The Bundestag in Berlin, in the presence of its President, Frau Bärbel Bas, saw the opening today of an important exhibition of Milein Cosman’s portraits.
At the centre of this exhibition are Milein Cosman’s historic drawings of the members of the first postwar government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. These portraits have recently been acquired by the German Government Art Collection and this is their first public showing as a collection.
Read more here
It is with great sadness that the Trust has learned of the death last week of another of our Patrons, the composer and conductor Joseph Horovitz.
Joe first met Milein Cosman at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford during the war, and was a close friend of hers and Hans’s for many decades.
The Adelphi Quartet (YCAT Hans Keller Artist) will be performing Busha El-Turk’s Saffron Dusk, commissioned for them by the Trust, at the Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 15 February.
Their recital also includes Haydn’s String Quartet in C, Op.20 No.2 and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in A minor, Op.13.
Wednesday 2 February at 7:30 pm
Mathematical Institute
Mozart Quartet in D minor K.421
Fanny Mendelssohn Quartet in E flat major
Felix Mendelssohn Quartet in F minor, Op.80
Book tickets here
Wednesday 9 March at 7:30 pm
SJE Arts at St John the Evangelist Church
Mozart Quartet in F K.590
Elgar Quartet in E minor, Op.83
Sibelius Quartet in D minor Op.56 ‘Voces Intimae’
Book tickets here
Milein Cosman lived in Hampstead for over 70 years. In honour of the centenary of her birth, the Hampstead School of Art is showing a special exhibition of her work in a range of different media. The exhibition features drawings, prints, paintings and sculpture, together with some of her sketchbooks, materials and mementos, including the easel made for her by the American artist Robert Indiana.
The exhibition will continue until 21 February 2022. Further details here.
On Thursday 9 December, the Trust marked the close of Milein Cosman’s centenary year with a memorial concert at the Royal College of Music, in which Sini Simonen, David Waterman and Jean-Sélim Abdelmoula gave a wonderful performance of piano trios by Haydn and Brahms, together with the César Franck violin sonata.
The occasion also marked the arrival in the College’s newly refurbished Museum of the final instalment of Milein Cosman’s drawings of musicians – making this the largest institutional collection of her art anywhere in the world.
View the collection online here.
On 26 October the Castalian String Quartet will arrive in Oxford for the first of 15 stays as the university’s Hans Keller String Quartet in Residence. In their opening recital at the Holywell Music Room they will be playing:
Janácek – String Quartet No.1, ‘Kreutzer Sonata’
Ligeti – String Quartet No.1, ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’
Schubert – String Quartet No.15 in G, D.887
Wednesday 27 October at 4 pm
Holywell Music Room, Oxford
Castalian String Quartet
Hans Keller’s Functional Analysis No.7
Haydn String Quartet in D minor Op.76 No.2
Further details here
Saturday 13 November 2021 at 7:45 pm
All Saints Centre, Lewes, BN7 1LE
Musicians of All Saints
Hans Keller’s Functional Analysis No.13
Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G
Further details here.
The Düsseldorf Stadtmuseum saw the opening today of a special exhibition celebrating the centenary both of Milein Cosman and her childhood friend and fellow artist Ilde Schrader.
Milein and Ilde went to school together in Düsseldorf from 1927 until the threat of persecution and war separated them in 1937. Milein came to England and Ilde to Italy, but they were reunited after the war and remained close friends throughout their lives.
The exhibition will continue until 29 November. Further details here.
After undergoing extensive redevelopment, the Royal College of Music Museum reopened today — with a new exhibition of Milein Cosman’s work on permanent display in the Lavery Gallery.
The Royal College of Music holds the largest collection of Milein Cosman’s drawings of musicians, containing over 1,300 individual works. The whole collection has been digitised and can be viewed online here.
Viola player Thomas Kettle has been awarded a second year as the RAM’s Hans Keller Scholar for 2021-22.
