Contrary to claims that the name Ketelbey was a pseudonym, the British composer
was indeed born Albert William Ketelbey (without the accent) on 9 August 1875
at 41 Alma Street, Aston Manor, Birmingham, son of George, an engraver, and
Sarah, whose maiden name was by coincidence also Aston.
Piano lessons must have started at an early age, as the eleven-year-old Ketelbey
performed a Piano Sonata of his own composition at the Worcester Town Hall,
to an audience that included Edward Elgar. On his own admission, he was a reluctant
pianist, but was inspired to composition by a passion for the daughter of the
organist of the church choir in which he sang.
Such was his talent, that by the age of thirteen he won a scholarship to
Trinity College of Music in London, an institution with which he was associated
for many years, first as a pupil, later as an examiner. Although trying his hand
at other instruments, including organ, flute, oboe, clarinet and cello, his
first instrument remained the piano, with composition taking an ever-increasing
role.
While still at the College, Ketlbey managed to have many short pieces published.
The more serious of them appeared under his real name, but he also produced
a string of salon pieces and mandoline music under the splendid pseudonym of
"Raoul Clifford". There was even a song he wrote with a friend called "A dream
of glory" which had the credits "the music by G. Villa, organ part by Raoul
Clifford". Villa Road and Clifford Street are both thoroughfares close to the
Alma Street of his birth.
On leaving the college, Ketlbeys work as an examiner enabled him to include
some of his own educational pieces on the Trinity College examination syllabus.
His main employment was now with two publishing firms. At Chappells he made
reductions of orchestral music for solo piano, while at Hammonds he did the
reverse, and orchestrated classics of the piano repertoire for the
ever-increasing market of the salon orchestra. This hack-work may have been
tedious, but the experience was invaluable in moulding the composers fluent
writing for both piano and orchestra. Hammond also handled most of his early
compositions, not only piano pieces, but a large number of songs and even the
light opera The Wonder Worker, which had been produced at the Grand
Theatre, Fulham, in 1900.
The breakthrough into the quality market of full colour pictorial covers did
not come until 1915, when within a space of weeks, Larway issued In a
Monastery Garden and Ascherberg Tangled Tunes. By this time, Ketlbey
was obviously well-known in musical circles, for the artist who drew the cover
for Tangled Tunes wittily depicts the composer himself as a sorcerer
concocting a mixture of tunes in a large cauldron.
In 1906 Ketèlbey had taken a job as "impressario" with the
record company Columbia Graphophone. In true showbiz fashion, his conducting
career was launched when the regular conductor was indisposed, and over the
years he rose to become the companys musical director. During the First World
War, he also held the same post in revues promoted by Andr Charlot, including
Ye Gods (1916), Flora (1918) and The Officers Mess (1918).
In such productions, music needed to be direct, instantly setting a scene. Similar
qualities were need in the new market of music for the silent cinema, and the
composer duly produced collections of brief mood-setting pieces. In later years,
at the peak of his popularity, he was able to recycle some of these fragments
as concert pieces.
Significantly, one of his collections of cinema music was published by Bosworth.
After the First World War, this firm became Ketlbeys major publisher. The
balance of the market had changed, with light music now being recorded almost
exclusively in orchestral versions. So for the first time, Ketlbeys music
was published simultaneously in two versions, piano and orchestral. The piano
version had an eye-catching cover, and was aimed at the amateur music-lover,
while the orchestral version was for professional performance.
In the space of ten years, Ketlbey became the most successful composer in
the land. With foresight he had joined as early as 1918 the Performing Right
Society, the body which gathered revenue from performances of members works.
His income suddenly fell in 1926, when the PRS introduced a new policy downgrading
the rate paid for cinema music, causing him and several other composers to resign
from the Society. The matter was only resolved by a review of the whole policy,
and by 1929 he was proclaimed in the "Performing Right Gazette" as "Britains
greatest living composer", on the basis of number of performances of his works.
That he could gain so much popularity irked less successful composers, and there
were frequent signs of professional jealousy.
By the end of the 1920s, Ketlbeys success as a composer was great enough
for him to be able to give up his post at Columbia, and devote himself to
composition. Each year he would do a tour of seaside resorts to give special
Ketlbey concerts, which would include his latest novelties.
After the Second World War, Ketlbeys income from performing rights dropped
from 3,493 in 1940 to 2,906 in 1950, a massive decrease when wartime inflation
is taken into consideration. He even found that his works were being neglected
by the BBC.
In truth, his music lacked novelty. Of the handful of works published in the
post-war years, most were reworkings of old material, although the composer
attempted to disguise the origins. Thus a song called Kilmoren was in
fact a revision of Kildoran, which had been the tenors lead number in
The Wonder Worker fifty years earlier. Even the recent brass band piece
Adventurers Overture was refashioned for orchestra.
When the composer died in December 1959, his will was couched in terms to dissuade
his widow Mabel from allowing access to his private papers, thus closing the
most direct avenue for research into his music. In any case, a flood at his
house in Hampstead in the winter of 1947 had probably already destroyed the
bulk of his manuscripts.
