So, who ARE Clifton Edition?
Clifton Edition was formed to rescue the best titles previously published by Spartan Press following that company’s sad demise in March 2023. Hundreds of composers and arrangers where left ‘orphaned’ when the government saw fit to dissolve the hapless Spartan Press. With it, potentially, would go hundreds of successful copyrights originally published by Spartan Press, Phylloscopus Publications, European Music Archive and Jot-a-Note. What a shame!
Going back a few years…
Sat on a park bench on holiday one summer, my loving wife came out with this: “What d’you want to happen to Spartan Press when you snuff it”? The two of us met at the RAM, taught music in Oxford for a decade before founding Spartan Press back in 1989, which gradually evolved over 30 years into a thriving multi-faceted organisation that published, distributed, typeset and printed educational music from a grand shooting lodge in the Highlands of Scotland. Here, we brought up our three children and also ran the legendary specialist string retailers ‘Fuller Music’ which Spartan purchased from Mark Dicken on his retirement.
“Has it been an efficient way to feed your family but will die when you do, or do you want it to live on and continue to grow, like say a mini Oxford University Press”? Pat’s questions were pertinent and searching and I thought about it seriously. If the company is to blossom long after we are dead and gone, big things needed to happen soon, and in the right order.
- We had to relocate the company into a sensible business premises, separate from our burgeoning family
- We had to find a serious buyer for the company
- We had to sell the rambling old shooting lodge which would then be mostly empty.
- We had to retire properly!
All these things were eventually achieved over a period of a few years. We were lucky to find an 8,000 sq.ft industrial unit for sale, down the road in Kingussie. We managed to sell “Strathmashie House” to a lovely family who ran ‘Daffy’s Gin’: a family run distillery business — the locals loved them! We retired to the centre of Glasgow by way of an antidote to living in the Cairngorm mountains — [civilisation at last!]. Then we migrated even further south to Clifton in Bristol.
All was well… until the phone started going…
“I know you’re nothing to do with it these days Mark, but what’s happing at Spartan? They’re not returning my calls”. These sorts of calls became increasingly regular and progressively more alarming in nature throughout 2022.
Witnessing the gradual decline and final demise of one’s life’s work was painful to witness. The reasons why… that’s another, longer (and rather boring) article for another day. Despite being supposedly retired, on a hunch Pat and I found ourselves at the Music and Drama Education Expo in Islington last year. Always a good place to air one’s thoughts and compare notes about the music profession. I’m so glad we made the effort, because it was there that we experienced a kind of “Epiphany”… a sort of “business vision” if you will. Virtually every one we spoke to said the same thing: “Mark — you need to start from scratch. Sign up all those talented composers once again, rescue all those copyrights and rise from the ashes like a musical Pheonix…”! This is not what we’d planned for our retirement of course, but we simply couldn’t resist.
We have since been humbled by overwhelming support from a wide range of music industry stalwarts who have made the whole process possible; music teachers, performers, dealers, publishers and distributors alike. Nearly all the composers and arrangers from the old Spartan empire who I telephoned said “Yes, I’ll reassign my copyrights to Clifton Edition.. let’s GO!” Household names like Alan Bullard, Mark Tanner, Bryan Kelly, Julian Lloyd Webber, Paul Harris and many others signed up promptly and many more followed. The wonderful Stainer and Bell were quick to offer worldwide distribution — they’ve been brilliant to work with. The various exam boards were totally supportive. The MPA provided ISMN numbers and barcodes. Specialist music printers Caligraving offered valuable advice to restart from scratch. We had to re-typeset all the music and took the opportunity to develop a fresh looking ‘Clifton House Style’. We’ve benefitted from generous offers of help with typesetting and proofing chores.
All the covers have been completely redesigned and all in all, we feel that each new edition is a positive improvement over the original.
This website presents the growing catalogue as it unfolds.
Rome wasn’t built in a day and it’ll take some time (and continued pillaging from our pension fund), but we feel exited to be “back in the game” again after our five year “hoax retirement”. We’re enjoying every minute.