Thanks for this link, Scott - I too have read (and still own a copy of)
Music in a New-Found Land, and was also very fortunate to be working briefly
in York when Mellers had joined the music dept there (tho' in medicine not
music...) & vividly remember at the opening of the university's new Lyons
concert hall (must have been 1967/8) how Mellers put on GWBIH & Psalm 90 as
part of the inaugural concert. By coincidence I recently mentioned this
experience to Andrew Davis when I had a little chat with him before the
Barbican concert a coupla weekends ago (GWBEIH again) - wonderful man,
Mellers, and with such an early (and then rather infra-dig) broad interest
in music from all traditions. Tony

-------Original Message-------

From: Scott Mortensen
Date: 05/23/08 18:18:19
To: charlesives@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [charlesives] RIP - Wilfrid Mellers

I'm not sure how many of you have read "Music in a New Found Land." I
did many years ago, when I was first discovering Ives' music. The book
was first published in the mid-Sixties, and his commentary on Ives was
both prescient (in the sense that it preceded the "Ives Boom" of the
Seventies) and insightful.

Like Ives, Mellers didn't limit his musical interests to the so-
called "high" arts. He wrote about jazz, rock and other genres too. I
like that about his writing and his approach to musicology.

Sad to hear of his passing.

Here's a link to Mellers' NY Times obit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/arts/music/23mellers.html?
_r=1&ref=music&oref=slogin





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