To Gallipoli and the Somme: F. S Kelly; War hero, Olympic champion and Pianist Composer

It was a performance unique in the history of music.In mid-September 1916 soldiers of a battalion brass band walked into position just a 100 yards in front of a 4.5-inch British howitzer battery.They adjusted their music, raised their instruments and at the downbeat of their conductor, launched into the 1812 Overture with the heavy artillery supplying the cannon fire of the famous finale while firing like hell at the enemy.The band belonged to the Hood Battalion. The defiant conductor - Frederick Septimus Kelly - is the subject of this, his first full biography.'Kelly was born in Sydney but educated at Eton and Oxford.Though he was already well known as a pianist and composer in London circles it was in 1911, when he turned thirty, that he made his public debut as a pianist in Sydney, returning to London to turn professional a year later.Kelly inherited wealth; his father was a mining magnate.He knew all the right people and had access to power and influence.He was the life and soul of