The Frank Merrick
Archive at Bristol
University
An Introduction by
David Hackbridge Johnson
A chance purchase of 2
LPs led to my visiting the Special Collection department at Bristol University
Library to view a new deposit of scores, letters and memorabilia relating to
this Clifton
born composer/pianist. I bought the LPs
on the strength of my having heard Merrick
mentioned by two composer/pianist friends: Michael Garrett and Ronald
Stevenson. Garratt had been a Merrick student in the early 1960s whilst Stevenson got
to know him in the early 1970s. Upon
seeing the two LPs I eagerly seized upon the chance to listen to Merrick’s music for the first time. Two piano concertos are on the LPs as is the
slow movement of a piano sonata.
After being so impressed
by the music I found what few biographical details exist on Merrick. He was born in Clifton in 1886. He studied with Leschetitsky and taught in Manchester and later at
the Royal College of Music During World
War One he was imprisoned for his beliefs.
He later had a distinguished teaching and performing career. He won a competition to complete Schubert’s
Unfinished Symphony. His book
‘Practising the Piano’ was published in 1960.
He died in 1981.
After making contact
with Stephen Banfield and Hannah
Lowery at Bristol,
I made a visit to the archive on 20th October 2008. What follows is a brief outline of what the
archive contains thus providing an overview that should lead to further
research. I looked at many Merrick compositions.
The music has already been sorted to a certain extent, but Merrick presents problems for the scholar in that he does
not provide opus numbers and at most only half of the works at Bristol are dated. A chronological worklist is therefore someway
off. I was obviously keen to find scores
of the piano concertos and the piano sonata; the works on the Merrick LPs. They are not at Bristol (the piano sonata at Bristol is clearly a work other than that
which Merrick recorded) so more searching will
have to be done to locate these and perhaps other works. Tantalisingly there is a 2 piano version of 3
movements of a Symphony in D minor, but the full score is not in the
archive.
Despite these missing
works there are many riches. I examined
over 20 songs set to Esperanto texts. Merrick was a keen student of this synthetic
language. There are many songs for voice
and piano as well as several for ‘a cappella’ choir. Some of the latter were clearly written for
Esperanto events. Perhaps the most
significant Esperanto work is the cycle ‘La Kvar Sezonoj’ (The Four
Seasons). That Merrick
thought highly of it himself is hinted at by the fact that he made 3 versions
of the work: for voice and orchestra; voice, clarinet, piano and strings; and
voice and piano. All 3 versions are in
the archive.
Chamber groups may one
day relish the challenge of playing 2 important scores by Merrick:
Piano Quartet in G minor and Piano Trio in F# minor. The latter work is represented in the archive
by 2 exquisitely written copies – the days of photocopying were some years off. Like a number of scores these copies have the
composer’s address on the front enabling a picture to emerge about the his
movements. This information might prove
useful in dating undated works. Many
other chamber works exist including an important sounding Sonata for Cello and
Piano.
In addition to the
music (of which the above is but a taste) there are a large amount of concert
programmes, photographs and hundreds of letters. I found many striking photos of the composer
including some fine studio portraits. His
concert programmes show the breadth of his repertoire; many concerts seem to be
modelled on Anton Rubinstein’s historical concerts of the late 1800s. Works by the Tudor keyboard masters lead to a
classical group, followed by Chopin or Liszt, then Debussy, Bax or Ireland to
represent the modern school. Of the
letters only a cursory glance could be made in the time I had, but by chance I
came across a letter in German from Glazunov to Merrick. There is also a large amount of material
relating to Merrick’s first wife, fellow composer Hope Squire. Her charming Edwardian ballads are here and,
most intriguingly, an atonal pastiche that Merrick
describes in a marginalia as being Schoenbergian.
The most startling find
of all however relates to Merrick’s First
World War experiences. In an unassuming
little box I found a whole series of letters, trial transcripts and documents
that reveal the saga of Merrick’s military
life in detail. From these it can be
deduced that upon being called up he did not refuse as a conscientious objector
straight away, but when ordered to remove his civilian clothing in order to don
the uniform of the Lancashire Fusiliers, he refused. He was subsequently arrested and arraigned
before a military court. This resulted
in court martial and imprisonment at Wormwood Scrubs and Wandsworth
Prison. Many documents relate to an
appeal process that was pursued on the grounds that Merrick
would not fight on moral grounds. The
appeal was refused and he remained in prison.
Hope Squire-Merrick’s letters to the prison authorities include
impassioned protests against the fact that her husband’s wedding ring was
forcibly removed from his finger. There
is also a polite note from the prison chaplain that lists the extent of the
vegetarian diet the prison was able to provide for Merrick. At one point in the drama it is clear that Merrick’s behaviour fell short of the required level that
would allow him to receive letters. However
he was allowed manuscript paper since there is a booklet containing works
written in prison. In addition, on the
back of a short sketch in D minor, there is a letter head for the United
Suffragists, Manchester Branch. Merrick is listed as Hon. Treasurer for the branch. Merrick was
finally released from prison in mid-1919; this would seem to be a date chosen
to coincide with general demobilization.
The archive at Bristol clearly
represents a vital store of material that illuminates Merrick
both professionally and personally. I look
forward to more research into this neglected musician.