Hans Keller
Encyclopedia
Hans Keller was an influential Austrian
-born British musician
and writer who made significant contributions to musicology
and music criticism
, as well as being an insightful commentator on such disparate fields as psychoanalysis
and football. In the late 1950s he invented the method of 'Wordless Functional Analysis
', in which a musical composition is analysed in musical sound alone, without any words being heard or read.
, and as a boy was taught by the same Oskar Adler
who had, decades earlier, been Arnold Schoenberg
's boyhood friend and first teacher. He also came to know the composer and performer Franz Schmidt
, but was never a formal pupil. In 1938 the Anschluss
forced Keller to flee to London (where he had relatives), and in the years that followed he became a prominent and influential figure in the UK's musical and music-critical life. Initially active as a violin
ist and violist
, he soon found his niche as a highly prolific and provocative writer on music as well as an influential teacher, lecturer, broadcaster and coach.
An original thinker never afraid of controversy, Keller's passionate support of composer
s whose work he saw as under-valued or insufficiently understood made him a tireless advocate of Benjamin Britten
and Arnold Schoenberg
as well as an illuminating analyst of figures such as Mozart
, Haydn
, Beethoven
and Mendelssohn
. Many of Keller's earliest articles appeared in the journals Music Review and Music Survey
- the latter co-edited by him after he joined the founding editor Donald Mitchell
for the so-called 'New Series' (1949–52). In later years, much of his advocacy was carried out from within the BBC
, where he came to hold several senior positions. It was also from within the BBC that Keller (assisted by Susan Bradshaw
) perpetrated in 1961 the famous 'Piotr Zak
' hoax, designed to demonstrate the poor quality of critical discourse surrounding contemporary music at a problematic stage in its historical development. In 1967, he had an infamous encounter with the rock group Pink Floyd
(then called 'The Pink Floyd') on the TV show The Look of the Week. Keller ends the segment with the words "My verdict is that it is a little bit of a regression to childhood - but, after all, why not?”
Keller's gift for systematic thinking, allied to his philosophical
and psycho-analytic
knowledge, bore fruit in the method of 'Wordless Functional Analysis' (abbreviated by the football
-loving Keller as 'FA
'), designed to furnish incontrovertibly audible demonstrations of a masterwork's 'all-embracing background unity'. This method was developed in tandem with a 'Theory of Music' which explicitly considered musical structure from the point of view of listener expectations; the 'meaningful contradiction' of expected 'background' by unexpectable 'foreground' was seen as generating a work's expressive content. An element of Keller's theory of unity was the 'Principle of Reversed and Postponed Antecedents and Consequents', which has not been widely adopted. His term 'homotonal
ity', however, has proved useful to musicologists in several fields.
Keller was married to the artist Milein Cosman
, whose drawings illustrated some of his work.
As a man very prominent in the world of 'contemporary music' (even working for several years as the BBC's 'Chief Assistant, New Music'), Keller had close personal and professional ties with many composers, and was frequently the dedicatee of new compositions. Those who dedicated works to him include:
In December 1979, Keller received the 'Special Award' of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain. In September 1985, just weeks before his death from Motor Neurone Disease
, he received from the President of Austria the Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst, 1 Klasse ('Cross of Honour for Arts and Sciences, 1st Class'). His manuscripts (radio broadcasts and musicological writings) are kept at the Cambridge University Library
.
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
-born British musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
and writer who made significant contributions to musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
and music criticism
Criticism
Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the work or actions of an individual or group by another . To criticize does not necessarily imply to find fault, but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of an objection against prejudice, or a disapproval.Another meaning of...
, as well as being an insightful commentator on such disparate fields as psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and football. In the late 1950s he invented the method of 'Wordless Functional Analysis
Wordless Functional Analysis
Wordless functional analysis is a method of musical analysis developed in the 1950s by the Austrian-born British musician and writer Hans Keller. The method is notable in that, unlike other forms of musical analysis, it is designed to be presented in musical sound alone, without any words being...
', in which a musical composition is analysed in musical sound alone, without any words being heard or read.
