Wilfrid Mellers

The English music critic, musicologist, composer and M&V contributor Wilfrid Mellers was born on 26 April 1914 and died in North Yorkshire, UK, on 17 May 2008, aged 94.

Mellers was educated at Cambridge University, where he read English, and then music. Composition, however, he learned mostly from Edmund Rubbra and Egon Wellesz.

After World War II he taught at the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham, and in the early sixties at Pittsburgh University. From 1964 until his retirement in 1981 he was founding Professor and head of the Music Department at the University of York, where he influenced several generations of British-trained musicians.

His composition mostly fuses the genres of 'classical', folk, jazz, and even pop musics. He published many books, including major studies of Couperin, J S Bach and Beethoven and others, together with an extensive corpus of journal articles.

WILFRID MELLERS AT M&V

M&V articles about Wilfrid Mellers

Music & Vision articles by Wilfrid Mellers

The rough and the smooth

15. Magic and Innocence. A double bill at Opera North. 'This production, given its musical values, must on no account be missed.'

A wizard at the keyboard. 'Hamelin ... may perhaps come closest to the necromatic dazzle that the composer's own playing was said to display.' Marc-André Hamelin plays Alkan

Mimi's Fate. Opera North's 'La Bohème'. '... alarming topicality and truth.'

Civilisation and the Savage State. Janácek's 'Vixen' at Opera North. Concluded from Saturday.

Civilisation and the Savage State. Janácek's 'Vixen' at Opera North. Continued from Thursday.

Civilisation and the Savage State. Janácek's 'Vixen' at Opera North. '... Annabelle Arden's magically imaginative production ...'

Touching Touch-pieces. Bach's Seven Toccatas for Harpsichord (continued from yesterday)

Touching Touch-pieces. 'We are grateful to the player for her skill and sensitivity ...' Bach's Seven Toccatas for Harpsichord

Time and Truth. A new recording of a Handel oratorio (concluded from yesterday)

Time and Truth. 'The conductor, Rinaldo Alessandrini, handles the band with fierily precise discipline ...' A new recording of a Handel oratorio

Celestial Voices. An early songbook on CD

A Double Man's Last Harvest. Vaughan Williams' Symphonies 8 and 9

Private passion and public hauteur. Reporting on Opera North's current production of 'Eugene Onegin'

Resuscitation. 'This tragic music, superbly sung by Dorothea Röschmann, pierces to the heart's core ...' Enthusing over an event in recorded opera (concluded from last week)

Resuscitation. 'This tragic music, superbly sung by Dorothea Röschmann, pierces to the heart's core ...' Enthusing over an event in recorded opera

The Tyrant as Hero. Wilfrid Mellers, reflecting on a Handel opera (concluded from last week)

The Tyrant as Hero. Wilfrid Mellers, reflecting on a Handel opera

The tragic dimension. Debussy's 'Pelléas et Mélisande' as in Opera North's current production

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