Peter Hulme Cross

I knew Mr Sprinck during the years I was at Merchiston Castle School (1958 to ’62) – where he was Senior Music Master.

He always played the organ at Sunday Service in the Assembly Hall which all boys had to attend, dressed in kilts.  After Service one day I went up to him and asked if he would continue playing, which he did, and this became a regular event every Sunday for about half an hour when the Service was over. He loved playing the Organ, and I loved listening to what he played which was a very wide range of music.

We also had an arrangement where we would meet in his study on a Thursday after ‘Tea’ and before ‘Prep’ for about half an hour to forty five minutes.  His study was in the corner of the Study Block , Ground Floor on the Rogerson House side. He would play the piano while I just listened – again an incredible range of music, all of it remembered. Very rarely did he read music while playing.

This continued pretty much all the time I was at Merchiston from the first time I asked him, and I wasn’t even learning to play the piano or anything else, this was just for appreciation of the music – he loved to play and I loved to listen.  In fact I did learn quite a lot;  probably all the music I know ‘by heart’ dates from that time.

He used to accompany the School Choir of course and when any singing had to be done by the whole school, as at the end of term concert.  Iain Robertson who was the (rather flamboyant) Choir Master used to say he (Donald Sprinck) was “a genius at transposition”.