Biography
Keller was born into a wealthy and culturally well-connected Jewish family in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and as a boy was taught by the same Oskar Adler
Oskar Adler
Oskar Adler was an Austrian violinist, physician and esoteric savant.A close friend of Arnold Schoenberg from their schooldays, Adler taught him the rudiments of music, gave him his first grounding in philosophy, and played chamber music with him...
who had, decades earlier, been Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's boyhood friend and first teacher. He also came to know the composer and performer Franz Schmidt
Franz Schmidt
Franz Schmidt was an Austrian composer, cellist and pianist of Hungarian descent and origin.- Life :Schmidt was born in Pozsony , in the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . His father was half Hungarian and his mother entirely Hungarian...
, but was never a formal pupil. In 1938 the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
forced Keller to flee to London (where he had relatives), and in the years that followed he became a prominent and influential figure in the UK's musical and music-critical life. Initially active as a violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist and violist
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, he soon found his niche as a highly prolific and provocative writer on music as well as an influential teacher, lecturer, broadcaster and coach.
An original thinker never afraid of controversy, Keller's passionate support of composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
s whose work he saw as under-valued or insufficiently understood made him a tireless advocate of Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
and Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
as well as an illuminating analyst of figures such as Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
and Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
. Many of Keller's earliest articles appeared in the journals Music Review and Music Survey
Music Survey
Music Survey was a short-lived academic journal covering classical and contemporary music, which flourished in the United Kingdom for a brief period after World War II...
- the latter co-edited by him after he joined the founding editor Donald Mitchell
Donald Mitchell (writer)
Donald Mitchell is a British writer on music, particularly known for his books on Gustav Mahler and Benjamin Britten and for the book The Language of Modern Music, published 1963....
for the so-called 'New Series' (1949–52). In later years, much of his advocacy was carried out from within the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, where he came to hold several senior positions. It was also from within the BBC that Keller (assisted by Susan Bradshaw
Susan Bradshaw
Susan Bradshaw was a British pianist, teacher and writer. She was mainly associated with contemporary music, and especially with the work of Pierre Boulez, several of whose writings she translated...
) perpetrated in 1961 the famous 'Piotr Zak
Piotr Zak
Piotr Zak is the name of a fictional Polish composer whose alleged composition Mobile for Tape and Percussion was broadcast twice on the BBC Third Programme on June 5, 1961 in a performance supposedly played by 'Claude Tessier' and 'Anton Schmidt'....
' hoax, designed to demonstrate the poor quality of critical discourse surrounding contemporary music at a problematic stage in its historical development. In 1967, he had an infamous encounter with the rock group Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
(then called 'The Pink Floyd') on the TV show The Look of the Week. Keller ends the segment with the words "My verdict is that it is a little bit of a regression to childhood - but, after all, why not?”
Keller's gift for systematic thinking, allied to his philosophical
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and psycho-analytic
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
knowledge, bore fruit in the method of 'Wordless Functional Analysis' (abbreviated by the football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
-loving Keller as 'FA
The Football Association
The Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of football in England, and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...
'), designed to furnish incontrovertibly audible demonstrations of a masterwork's 'all-embracing background unity'. This method was developed in tandem with a 'Theory of Music' which explicitly considered musical structure from the point of view of listener expectations; the 'meaningful contradiction' of expected 'background' by unexpectable 'foreground' was seen as generating a work's expressive content. An element of Keller's theory of unity was the 'Principle of Reversed and Postponed Antecedents and Consequents', which has not been widely adopted. His term 'homotonal
Homotonal
Homotonal is a technical musical term pertaining to the tonal structure of multi-movement compositions. It was introduced into musicology by Hans Keller...
ity', however, has proved useful to musicologists in several fields.
Keller was married to the artist Milein Cosman
Milein Cosman
Milein Cosman is an artist who specializes in studies of musicians in action, such as Britten, Stravinsky, and Furtwaengler. She has lived most of her adult life in London....
, whose drawings illustrated some of his work.
As a man very prominent in the world of 'contemporary music' (even working for several years as the BBC's 'Chief Assistant, New Music'), Keller had close personal and professional ties with many composers, and was frequently the dedicatee of new compositions. Those who dedicated works to him include:
- Benjamin BrittenBenjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
(String Quartet No.3, Op. 94) - Benjamin FrankelBenjamin FrankelBenjamin Frankel was a British composer. Frankel's most famous pieces include a cycle of five string quartets and eight symphonies as well as a number of concertos for violin and viola; his single best-known piece is probably the First Sonata for Solo Violin, which, like his concertos, resulted...
