Bluebell Klean: Composer, Concert Pianist [and Angler?]

Recently, whilst browsing the 1906 volume of The Musical Times in the Royal College of Music Library, I came across the name Bluebell Klean in connection with a Piano Quintet. Her name is but a small glimmer of light in the great mass of the history of British and European music. Certainly there is no society dedicated to the performance of her works or the keeping alive of her memory. There is no entry in Grove. I cannot find a photograph. Here and there I have found a few references but no substantial information. I have even checked the 1901 census records and have found no trace of her. For all one knows her name may be a pseudonym. I present here all that I have been able to find in the Musical Press and the Newspapers.

“Miss Bluebell Klean, a native of London, who gave her first chamber concert on 13 November [1906] at the Bechstein Hall, claims special attention, as the programme consisted almost entirely of her own compositions. The most important of these was a Quintet in C minor for pianoforte and strings, which proved a pleasing and genial work based on melodious themes, which are tersely and clearly developed with admirable perception of effectiveness and contrast. Six songs from the same pen, and some short and bright pianoforte pieces, show considerable originality in their harmonic scheme and avoidance of conventionality, while the songs, severally named Open the door, Come to me and The Water-Sprite, should find publishers. They were charmingly sung by Miss Esther Palliser, and the pianoforte pieces were expressively played by Miss Johanna Heymann. The Quintet was excellently rendered by the Hans Wessely Quartet with the composer at the pianoforte”.
The Musical Times 1 December 1906

Some eight years later, The Musical Times reported a concert held at the Bechstein Hall on 15th June 1914. Klean’s Piano Quintet was performed along with a selection of her songs performed by Miss Ada Crossley and Miss Xena Beaver.

The report of this concert was elaborated by Marion Scott and Katharine Eggar writing in The Music Student:-
"A Quintet for the usual allotment of strings and piano, and of more than usual merit, is that by Bluebell Klean. This work has already been heard several times in London, and is both vigorous and agreeable. The first movement opens in virile manner, and its themes are handled with great freedom of style. The second movement, Air Varié, is slightly ‘ordi­nary’ in its conception, but the extremely vivacious Scherzo is a brilliant movement, very well laid out for all the instruments. The Finale, though of very good ‘finalé’ character at its start, suffers a little from diffuseness, .and from disconnectedness in its very relationships; but the whole quintet is spontaneous, thoroughly musical, and, again to use that unsatisfactory word, most "effective."
The Music Student Chamber Music Supplement July 1914 p.97 [with minor edits]

The Observer newspaper also picked up on this concert and a short review stated that “In offering her compositions for criticism Miss Bluebell Klean at her concert in the Bechstein Hall on Monday evening obviously claimed only the consideration that is necessary to a refined type of drawing-room music. The composer has heard much music of a similar kind, had an assimilative disposition, and is capable of reproducing her acquisitions in an emulative spirit that permits an occasional fresh look on her material”.
June 21 1914 Observer

I found a reference to a concert given on 13 December 1917 at Bournemouth under the baton of Sir Dan Godfrey. The concert included the Prospero Overture by Frederick Corder and the Mendelssohn’s ‘Scotch’ Symphony. But the novelty was Bluebell Klean’s Pianoforte Concerto in E minor. This work was ‘very capably played by the composer and proved to be a work of merit’.

However, one of the strangest notices I found was also in The Observer newspaper. A report on the Hastings Angling Festival noted that a certain Miss Bluebell Klean took the greatest number of sizeable fish. This was out of a field of 300 competitors, including a ‘number’ of women. I wonder if it is the same lady? [October 5 1924 The Observer ]

Unfortunately there appears to be only two published works-
A Fancy from Fontenelle words by A. Dobson, (London : Weekes & Co), 1907
Humoresque for the Pianoforte (London : Weekes & Co), 1907