Composer and educator

Born: January 30, 1922;

Died: November 12, 2016

DAVID Stone, who has died aged 94, was for 12 years director of music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow, now the Royal Scottish Conservatoire. A gifted classical musician, composer and conductor, he became best-known as a music educator, writing string quartets and other short pieces for schoolchildren and young amateur orchestras – now performed all over the world.

A pianist and violinist himself, Mr Stone decided early in his career that teaching music to children and young people – so that they would play it rather than just listen to it – was his vocation. He began writing works specially for them, including string quartets, wind band, brass band, choral and chamber music. At that time, he could have had no inclination that his works, first written in the post-war years, would still be played today by schoolchildren, young people's quartets and youth orchestras in countless countries where the musicians speak many different languages but are unified in the language of music.

Perhaps his most famous works are his four Miniature String Quartets (Numbers 1-4), which you may still hear played to this day by enthusiastic schoolchildren or young orchestras from Jerusalem to Japan. The three-movement quartets have been described as "fragrant, redolent of the English countryside, the first String quartets of at least two generations of string players."

A leading British music educator, Mary Cohen, who plays violin, viola, piano and cello, was one of Mr Stone's greatest admirers and became his friend. Following in his footsteps, she founded String Quartets From Scratch (SQFS), creating chamber music for children and young people from seven to 18-years-old.

"A few years ago, I began a correspondence with David Stone," she said. " This was a source of delight to my pupils, who adore David's (intermediate) Miniature String Quartets One and Two, and regard him as ‘up there with the greats'. It is not unusual for the older ones, having battled their way through Beethoven or Shostakovich, to look at the clock and say, 'Ten minutes left - just time for a David Stone!' And Stone quartets are always top favourites for GCSE recordings too."

Mr Stone's larger enterprises include Concerto Grosso, Greensleeves (English folk songs for orchestra) and Sinfonietta (for orchestra and brass band). For choirs, he wrote and conducted works including 3 Christmas Carols, Dance to your Daddy and Whistling Girls. Apart from his four globally-known Miniature Quarters, Mr Stone wrote chamber music including Sonata Romantica for viola and piano and Triolets for two violins and cello.

David Elphinstone Stone was born on January 30, 1922, in Hampstead, London, the only child of William Edwin Elphinstone Stone, a civil servant and clerk to the Court of Criminal Appeal in London who had served during the Great War, and Ellaline (née Middleton), a dancer. When David was 12, he was hailed as a hero by the Daily Express after he saved several neighbours from a house fire in Hampstead. Smelling smoke at four am, he alerted the fire brigade but also helped get residents out. One woman died.

He attended York House (preparatory) School in Hertfordshire and University College School in Hampstead before studying violin and piano at the Royal Academy of Music on the edge of Regent's Park, where he won several music prizes and medals. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, when he served in London during the Blitz as an ARP (air raid precaution) warden at night, ensuring the blackout was enforced. Called up in 1942 with the service number 302394, he was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Signals and took part in the 1944 D-Day landings. After the war, he completed his degree, Bachelor of Music from the University of London. In 1947, he became a lecturer in music at the famous Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey, where oddly he first got a taste of Scotland. The school has a traditional Scottish Dancing Society and pupils wear kilts and play bagpipes on St Andrew's Day and on Leaving Day.

At Charterhouse, Mr Stone developed a fledgling school orchestra and first realized that budding musicians – all but the rarest of prodigies – often lost heart through the difficulty of the great classical works and a dearth of educational works and scores. He decided they needed simpler works to give them confidence and progress to the best of their abilities. He began to compose his own works for them and would continue to do so for the rest of his life. He also "tweaked" several classic pieces so that youngsters could more readily play them, thereby boosting their confidence.

In 1956, he joined the BBC radio Home Service (now BBC Radio 4) in London, eventually becoming senior producer of chamber music and recital broadcasts. It was in 1969 that he was hired as director of the music department a the RSAMD in Glasgow, where he would remain until retiring in 1981, when he was just short of 60 years old. On March 16, 1979, Mr Stone received a rave review in the Glasgow Herald for conducting his RSAMD students through Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms at Paisley Abbey.

"Dad was notably self-disciplined and spent most of his waking hours being productive," his daughter Lucy told The Herald. "He was very frugal and un-showy."

David Stone held the titles Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music (FRAM) and Fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (FRSAMD). He died of pneumonia in Witney Community Hospital, Oxfordshire. He is survived by his wife Margaret (also aged 94), daughter Lucy and grandchildren David, Daniel and Catriona.

PHIL DAVISON