[2] Described as a "child prodigy",[3] In 1934 Keys became the youngest Fellow of the Royal College of Organists while at school at Christ's Hospital; having already earned an ARCO diploma in 1933.
Promotion to a readership followed in 1950,[2] and when the university created the Hamilton Harty Professorship of Music, Keys became the first holder[3] in 1951.
[4] In an obituary in The Independent, Basil Deane wrote that "the bare outline of Key's university career gives little idea of his influence on the musical life of Britain as a whole.
But he chose a different career ... his unquenchable thirst for knowledge and his compulsive need to share his enthusiasm drew him inevitably into scholarship and teaching at the highest levels.
[3] His other compositions included a Magnificat and a Nunc Dimittis; in his entry in Who's Who, he also listed a sonata for the cello and the piano; his completion of Franz Schubert’s Gretchens Bitte; Prayer for Pentecostal Fire; and The Road to the Stable.