A WIDELY respected
violinist and teacher, Clarence Myerscough had a performing
repertoire that ranged from the sublime unaccompanied works of
Johann Sebastian Bach to the gritty realism of Michael Tippett. His
forte lay mainly in chamber music. For many years he tramped around
the club circuit with one pianist or another delivering live music
to towns and cities across the country. At the instigation of the
cellist Dennis Nisbett, Myerscough and his viola-playing brother,
Henry, formed the Fidelio Quartet with Charles Meinardi as second
violin. This ensemble toured extensively and made some of the first
recordings of Tippett's string quartets.
Myerscough was also a man of wide-ranging interests with an
enthusiastic fascination for life. As such, he was possibly unable
to muster the single-minded determination necessary to become a
household name. He was just as happy repairing old instruments or
disappearing on obtuse but entertaining tangents while giving
lessons as he was performing in public.
Born in London, Clarence Myerscough came from a family where
music was the norm, since his father plied the Atlantic entertaining
passengers on the Queen Mary. (Many others in the family were
painters.) Myerscough studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the
Paris Conservatoire, and first came to public attention in 1951 as
the winner of the All England Violin Competition, part of the
Festival of Britain. The following year he took second prize in the
Carl Flesch Competition.
After a concert at the Wigmore Hall in 1957, The Times
told how the nostalgic romanticism of Chausson's Poème "drew
from him a fluent stream of subtly shaded tone". Ten years later,
after he had ended a Purcell Room concert with an account of
Prokofiev's D major Sonata, the critic wrote that "Mr Mysercough had
by this time abandoned his initial restraint, and gave - with
magnificent support from the piano - an exciting, dramatic
performance".
With the Fidelio Quartet Mysercough made several recordings. The
Tippett Quartets (Nos 1 and 3 in 1967; No.2 in 1970) were played
under the composer's supervision, while recordings of Britten's
Quartets were watched over by Peter Pears. As a soloist Myerscough
recorded Alan Hoddinott's Sonata. He was also a regular visitor to
the studios of Radio 3.
However, it was as a teacher that Myerscough left the strongest
impression. He taught for almost 40 years at King's School,
Canterbury, and had been a professor at the Royal Academy of Music
since 1964. His pupils there included such illustrious contemporary
string players as Irvine Arditti and Paul Silverthorne. He was
always careful not to impose his style on his pupils; instead he
sought simply to make them better players. He would think nothing of
interrupting a lesson, particularly if a student had not practised,
to demonstrate a Paganini Caprice.
Myerscough's attention was not limited to adult students. Small
children scratching away on their junior-sized fiddles would be
heard by this gentle pedagogue with just as much concentration.
As the British appetite for ever younger and perhaps more
photogenic classical musicians grew, so Myerscough increasingly
found that demand for his services came from overseas. He regularly
gave classes and concerts in Spain, and three years ago he spent
several weeks teaching in both Beijing and Warsaw. He remained
sought-after by contemporary composers and, in 1976, he was the
soloist in the premiere of Rhapsody on a Poem of Joseph Campbell
by the Irishman John Kinsella, for whom he was also the solo-
ist at several subsequent premieres.
Clarence Myerscough is survived by his wife, Marlese, whom he
married in 1966, and by a son and a daughter, the violinist Nadia
Myerscough.
Clarence Myerscough, violinist, was born on October 27,
1930. He died on October 8 aged 69.
