Wilfrid Mellers

Wilfrid Howard Mellers (26 April 1914 – 17 May 2008) was an English music critic, musicologist and composer. Early life Born in Leamington, Warwickshire, Mellers was educated at the local Leamington College and later won a scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge, where he read English under F. R. Leavis. He later lodged with the Leavises for three years while pursuing a Music degree. Mellers also took private composition lessons in Oxford from Egon Wellesz and Edmund Rubbra. From 1938 he taught at Dartington Hall, and in September 1940 he married Vera Muriel Hobbs. He spent the Second World War working on the land as a conscientious objector. Career After writing many articles for Leavis’s journal Scrutiny since the September 1936 issue, he appeared on the editorial board of the January 1942 issue, and continued in that position until the December 1948 issue. Mellers also wrote regularly as a critic and reviewer for New Statesman, The Listener, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement and The Musical Times. From 1960 for two years he lived and worked in America as Andrew Mellon visiting professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh. His later books Bach and the Dance