June 2002
Talking to Mervyn Cooper	Show Menu

If there ever was a real advocate for the Diocesan Church Music Committee’s course for organists, Mervyn Cooper is one. At the age of 64, he says, it changed his life.

Mervyn grew up in England and in his early years he was a choirboy in Bourton-on-the-Water As a teenager he had learned to piano for two years and subsequently kept up his piano playing. He says that he always found playing the piano to be a great stress-reliever after a day’s work.

He came to Ireland in 1968, and after retiring, some ten years ago, as a company secretary! accountant (“I never liked the work”), he joined the choir in St Paul’s Glenageary. Inspired by Graham Walsh, he then saw the opportunity to further his music. Never having had an organ lesson in his life, he joined up for the Organists’ Course. Graham Walsh was his teacher for his three years, and he travelled to King’s Hospital for his weekly lesson. He did about four hours practice (in two sessions) per week during the course. He says the course was the best course he has ever been on, and the most rewarding, and he is very grateful to Graham, the Music Committee, and to St Paul’s, Glenageary for the use of the excellent organ there. He is most anxious to repay their dedication by using his acquired organ skills to help, wherever possible, in the musical enhancement of church services and the continuation of the musical tradition of the Church of Ireland.

He now plays regularly in Saint Michan’s Church Street on a Wednesday for the lunch time healing service, and he has deputised in several churches in the diocese. But, he says, if he plays a Sunday service somewhere, Graham Walsh’s choir has one man less!
He is to deputise for Graham Walsh in August and has already decided to play the Boëllman Toccata. No mean feat, I pointed out. “Oh it’s not that d(fficult, the pedal part doesn’t travel very much up and down.” He can’t play Bach, with “three lines of music going all over the place!” He does about two hours organ practice per week, but “plays the piano all the time at home”. We got talking about the music of Lefébure-Wély. Many will be familiar with the wonderful flamboyant Sorties in E flat and B flat, but he says there are also a couple of very useful books of simple music for all occasions by the same composer. These he always brings when he goes to play. He very much enjoys playing the background music to the Eucharist and has much suitable music for this.

He has been accumulating music since he started organ playing and now has a library of about 600 voluntaries — all well catalogued in his computer. He spoke about the music of Fletcher, of 1920s vintage (“real show pieces”). He also mentioned the two volumes of “Music of Malcolm Archer”, which he finds very useful. He has some modern organ music, but it is “congregation-friendly stuff, with a tune”. Asked where he gets much of his music, he replied that most of it has come via the Internet (Allegro Music Birmingham is a very good source), and from contacts he has made.

He is a keen enthusiast of trains and of radio-controlled model gliders and flies these in Wicklow. I observed also his addiction to crosswords. We met for our talk in Easons’ Cafe in O’Connell Street. Before that, we hadn’t previously met and I was to find him sitting near the window reading the Irish Times. When I arrived, he had both Simplex and Crossaire almost completed!

His favourite composers, apart from those already mentioned, are Stanley, Dubois, and Bedard.

MYSTERY ORGAN

Mervyn is doing some research on a house organ that was built in Ireland in 1865, and probably — based on valuable information from Derek Verso — by White & Sons. It was most likely installed in a house in this country before being sold, after refurbishment by Conacher, to a Welsh chapel in 1903. It has recently been bought by the English Organ Society and is installed in their premises in Somerset. Is there any historian out there who might know where this organ was between 1865 and 1903 and who definitely was the builder?

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