(String Quartet No.5, Op.43) - Philip GrangePhilip GrangePhilip Grange is an English composer.Grange was born in London. He attended Peter Maxwell Davies’s classes at Dartington, and then took further, private, lessons with Davies while at The University of York, where he also studied composition with David Blake...
- David MatthewsDavid Matthews (composer)David Matthews is an English composer of mainly orchestral, chamber, vocal and piano works.- Life :He was born in London into a family that was 'not especially' musical; the desire to compose did not manifest itself until he was sixteen, and for a time he and his younger brother Colin Matthews,...
(Piano TrioPiano trioA piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music...
No.1; 'To Hans Keller') - Bayan NorthcottBayan NorthcottBayan Northcott is an English composer and music critic.Born in London, he studied English at Oxford University, then taught the subject for six years before taking up music criticism. Later, encouraged by Alexander Goehr and Hans Keller, he took up composition...
- Buxton OrrBuxton OrrBuxton Orr was a Glasgow-born Anglo-Scottish composer.Originally trained as a doctor, Orr gave up medicine and switched to music, studying composition with Benjamin Frankel and conducting with Aylmer Buesst...
(Piano Trio No.1; 'In admiration and friendship'), - Robert SimpsonRobert Simpson (composer)Robert Simpson was an English composer and long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.He is best known for his orchestral and chamber music , and for his writings on the music of Beethoven, Bruckner, Nielsen and Sibelius. He studied composition under Herbert Howells...
(Symphony No.7; 'To Hans and Milein Keller'). - Josef Tal (Double Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra; 'To Hans and Milein Keller')
- Robert Matthew-WalkerRobert Matthew-WalkerRobert Matthew-Walker is an English writer, editor, marketer, producer, broadcaster and composer, mainly involved in classical music....
(Piano SonataPiano sonataA piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...
No.3 - 'Fantasy-Sonata: Hamlet'), Op.34 (1980) - Judith BinghamJudith BinghamJudith Bingham is a British composer and mezzo-soprano singer.Born in Nottingham in 1952 and educated at High Storrs Grammar School for Girls in Sheffield, she attended the Royal Academy of Music , where her teachers were Malcolm MacDonald, Eric Fenby, Alan Bush and John Hall , and Jean...
'Pictured Within', for piano solo (1981) - Philip GrangePhilip GrangePhilip Grange is an English composer.Grange was born in London. He attended Peter Maxwell Davies’s classes at Dartington, and then took further, private, lessons with Davies while at The University of York, where he also studied composition with David Blake...
'In Memoriam HK', for solo trombone (c.1990)
In December 1979, Keller received the 'Special Award' of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain. In September 1985, just weeks before his death from Motor Neurone Disease
Motor neurone disease
The motor neurone diseases are a group of neurological disorders that selectively affect motor neurones, the cells that control voluntary muscle activity including speaking, walking, breathing, swallowing and general movement of the body. They are generally progressive in nature, and can cause...
, he received from the President of Austria the Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst, 1 Klasse ('Cross of Honour for Arts and Sciences, 1st Class'). His manuscripts (radio broadcasts and musicological writings) are kept at the Cambridge University Library
Cambridge University Library
The Cambridge University Library is the centrally-administered library of Cambridge University in England. It comprises five separate libraries:* the University Library main building * the Medical Library...
.
Quotations
"Art arises where the arbitrary and the predictable are superseded by unpredictable inevitability"
- Hans Keller, Music Survey.
"...there is no point to musical analysis at all unless it is 'two-dimensional' -- unless [...] one examines the music in terms of what I call its 'Background' (and this 'Background' is the sum total of the expectations which the composer creates) and its 'Foreground' (and its 'Foreground' is what he does instead). That is to say, the composer creates certain expectations, well-defined expectations, which he proceeds to meaningfully contradict. There is therefore a strong relation between 'Background' and 'Foreground', between that which happens and that which lies at its back -- or to put it the other way round, between that which the composer leads you to expect, and that which he does instead..."
- Hans Keller, Lecture on Beethoven's Op.130, BBC broadcast from Leeds University, 1973.
"Well, there it is. I think you can pass your verdict as well as I can. My verdict is that it is a little bit of a regression to childhood, but after all, why not?"
- Hans Keller, discussing the then-new group Pink Floyd, "The Look of the Week", BBC TV, May 1967