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Wilfrid Howard Mellers (26 April 1914 – 17 May 2008) was an English music critic, musicologist and composer.
In 1945 Mellers was appointed to teach English and music at Downing College, and from 1948 until 1964 he became extramural tutor in music at Birmingham University. While there he established a series of music summer schools for adults at Attingham Park in Shropshire, attracting prominent international composers, performers and scholars to help.Aston, Peter. 'Wilfrid Mellers: A 70th-Birthday Tribute', in The Musical Times, Vol. 125, No. 1697 (July 1984), pp. 373-374 From 1960 for two years he lived and worked in America as Andrew Mellon visiting professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh.
From 1964 until 1981 he was founding professor and head of the Music Department at the University of York; he remained emeritus professor of music there until his death. In contrast to most university music departments at the time which were dominated by musicology, Mellers focused the courses on performance leading towards composition and staffed his department with young composers, including Peter Aston, David Blake, Bernard Rands, and Robert Sherlaw Johnson. John Paynter joined a little later.
He was also an honorary fellow at Downing College, Cambridge. On 12 July 1981, he received an honorary degree of music from the City University, London.
Following a divorce from Vera, Mellers married the singer Peggy Pauline Lewis in 1950. They divorced in 1976. He married for a third time in 1987 to Robin Stephanie Hildyard. There were four daughters. He died in 2008 aged 94 of heart disease at his home, The Granary, Plaster Pitts Farm, Scrayingham, near Malton, in Yorkshire.
At some risk of being accused of "trendiness" Mellers also began writing about popular music, including the Beatles and Bob Dylan. In Caliban Reborn (1967), he argues: "Developments in pop music cannot be isolated from what is happening in 'serious' music, and the West's veering towards the East and the primitive can be understood only as complementary to the East's need of the West". The passages on the Beatles were later expanded into a longer study, Twilight of the Gods (1973), drawing criticism from both his academic colleagues and from the pop world, which regarded it as "professional interference". Peter Dickinson has pointed out that Mellers "anticipated the pluralism and multi-culturalism of the twenty-first century rather than the inherited distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow".
Preoccupations such as music as a language ("the most probing we have") and the relationship between modern complexity and "Edenic" innocence became evident.Obituary, The Times, 20 May 2008, p. 53 His later books Bach and the Dance of God (1981), Beethoven and the Voice of God and Vaughan Williams and the Voice of Albion (1989) proceeded from visionary social and philosophical bases, "spiritual if not specifically religious", commented The Times. Between Old Worlds and New (1997) collects his occasional writings and includes a list of compositions.Mellers, Wilfrid. Between Old Worlds and New (1997) His final book, Celestial Music (2002) was a study of religious masterpieces.
Poetry and drama are often central. Rose of May: A Threnody for Ophelia, scored for speaker, soprano, flute, clarinet and string quartet, is based on the scene from Hamlet. It was commissioned by the Cheltenham Festival in 1964, where it was performed by Diana Rigg, April Cantelo and the Wigmore Ensemble". His two surviving operas, including The Tragicall History of Christopher Marlowe (1950–52), were withdrawn after workshop performances and remain unpublished.
Jazz, folk and indigenous music, as a representation of the social forces of music, is another common thread. Yeibichai, premiered at the BBC Proms in 1969, BBC Proms performance archive, 7 August, 1969 combines a jazz trio with scat singer, chorus, coloratura soprano, orchestra and electronic devices. Life Cycle (1970) for orchestra and youth choir uses free improvisation applied to Eskimo melodies. It was recorded by the University of York Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Peter Aston. Philips 6589 001 (Discogs) Shaman Songs (1980) is scored for flutes doubling saxophones, keyboards, electric bass and percussion and was written for Barbara Thompson and her Jazz Paraphernalia.Paynter, John. 'Renewal and Revelation: Wilfrid Mellers at York', in Popular Music, Vol. 13, No. 2 (May, 1994), pp. 201-204
The virtuosic and extensive Natalis Invicti Solis (1969) for solo piano uses corn dances of the Tewa of New Mexico for some of its material. Natalis Invicti Solis, Google Books Opus Alchymicum (1969) for organ, his second large-scale keyboard work, uses the principles of alchemical studies interpreted by Carl Jung as a starting point for musical processes. It has been recorded by Kevin Bowyer. Contemporary Music for Organ, Kevin Bowyer, Nimbus 5580 (1999) Another notable large scale piece is Sun-flower: The Divine Tetrad of William Blake (1972-3) for solo voices and orchestra, described by Roger Carpenter as his magnum opus.
The 2004 York Late Music Festival opened with a weekend tribute to Mellers. A 90th-birthday tribute concert was held in October 2004 at Downing College, featuring music by Mellers as well as new pieces written for the occasion by Stephen Dodgson, David Matthews and Howard Skempton, among others.
Campion Records issued recordings of music written both by and for Wilfrid Mellers in 2006. They include The Echoing Green (three Blake settings for soprano and recorder), A Blue Epiphany for J.B. Smith for solo guitar, and A Fount of Fair Dances for recorder and string orchestra. Carpenter, Roger. Review of Grains of Sand (2006) The 1949 Sonata for viola and piano has been recorded by Sarah-Jane Bradley and
John Lenehan. 'English Music for Viola and Piano', Dutton Epoch CDLX7390 (2021), reviewed at MusicWeb International
Writing
In his writings, Mellers continuously combined his interest in music with literature, philosophy and social history. His early publications include Music and Society (1946) and François Couperin and the French Classical Tradition (1950), the first major study of Couperin. Visiting America in the early 1960s he developed a lasting interest in the music of Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, Marc Blitzstein and others. Out of that period came the book Music in a New Found Land (1964).
Music
As a composer, Mellers completed several operas (he destroyed some others), works for chamber ensembles, two large-scale compositions for keyboard instruments and many songs and choral works, including settings of William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Kathleen Raine and many American poets. Rumson, Gordon. 'Power and Grandeur', from Music and Vision, 1999 His early works show the influence of Tudor and Baroque forms, using a chromatic and often polyphonic musical style. His visits to America exposed his music to influences well beyond the European tradition.
Bibliography
Selected works
External links
Categories: 1914 Births, 2008 Deaths, 20th-century English Classical Composers, 20th-century English Male Composers, British Classical Music Critics, Composers Of The University Of York, Alumni Of Downing College, Cambridge, British Music Educators, Musicians From Leamington Spa, Officers Of The Order Of The British Empire, Academics Of The University Of Birmingham, English Male Classical Composers, 20th-century English Musicologists
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