Neeman to play Kelly’s unfinished Sonata

Edward Neeman at the keyboard. Photo: Peter Hislop

By arts editor HELEN MUSA

Virtuoso pianist Edward ‘Teddy’ Neeman will become part of a move to restore the reputation of one of Australia’s most gifted composers when he performs Frederick Septimus Kelly’s unfinished Sonata in F minor in Canberra next week.

The sonata, the centrepiece of Neeman’s lunchtime recital in the Larry Sitsky Recital Room at the ANU School of Music on August 11, was the last major work Kelly left behind before he was killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, aged just 35.

Best remembered today as an Olympic gold medal winning rower, Kelly was born in Sydney but built an international reputation in Britain as a virtuoso pianist and composer. A close friend of war poet Rupert Brooke, he fought at Gallipoli, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery, before being redeployed to the Western Front. He was killed on November 13, 1916.

Neeman became fascinated by Kelly’s music through Canberra musician and Flowers of Peace director Chris Latham, whose long campaign to revive Kelly’s legacy has included recordings, concerts and the recent documentary Elegy.

Latham persuaded Neeman to learn the sonata for commemorative performances in Canberra and Melbourne marking the 110th anniversary of Kelly’s death.

“It is a great piece and I think it hasn’t yet been done justice,” Neeman says.

He believes the work deserves to be heard alongside the established piano repertoire. While composer and Neeman mentor, Larry Sitsky, wrote of it in his survey of Australian piano music as conventional, in the style of early Chopin or Hummel, Neeman hears something much more ambitious.

“It is far more adventurous than that,” he says, explaining how dense, satisfying and challenging it is for a pianist.

Only two complete movements and part of a third survive from what is believed to have been intended as a four-movement sonata. According to Neeman, Kelly worked feverishly on the manuscript until the day before he left for active service on the Western Front in May 1916.

The Canberra recital is effectively a preview for Latham’s larger commemorative project in November. Neeman and his pianist wife Stephanie will take part by performing the sonata on November 13.

Neeman’s recital, part of a lively ongoing lunchtime series spearheaded by staff at the ANU School of Music will also include works by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Elisabeth von Herzogenberg.

Lunchtime recital, Larry Sitsky Recital Room, ANU School of Music, August 11.

First published at Canberra City News, August 5, 2026.