Williams, Peter (Fredric)
Williams, Peter (Fredric)
Williams, Peter (Fredric), eminent English musicologist, organist, and harpsichordist; b. Wolverhampton, May 14, 1937. He was educated at St. John’s Coll., Cambridge (B.A., 1958; Mus.B., 1959; M.A., 1962; Ph.D., 1963). In 1962 he joined the faculty of the Univ. of Edinburgh as a lecturer, subsequently becoming a reader (1972) and a prof. (1982); at the university, he held the first chair in performance practice in the United Kingdon. In 1985 he was made Arts and Sciences Distinguished Prof, at Duke Univ. in Durham, N.C., where he was chairman of the music dept. (1985-88), univ. organist (1985-90), and director of the graduate center for performance practice studies (from 1990). As a performing artist, Williams made appearances as a recitalist from 1965. As a scholar, he ranks among the foremost authorities on the organ. In addition to his learned books and articles, he has served as general ed. of the series Biblioteca Organologica (80 vols., 1966 et seq.) and as founding ed. of The Organ Yearbook (from 1969). He is also founder-general ed. of the series Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice and of the Duke Univ. series Sources and Interpretation of Music. He is also general ed. of the New Oxford J.S. Bach Edition.
Writings
The European Organ 1450-1850 (London, 1966; 2nd ed., 1968); Figured Bass Accompaniment (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1970; 2nd ed., 1972); Bach Organ Music (London, 1972; 2nd ed., 1974); A New History of the Organ From the Greeks to the Present Day (London, 1980); The Organ Music of J.S. Bach (3 vols., Cambridge, 1980-84); ed., Bach, Handel and Scarlatti: Tercentenary Essays (Cambridge, 1985); Playing the Works of Bach (N.Y., 1986); The Organ (London and N.Y., 1988); with L. Todd, ed., Mozart: Perspectives in Performance (Cambridge, 1991); The Organ in Western Culture 750-1250 (Cambridge, 1993); The King of Instruments or, How Do Churches Come to Have Organs? (London, 1993); The Chromatic Fourth During Four Centuries of Music (Oxford, 1997).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire