Frederick Keel
Encyclopedia
James Frederick Keel was an English composer of art song
s, 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-songwriter
s 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".
. After teaching in several preparatory schools, in 1895 he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music
(RAM) to study singing. 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. 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
.
in 1905, Keel became its Honorary Secretary between 1911 and 1919. He also edited various issues of the society journal, especially when Lucy Broadwood was unavailable. In 1948, long after standing down, Keel published a brief history of the society, charting events since its inception in 1898. As a singer, Keel had a vast repertoire folk songs, which he regularly drew on in his recitals. As regards fieldwork, apart from noting down a couple of London street cries
Keel's own collecting activity seems to have been largely confined to a clutch of folk songs from Hindhead
and Haslemere
in Surrey
, identified and notated in 1913 with the collaboration of fellow society members Clive Carey
and Iolo Williams. However, he also edited sets noted down by others, including a collection titled Folk songs from Scotland and 'cries' from Kent (1944).
's anthologies of Elizabethan
lyrics sparked a lasting musical and literary interest. 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. 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
. Nevertheless, Keel's composerly transcriptions helped popularise an area of early music which, at the time, was seldom performed. 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.
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. 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"). 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.
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
. 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. In the summer of 1915, Keel had been elected to chair the committee of the newly formed Ruhleben Music Society, which would oversee the camp's burgeoning musical life. 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. Keel also penned an informal first hand narrative of his arrest and imprisonment, titled Life in Ruhleben, 1914–1918. 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
.
, de la Mare
, Hardy
and Tennyson.
singer-songwriter
s of his day. 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". Nevertheless, Keel's other Salt Walter Ballads settings used to enjoy considerable popularity, with one critic finding them "almost perfect". 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. Keel's unsigned obituary in The Times spoke of his compositions as being "graceful and melodious rather than robust or profound". In their heyday, Keel's songs were well represented on record, but the number of available recordings has shrunk. Currently, Three Salt Water Ballads can be heard on a recording sung by Bryn Terfel
. 'Trade Winds' can also be heard on CD, as sung by Jonathan Lemalu
.
Art song
An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano or orchestral accompaniment. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the genre of such songs....
s, baritone singer and academic. Keel was a successful recitalist and a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
. 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-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s of English art songs of his day. Among his better known compositions are settings of Salt Water Ballads
Salt-Water Poems and Ballads
Salt-Water Poems and Ballads is a book of poetry on themes of seafaring and maritime history by John Masefield. It was first published in 1916 by Macmillan, with illustrations by Charles Pears....
by the poet John Masefield
John Masefield
John Edward Masefield, OM, was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967...
, including 'Trade Winds', the popularity of which has given Keel a reputation for being a "one-song composer".
Early life
Frederick Keel was born in London and attended Wells Cathedral SchoolWells Cathedral School
Wells Cathedral School is a co-educational independent school located in Wells, Somerset, England. The school is one of the five established musical schools for school-age children in the United Kingdom, along with Chetham's School of Music, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Purcell School and St....
. After teaching in several preparatory schools, in 1895 he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
(RAM) to study singing. Keel was a baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
and is said to have had a pleasant voice and singing style which made him a popular recitalist in the pre-war years. 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
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, an interest which would blossom on his return to England where he was able to meet fellow enthusiasts such as Lucy Broadwood
Lucy Broadwood
Lucy Etheldred Broadwood was principally an English folksong collector and researcher during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As one of the founder members of the Folk-Song Society and Editor of the Folk Song Journal, she was one of the main influences of the English folk revival of that...
, J A Fuller Maitland
John Alexander Fuller Maitland
John Alexander Fuller Maitland was an influential British music critic and scholar from the 1880s to the 1920s. He encouraged the rediscovery of English music of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly Henry Purcell's music and English virginal music...
and, eventually, Cecil Sharp
Cecil Sharp
Cecil James Sharp was the founding father of the folklore revival in England in the early 20th century, and many of England's traditional dances and music owe their continuing existence to his work in recording and publishing them.-Early life:Sharp was born in Camberwell, London, the eldest son of...
.
Folk Song Society
Having first joined the Folk Song SocietyEnglish Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...
in 1905, Keel became its Honorary Secretary between 1911 and 1919. He also edited various issues of the society journal, especially when Lucy Broadwood was unavailable. In 1948, long after standing down, Keel published a brief history of the society, charting events since its inception in 1898. As a singer, Keel had a vast repertoire folk songs, which he regularly drew on in his recitals. As regards fieldwork, apart from noting down a couple of London street cries
Street cries
Street cries are the short lyrical calls of merchants hawking their products and services in open-air markets. The custom of hawking led many vendors to create custom melodic phrases...
Keel's own collecting activity seems to have been largely confined to a clutch of folk songs from Hindhead
Hindhead
Hindhead is a village in Surrey, England, about 11 miles south-west of Guildford. Neighbouring settlements include Haslemere, Grayshott and Beacon Hill. Hindhead is the highest village in Surrey...
and Haslemere
Haslemere
Haslemere is a town in Surrey, England, close to the border with both Hampshire and West Sussex. The major road between London and Portsmouth, the A3, lies to the west, and a branch of the River Wey to the south. Haslemere is approximately south-west of Guildford.Haslemere is surrounded by hills,...
in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, identified and notated in 1913 with the collaboration of fellow society members Clive Carey
Clive Carey
Francis Clive Savill Carey CBE , known as Clive Carey, was a British baritone, singing teacher, composer, opera producer and folk song collector.-Biography:Clive Carey was born at Sible Hedingham, Essex in 1883...
and Iolo Williams. However, he also edited sets noted down by others, including a collection titled Folk songs from Scotland and 'cries' from Kent (1944).
Elizabethan love songs
Keel's interest in traditional and early music was both historical and artistic. Acquaintance with A H BullenArthur Henry Bullen
Arthur Henry Bullen, often known as A. H. Bullen, was an English editor and publisher, a specialist in 16th and 17th century literature, and founder of the Shakespeare Head Press, which for its first decades was a publisher of fine editions in the tradition of the Kelmscott Press.His father George...
's anthologies of Elizabethan
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
lyrics sparked a lasting musical and literary interest. 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
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
songs under the title Elizabethan love songs. Keel's arrangements were based on compositions by John Dowland
John Dowland
John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has...
, Thomas Campion
Thomas Campion
Thomas Campion was an English composer, poet and physician. He wrote over a hundred lute songs; masques for dancing, and an authoritative technical treatise on music.-Life:...
, Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at St Paul's Cathedral...
, Philip Rosseter
Philip Rosseter
Philip Rosseter was an English composer and musician, as well as a theatrical manager. From 1603 until his death in 1623 he was lutenist for James I of England. Rosseter is best known for A Book of Aires which was written with Thomas Campion...
and Tobias Hume
Tobias Hume
Tobias Hume was a Scottish composer, viol player and soldier.Little is known of his life. Some have suggested that he was born in 1569 because he was admitted to the London Charterhouse in 1629, a pre-requisite to which was being at least 60 years old, though there is no certainty over this...
, among others. His initiative was to be roundly criticised by fellow art song composer and early music enthusiast Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock
Peter Warlock
Peter Warlock was a pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine , an Anglo-Welsh composer and music critic. He used the pseudonym when composing, and is now better known by this name....
), who deplored Keel's use of the piano and disregard for the original tablature
Tablature
Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches....
. Nevertheless, Keel's composerly transcriptions helped popularise an area of early music which, at the time, was seldom performed. 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.
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. 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"). 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.
Life in Ruhleben, 1914–1918
The outbreak of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
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
Benjamin Dale
Benjamin James Dale was an English composer and academic who had a long association with the Royal Academy of Music. Dale showed compositional talent from an early age and went on to write a small but notable corpus of works...
. 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. In the summer of 1915, Keel had been elected to chair the committee of the newly formed Ruhleben Music Society, which would oversee the camp's burgeoning musical life. 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. Keel also penned an informal first hand narrative of his arrest and imprisonment, titled Life in Ruhleben, 1914–1918. 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
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
's poem 'In prison' (1915), as well as 'Tomorrow' (1918), one of John Masefield
John Masefield
John Edward Masefield, OM, was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967...
's Salt Water Ballads
Salt-Water Poems and Ballads
Salt-Water Poems and Ballads is a book of poetry on themes of seafaring and maritime history by John Masefield. It was first published in 1916 by Macmillan, with illustrations by Charles Pears....
.
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. In 1919, Keel published his settings of Three Salt Water Ballads (1919) 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 ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, de la Mare
Walter de la Mare
Walter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....
, Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
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 songArt song
An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano or orchestral accompaniment. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the genre of such songs....
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s of his day. 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". Nevertheless, Keel's other Salt Walter Ballads settings used to enjoy considerable popularity, with one critic finding them "almost perfect". 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. Keel's unsigned obituary in The Times spoke of his compositions as being "graceful and melodious rather than robust or profound". In their heyday, Keel's songs were well represented on record, but the number of available recordings has shrunk. Currently, Three Salt Water Ballads can be heard on a recording sung by Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel Jones CBE is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro and Leporello, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Wagner....
. 'Trade Winds' can also be heard on CD, as sung by Jonathan Lemalu
Jonathan Lemalu
Jonathan Fa'afetai Lemalu is a New Zealand opera singer, of Samoan descent. Born in Dunedin, he sings in the bass baritone register....
.
External links
- Performances of Three Salt Water Ballads:
- – 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 ]