British musicologist Peter Evans, Died at 88

Peter Angus Evans born on 7 November 1929 died on 1 January 2018.

He was an English musicologist, most unique for his book.

The Tune of Benjamin Britten.

He was born in West Hartlepool, and studied with Arthur Hutchings and A.E.F. Dickinson at Durham University between 1947 to 1951 BA 1950.

Evans taught music at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury 1951-52 before gaining his Fellowship Diploma from the Royal College of Organists in 1952.

Evans was then appointed a lecturer at Durham University in 1953.

Evans graduated with a BMus from Durham in that year and took the MA with a dissertation on 17th-century chamber music manuscripts in Durham Cathedral Library.

Evans was awarded the DMus by the university in 1958.

Between 1961 to 1990 Evans was professor of music at the University of Southampton.

Later in his early studies of viol music, in particular that of John Jenkins.

He worked mainly on the 20th century, writing articles on Jonathan Harvey, Alan Rawsthorne for the 1980 edition of The New Grove, and especially on the music of Benjamin Britten.

Conformimg to Grove, Evans brought to that subject “an acute analytical mind coupled with an approach in which musical values are firmly assigned first place”.

He died on 1 January 2018, at age 88.