This year he will be taking the Academy’s Professional Diploma course in Historical Performance.
For more information about Thomas, see his new website here.
The Trust is delighted to announce its support for an exciting new partnership between the Castalian String Quartet and the Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford.
Read more here.
The Trust is deeply saddened to learn of the death last Saturday of composer Hugh Wood.
Hugh was a close friend of both Hans Keller and Milein Cosman and has been a Patron of the Trust since its foundation.
The winner of the inaugural Milein Cosman Scholarship for Drawing at the Slade School of Fine Art is Hannah Uzor.
Hannah’s art focusses on portraiture and draws deeply on historical research and her love of storytelling, as she explores the complexities of the Black identity and experience: read more here.
The Trust is delighted to announce that from September 2021 it will be supporting the Chamber Fellowships at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, in memory in Hans Keller, who taught at the Guildhall in the 1980s.
The inaugural Hans Keller Chamber Fellows in 2021 will be the Consone Quartet and the Mithras Trio: read more here.
The string quartet was of particular importance to Hans Keller. In 2021 the Trust is embarking on a three-year project in support of string quartets, working with a variety of expert partners.
As part of this, the Trust is delighted to announce a new partnership with the Young Classical Artists Trust to support the Adelphi Quartet: read more here.
The Trust announces with great sadness the death of David Scrase, Cosman Keller Trustee since 2016. David joined us after his retirement from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, where he was for many years Keeper of Paintings, Drawings and Prints and then Assistant Director of Collections, amassing an unsurpassed knowledge of the collections and directing a remarkable period of acquisitions for the museum.
We are grateful for his deep understanding of drawing and profound knowledge of the history and making of art — and to have had the wonderful company of such a generous, charming and witty friend and colleague.
Keller was famous for his illustrated public lectures on music, and this volume publishes for the first time the full text of his celebrated 1973 series on Beethoven’s Op.130.
Keller gave these lectures at the invitation of Alexander Goehr, and they were illustrated live by the Aeolian Quartet and broadcast by the BBC. They were in part a response to Joseph Kerman’s newly published monograph on The Beethoven Quartets, and in part a demonstration of his “two-dimensional theory” of music, which posits a vital tension between “well-defined expectations” and ‘”what the composer does instead”. These lectures have now been transcribed, and appear in print here for the first time: they form Keller’s most substantial examination of a single chamber work. Keller had intended a full-length monograph on the quartet, but never got further than three chapters, of which the second, on “String-quartet Playing”, is included here along with related materials. The book comes with a supplementary volume of music examples, including the entire score of Op. 130, and is illustrated with lively string-quartet drawings by Keller’s wife, Milein Cosman.
Purchase the BookNews of future events, including Milein Cosman’s Centenary in 2021, will be coming shortly.
“This is a detailed and revealing biography, rich in context and background, of one of the great musical thinkers, writers and broadcasters of our time. It casts a penetrating light on the post-war cultural scene and the passionate internal battles of music broadcasting on the BBC. Keller’s many enthusiasms, from Schoenberg and Mendelssohn to Gershwin and the Beatles, shine through his fiercely communicative prose. And all are illuminated by the moving personal integrity of a man who, facing extinction by the Nazis in 1938, swore that if he survived “I’ll never again be in a bad mood, whatever the circumstances of my life or death”. Alison Garnham and Susi Woodhouse have written a vital chapter in the musical history of our times.” (Nicholas Kenyon)
Published to mark the 2019 centenary of Keller’s birth, this is the first full biography of Hans Keller and the first appearance in print of many of his letters. Eight substantial chapters, integrating original documents with their historical context, show the development of Keller’s ideas in response to the people and events that provoked them. It was a vital time for music in Britain, fuelled by unprecedented public investment in the arts and education and the rapid development of recording and broadcasting. Keller was at the centre of all that was happening and his far-sighted analysis of the period is deeply resonant today.
Purchase the Book