Gilchrist, A G (1910). 'Street Cries'. Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol 4, No 15, December, pp 97–102. Retrieved 2011-10-11 (subscription required).
  6. ^ Keel, Frederick (1918). 'Songs from Surrey'. Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol 6, No 21, November, pp 1–28. Retrieved 2011-10-10 (subscription required).
  7. ^ Keel, Frederick, ed (1944). 'Folk songs from Scotland and 'cries' from Kent'. Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol 4, No 5, December. Retrieved 2011-10-10 (subscription required).
  8. ^ For example, Bullen A H, ed (1887). Lyrics from the song-books of the Elizabethan age. John C Nimmo (reprinted Charles Press, ISBN 1443717185). Retrieved 2011-10-10.
  9. ^ Keel, Frederick (1909). Elizabethan love songs. Boosey & Hawkes.
  10. ^ Keel, Frederick (1913). Elizabethan love songs: second set. Boosey & Hawkes.
  11. ^ Heseltine, Philip (1922). 'On editing Elizabethan songs'. The Musical Times, Vol 63, No 953 (July 1), pp 477–80. Retrieved 2011-08-22 (subscription required).
  12. ^ Scores in: Wilson, Hilda (1931). Nymphs and shepherds: a song play written by Hilda Wilson, introducing famous Elizabethan and Jacobean songs arranged by Frederick Keel, H Lane Wilson, Arthur Somervell and others. Boosey & Hawkes.
  13. ^ a b Keel, James Frederick (1914). Music in the Time of Queen Elizabeth. London: Sette of Odd Volumes, No LXVIII.
  14. ^ Betts, Jonathan (2006). Time Restored: The Harrison timekeepers and R T Gould, the man who knew (almost) everything, Chapter 11. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2011-10-25.
  15. ^ Ye Sette of Odd Volumes, LXI ['booklet'] (1935). London: Sette of Odd Volumes.
  16. ^ See: Royal Academy of Music, Museum & Collections. 'Portrait cartoon of Frederick Keel in the image of Napoleon leaning on a large bust of Richard Wagner' (print signed "R.T.G.", 1922). Catalogue entry 2003.189. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
  17. ^ Foreman, Christopher (2011). 'Benjamin Dale—A reassessment', Part 3. MusicWeb International. Retrieved 2011-08-22.
  18. ^ Partially reproduced in: Musical Opinion & Music Trade Review, No 460 (January 1916), p 252.
  19. ^ a b Paton, Chris (rev 2010). 'James Frederick Keel', In: 'The Ruhleben story' [website]. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
  20. ^ a b c d e Foreman, Lewis (2011). 'In Ruhleben camp'. First World War Studies, Vol 2, No 1 (March), pp 27–40. Retrieved 2011-10-22 (subscription required).
  21. ^ Keel, Frederick (1920). 'Life in Ruhleben, 1914-1918'. In: Williamson, George Charles, ed. Roll of ye members of ye Sette of Odd Volumes, vol. II—Ye second volume of Ye roll of ye members of ye Sette of odd volumes: wherein it is stated what ye members did occupy themselves with, during ye great war, especially the Brother singer who did stay in Germany, and telleth of his travail there in entertaining fashion, and with a brief account of all ye members that have died since ye issue of ye first volume and of what they did do, pp 87–110. London: Sette of Odd Volumes, No LXXII.
  22. ^ Banfield, Stephen (1985). Sensibility and English song: critical studies of the early twentieth century, pp 138-139. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2011-08-23.
  23. ^ 'Frederick Keel' at the BBC Proms archive. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  24. ^ See: UMS Concert Program, March 17, 1943: Sixty-fourth Annual Choral Union Concert Series - Nelson Eddy. University Musical Society, University of Michigan. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
  25. ^ Keel, Frederick and Masefield, John (1919). Three salt-water ballads. Boosey & Hawkes. Retrieved 2011-08-23.
  26. ^ Hold, Trevor (2002). Parry to Finzi: twenty English song composers, pp vii, 421. The Boydell Press. Retrieved 2011-10-29.
  27. ^ Thorne, John (1937). 'In the footsteps of Plunket Greene', Part III. Gramophone, November 1937, p 8. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
  28. ^ Klein, Herman (1927). 'The gramophone and the singer (continued): modern English songs—II'. Gramophone (October 1927), p 7 [in electronic edition]. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
  29. ^ 'Hindsight October: A look back at issues from 70, 50 and 30 years ago'. Gramophone, October 1997, p 177. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
  30. ^ 'Gramophone notes by "Discus"'. The Musical Times, Vol 66, No 987 (May 1, 1925). Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  31. ^ Hall, George (2004). 'A golden age of English song' [booklet notes to Silent noon, CD performed by Bryn Terfel and Malcom Martineau]. Deutsche Grammophon. Retrieved 2011-08-22.
  32. ^ Wigmore, Richard (2002). [Booklet notes to Songs, CD performed by Jonathan Lemalu and Roger Vignoles]. EMI Classics. Retrieved 2011-08-22.

External links

– Port of Many Ships, sung by Philip Engdahl (baritone) [mp3 stream/download]
– Trade Winds, by Joost Van Berge (baritone), Douglas Martin (piano) [YouTube stream requiring Adobe Flash Player plug-in]
– Mother Carey, by Tom Isherwood (baritone) [YouTube stream ]