“If there is any point in an anniversary at all (victimization by over-exposure apart) it is a momentary pause: we stop at the traffic lights to reflect, for a moment, upon where we are going. Or rather, we know where we’re going, or think we know, but we think about what it means – perhaps even about what it means to have got that far.”
So wrote Hans Keller for a talk broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1974 to mark the Schoenberg centenary. Next month we celebrate Hans Keller’s own Centenary with a series of not-to-be-missed events in both London and Cambridge, so it seems reasonable not only to alert you, dear readers, to what is coming up, but also to stop at those traffic lights and reflect.
Which is exactly what Alison Garnham and I have been doing for the past three years as we have worked on our biography of Keller – Hans Keller, 1919-1985: a musician in dialogue with his times – which was, I am delighted to say, published by Routledge just before Christmas. Keller not only had an impact on his own times, but on a generation of those coming after him who in their turn have influenced the next generation. Indeed Keller himself was adamant that he wrote for the future and that the issues with which he dealt would retain their importance. What, he seems to ask throughout his writing, his talks and his teaching, is the purpose of music? Now, as his centenary approaches, seems an ideal time to explore further and so, to celebrate, the Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust have arranged a series of events, starting with the launch of the biography on 4th March at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
