Keller, Hans

(b Vienna, 11 March 1919; d London, 6 Nov 1985). British music critic and writer of Austrian birth. He grew up in Dobling (Vienna) in a circle that included Franz Schmidt and the writer and violinist Oskar Adler. After being held by the Nazis during the Anschluss, he fled in 1938 to London where he stayed for the rest of his life. During the next ten years he studied the violin, took the LRAM, and played in a variety of string quartets and orchestras. At the same time he worked with sociologists on small group psychology, and taught himself psychoanalysis through the writings of Freud, Flugel, Jones and Glover. (Later, he psychoanalysed himself, and even took a patient.) His early published and unpublished writings are mainly in these fields, and their stance and aphoristic clarity pervade his life's work.

From the mid-1940s Keller wrote extensively and provocatively on film music, championed the work of Benjamin Britten, and emerged as a keen protagonist of Schoenberg. He came to prominence as a self-styled 'anti-critic' through the outspoken little journal Music Survey (1949--52); this he edited jointly with Donald Mitchell, as he did the forthright Benjamin Britten: a Commentary on his Works from a Group of Specialists (1952). In the 1950s, arguably his golden years, he wrote seminal studies of Stravinsky, Gershwin, Elgar, Schoenberg and (especially) Mozart; he sustained a number of columns devoted to the contemporary music scene, notably 'The New in Review' for Music Review; and he devised a form of wordless musical criticism ('Functional Analysis') that explored the latent unity of manifestly contrasting themes. Many of these analyses were performed and broadcast in Britain and Germany. He also began to teach at the Dartington Summer School and to address the problems of music education.

In 1959 Keller joined the BBC, and over the next 20 years took charge, successively, of music talks, chamber music, orchestral music, regional symphony orchestras and new music. During 15 of these years he was also chairman of the working party that planned the International Concert Seasons of the European Broadcasting Union. He was himself a distinctive radio speaker and his virtuoso broadcasts on the chamber music of Beethoven and Schoenberg have now been transcribed. However, by challenging the proposal to abolish the Third Programme in favour of generic programming, he found himself assuming the controversial role of conscience to the BBC. He retired at the age of 60 in 1979.

It was during these years that he propounded in The Listener his 'two dimensional theory of music', by which 'background' expectation was contradicted by 'foreground' innovation. This theory he ramified in later writings. In another column, 'Truth and Music' for Music and Musicians (1966--71, 1984--5), he elaborated his aesthetic views, which were rooted in Kant and Schopenhauer. Elsewhere, he explored his familiar topic of the relation between tonal and 12-note music in the work of Shostakovich; he addressed the classical romanticism of Schumann and Mendelssohn; and, at Dartington, he spoke on the 'Principles of Composition' and 'Music and Psychopathology'. His interests in music, psychoanalysis and football were united in 1975 (1984 minus 9) (1977), and he wrote and translated several librettos. Some of this work was on behalf of Britten, who rewarded him with the dedication of his Third String Quartet (1976).

In the late 1970s two visits to the Jerusalem Music Centre Mishkenot Sha'ananim yielded The Jerusalem Diary -- a commentary on contemporary society, music and politics in Israel -- and a defence of The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Both books still await publication. In his last six years after leaving the BBC, he worked as a string coach at the Guildhall and Yehudi Menuhin Schools of Music, made two trips to Canada and the USA, lectured and broadcast in Germany and taught musical analysis in a variety of colleges. He completed Stravinsky Seen and Heard (1982), The Great Haydn Quartets: Their Interpretation (1986) and Criticism (1987), and wrote voluminously on a variety of subjects including bowing, the lied, creative character, symphonism, modern music and culture.

In 1985 he was awarded a cross of honour by the President of Austria. Shortly afterwards, at the time of his death, he was celebrated for the breadth of his interests, for his charismatic if combative personality, for his loyalty to a remarkable circle of friends, and for his fearless defence of individuals. Music Analysis published a bibliography in 1986 and a selection of Essays on Music appeared in 1994.

See also Analysis, §II, 5.

