Graham Melville-mason
Expert on Czech classical music who maintained links with Czech musicians through difficult times
GRAHAM MELVILLE-MASON, who has died aged 85, was an authority on Czech classical music and played a crucial role in maintaining musical links between Britain and Czechoslovakia both before the Velvet Revolution and immediately afterwards.
Self-taught in the Czech language, he was an essential link for orchestras visiting Prague and for Czech musicians visiting Britain. His home in north London, where he relaxed by doing the ironing, became a centre for Czech musical activity: Czech music students would be offered accommodation, while visiting musicians would be toasted at jovial dinner parties.
In 1975, while working at Edinburgh University, Melville-mason used a sabbatical year funded by a Winston Churchill fellowship to visit archives in Prague and Bratislava. Most of the early material was in German, but the later records were mostly in Czech.
Fortunately, in 1979 he joined the BBC as music bookings manager and moved to London, where Karel Jaromicky, former head of the Czech section of the BBC World Service, was a neighbour and would invite Melville-mason on dog walks.
He spent 10 years with the BBC. “I had three colleagues on the music desk interested in Czech and Slovak music and so I had no trouble getting Czech music on the air,” he said.
Early retirement in 1989 coincided with the Velvet Revolution. His enthusiasm for Czech music was in demand as the country’s musicians and promoters sought to learn western ways of doing business and British festivals wanted a slice of the action. The Edinburgh Festival, where he had been honorary concerts manager, made him responsible for a focus on the centenary of Martinu’s birth in 1990 and the following year’s celebration of Dvorák’s 150th anniversary.
Graham Melville Mason (he added the hyphen later) was born at Newport, Monmouthshire, on March 4 1933, the only child of Harold, a metallurgist, and his wife Doris (née Jenkins) a schoolteacher. He took piano lessons but traced his interest in Czech music to his grandfather, whose record collection included two recordings of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances.
He read Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he learnt the bassoon. His National Service was spent on submarines with the Royal Naval Reserve, but he was commissioned, remained in the Navy and was sent to Suez – although the closest he came to action was when his medical studies were considered qualification enough to remove a tooth from a sailor.
He returned to Edinburgh as an oceanographer, but later transferred to the university’s forestry department. Meanwhile, he was helping to run the New Town Concerts Society, broadcasting with the BBC and helping at the Festival.
He also became involved with the university music department, establishing a collection of historical instruments. Around the same time he discovered a score for Dvorák’s Serenade for Wind Instruments in D minor. “I thought it would be a very good piece for my wind instrument ensemble,” he told Czech Music magazine. Soon he was uncovering other Czech wind pieces.
From 1987 he was president of the Dvorák Society in Britain and later the only non-czech member of the artistic board of the Prague Spring Festival. He wrote programme notes for recordings of Czech music, championed the conducting legacy of Thomas Beecham and wrote obituaries of Czech musicians.
Melville-mason, who moved to Northumberland in 2006, was a great lover of the Highlands and Islands and in his younger days enjoyed Scottish country dancing. Although not a big drinker he never lost his taste for whisky, collecting different varieties.
Graham Melville-mason’s first marriage to Patricia Cowan was dissolved, and in 1981 he married Alex Murray-scott (née Mcmullan), who survives him with two daughters from his first marriage and two stepdaughters.
Graham Melville-mason, born March 4 1933, died February 2 2019