Albert William Ketèlbey – who was 1 of the most celebrated British composers of the 20th century – died on this day in Cowes in 1959.
Albert Ketèlbey was born in Birmingham in 1875. He competed for a scholarship at Trinity College of Music in London, where he received the highest mark of all entrants, beating the famous composer Gustav Holst. After a brilliant studentship, he became musical director of the Vaudeville Theatre before gaining fame as a composer of light music and as a writer of music for silent films.
Albert became best known for his light orchestral pieces. One of his earliest works in the genre, In a Monastery Garden (1915), sold over a million copies. Works such as In a Persian Market (1920), In a Chinese Temple Garden (1923), and In the Mystic Land of Egypt (1931) became best-sellers in print and on records.
In a Monastery Garden below:
By the late 1920s, Ketèlbey had become Britain’s 1st millionaire composer. His works could be heard several times a day in restaurants and cinemas across the land. In 1929, he was described as “Britain’s Greatest Living Composer” in the Performing Rights Gazette.
Albert was also popular on the continent of Europe, where he was known as “The English Strauss”. By the 1930s, Ketèlbey’s music over 1,500 broadcasts were made on the BBC in a single year, together with several hundred in foreign countries.
The composer was popular with the Royal Family. In 1932, on the 6th birthday of Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), he wrote her an intermezzo: A Birthday Greeting. In 1934, when his march A State Procession was played to accompany the arrival of King George V at a Royal Command Performance, 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.
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, at that year’s Trooping the Colour, and at the Jubilee Thanksgiving Service at St Paul’s Cathedral.
In the harsh winter of 1946/47, sub-zero temperatures broke the pipes at Albert’s London home, causing it to be flooded and the composer losing most of his manuscripts and musical works. He and his wife Lottie contracted pneumonia, and his wife sadly died. Albert had a nervous breakdown.
While recovering in Bournemouth, Ketèlbey started a relationship with Mabel Pritchett, a hotel manageress, whom he subsequently married. The couple moved to Cowes in 1949.
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.
With Honour Crowned below:
Albert died in his Cowes bungalow – Rookstone on Egypt Hill – of heart and renal failure on 26th November 1959. Sadly, only a handful of mourners attended his funeral. His home in Cowes was controversially demolished in the 2010s.
This century, Ketèlbey’s music has been recognized once again. On the last night of the 2009 Proms season, the orchestra performed his In a Monastery Garden, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death. This was the 1st time his music had been included in the festival’s finale.
It is so good to read articles like this.
Thank you Island Echo!
In a radio interview, when asked if he was still composing, he replied that “Well, I’m not decomposing”