Hans Keller

Hans Keller (1919-1985) was a musician and writer who made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, and invented the method of 'Wordless Functional Analysis' (in which a work is analysed in musical sound alone, without any words being heard or read).

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Keller was born into a well-to-do and culturally well-connected family in Vienna, and as a boy was taught by the same Oskar Adler who had, decades earlier, been Arnold Schoenberg's boyhood friend and first teacher. He also came to know the composer and performer Franz Schmidt. In 1938 the Anschluss forced him to flee to London (where he had relatives), and in the years that followed he became a prominent and influential figure in the UK's musical and music-critical life. Initially active as a violinist and viola-player, he soon found his niche as a highly prolific and provocative writer on music as well as an influential teacher, lecturer, broadcaster and coach.

Related Topics:
Vienna - Oskar Adler - Arnold Schoenberg - Franz Schmidt - Anschluss

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An original thinker never afraid of controversy, Keller's passionate support of composers whose work he saw as under-valued or insufficiently understood made him a tireless advocate of Britten and Schoenberg as well as an illuminating analyst of figures such as Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Much of this advocacy was carried out from within the BBC, where he came to hold several senior positions.

Related Topics:
Britten - Schoenberg - Mozart - Haydn - Beethoven - Mendelssohn - BBC

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Keller's gift for systematic thinking, allied to his philosophical and psycho-analytic knowledge, bore fruit in the method of 'Wordless Functional Analysis' (abbreviated by the soccer-loving Keller as 'FA', and designed to furnish incontrovertibly audible demonstrations of a masterwork's 'all-embracing background unity'). This method was developed in tandem with a 'Theory of Music' which focuses on the 'meaningful contradiction of expectations'.

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He was married to the artist Milein Cosman, whose drawings illustrated some of his work.

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