WRITINGS
'Film Music', Sight and Sound, no.60 (1946--7), 136; no.62 (1947), 63--4; no.64 (1947--8), 168--9; MR, x (1949), 50--51, 138, 225--6, 303; xi (1950), 52--3; Music Survey, i (1949), 196--7; ii (1949--50), 25--7, 101--2, 188--9, 250--51; iii (1950--51), 42--3; MT, xcvi (1955), 265--6
Benjamin Britten: Albert Herring (London, 1947)
Benjamin Britten: The Rape of Lucretia (London, 1947)
The Need for Competent Film Music Criticism (London, 1947)
'Britten and Mozart: a Challenge in the Form of Variations on an Unfamiliar Theme', ML, xxix (1948), 17--30; unauthorized Ger. trans., OMz, v (1950), 138--47
'The Beggar's Opera', Tempo, no.10 (1948--9), 7--13
'Resistances to Britten's Music: their Psychology', Music Survey, ii (1949--50), 227--36
'Arthur Benjamin and the Problem of Popularity', Tempo, no.15 (1950), 4--15
'Schoenberg and the Men of the Press', Music Survey, iii (1950--51), 160--68
'Is Opera Really Necessary?', Opera, ii (1951), 337--45, 402--9
ed., with D. Mitchell: Benjamin Britten: a Commentary on his Works from a Group of Specialists (London, 1952) [incl. 'Peter Grimes: the Story, the Music not Excluded', 111--31; 'The Musical Character', 319--51]
'The Idomeneo Gavotte's Vicissitude', MR, xiv (1953), 155--7
'Film Music: British', Grove5
'National Frontiers in Music', Tempo, no.33 (1954), 23--30
'First Performances: Dodecaphoneys', MR, xvi (1955), 323--9
'First Performances: their Pre- and Reviews', MR, xvi (1955), 141--7
'Strict Serial Technique in Classical Music', Tempo, no.37 (1955), 12--24
'The Chamber Music', The Mozart Companion, ed. H.C.R. Landon and D. Mitchell (London, 1956), 90--137
'The Entfuhrung's ''Vaudeville''', MR, xvii (1956), 304--13
'Key Characteristics', Tempo, no.40 (1956), 5--16
'KV503: the Unity of Contrasting Themes and Movements', MR, xvii (1956), 48--58, 120--29
'The New in Review', MR, xvii (1956), 94--5, 153--4, 251--3, 332--6; xviii (1957), 48--51, 150--53, 221--4; xix (1958), 52--4, 137--41, 226--8, 319--22; xx (1959), 71--2, 159--62, 289--99; xxi (1960), 79--80; xxii (1961), 51--2
'Serial Octave Transpositions', MMR, lxxxvi (1956), 139--43, 172--7
'A Slip of Mozart's: its Analytical Significance', Tempo, no.42 (1956--7), 12--15
'Elgar the Progressive', MR, xviii (1957), 294--9
'Functional Analysis: its Pure Appreciation', MR, xviii (1957), 202--6; xix (1958), 192--200; see also MR, xxi (1960), 73--6, 237--9
'Rhythm: Gershwin and Stravinsky', The Score, no.20 (1957), 19--31
'Schoenberg's ''Moses and Aron''', The Score, no.21 (1957), 30--45
'Knowing Things Backwards', Tempo, no.46 (1958), 14--20
'Principles of Composition', The Score, no.26 (1960), 35--45; no.27 (1960), 9--21
'New Music: Beethoven's Choral Fantasy', The Score, no.28 (1961), 38--47
'Whose Fault is the Speaking Voice?', Tempo, no.75 (1965--6), 12--17
'Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart', 'Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky', The Symphony, i, ed. R. Simpson (Harmondsworth, 1966--7), 50--103, 342--53
'The Contemporary Problem', Tempo, no.82 (1967), 29; no.83 (1967--8), 24--5; no.84 (1968), 25--6; no.85 (1968), 30--33; no.86 (1968), 26--7; no.87 (1968--9), 76--9; no.88 (1969), 56--7; no.89 (1969), 25, 27--8; no.91 (1969--70), 34--6
'Towards a Theory of Music', The Listener (11 June 1970)
'Shostakovich's Twelfth Quartet', Tempo, no.94 (1970), 6--15
'Closer Towards a Theory of Music', The Listener (18 Feb 1971)
'Music and Psychopathology', History of Medicine, iii/2 (1971), 3--7
'Mozart's Wrong Key Signature', Tempo, no.98 (1972), 21--7
'Schoenberg: the Future of Symphonic Thought', PNM, xiii/1 (1974--5), 3--20
'Music 1975', New Review, no.24 (1976), 17--53
'The Classical Romantics: Schumann and Mendelssohn', Of German Music: a Symposium, ed. H.-H. Schonzeler (London and New York, 1976), 179--218
'Description, Analysis and Criticism: a Differential Diagnosis', Soundings [Cardiff], vi (1977), 108--20
'My Family, You and I', New Review, nos.34--5 (1977), 13--23
1975 (1984 minus 9) (London, 1977)
'The State of the Symphony: not only Maxwell Davies', Tempo, no.125 (1978), 6--11
'Operatic Music and Britten', The Operas of Benjamin Britten, ed. D. Herbert (London, 1979), xiii--xxxi
'Schoenberg's Return to Tonality', Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, v/1 (1981), 2--21
'Epilogue/Prologue: Criticism and Analysis', MAn, i (1982), 9--31
with M. Cosman: Stravinsky Seen and Heard (London, 1982)
'Goethe and the Lied', Goethe Revisited: a Collection of Essays, ed. E.M. Wilkinson (London, 1984), 73--84
'The Musician as Librettist', Opera, xxxv (1984), 1095--9
'Personal Recollections: Oskar Adler's and My Own', in H. Truscott: The Music Forum of Franz Schmidt, i: The Orchestral Music (London, 1984), 7--17
'Whose Authenticity?', EMc, xii (1984), 517--19
'Functional Analysis of Mozart's G minor Quintet', MAn, iv (1985), 73--94
The Great Haydn Quartets: Their Interpretation (London, 1986)
Criticism (London, 1987)
C. Wintle, ed.: Essays on Music (Cambridge, 1994)
C. Wintle, ed.: Three Psychoanalytic Notes on Peter Grimes (1946) (London, 1995)
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Wintle, ed.: 'Hans Keller (1919--1985): a Memorial Symposium', MAn, v (1986), 341--440 [incl. list of pubns, 407--40]
A. Garnham: Hans Keller and the BBC (diss., U. of London, in progress)
 

CHRISTOPHER WINTLE