Background
He was born at Hernndyck, Holland, where his father was pastor of the Moravian congregation. On the death of his mother in 1760, his father was sent to America to assist in the Moravian work at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
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John Frederick Peter
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also known as
Johann Friedrich Peter
Education
He continued his education in schools at Gros Hennersdorf, Barby, and Niesky. Besides the usual training for the ministry, he received instruction on the violin and organ, and in harmony and musical composition.
Career
In 1769 he followed his father to America and was for a year a teacher at Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Removing to Bethlehem in 1770, he became accountant and secretary of the Brethren's House, teacher in the boys' school, and organist of the church. In 1786 Peter was sent, in succession, to Hope, New Jersey, Lititz, Pennsylvania, Graceham, Maryland, and Salem, North Carolina, where his musical activities were continued and where his talents made definite and permanent impression.
In 1793 he returned to Bethlehem with his wife, and became accountant for the diocese, resuming, also, control of musical affairs. In 1810 he copied all the vocal and instrumental parts of Haydn's Creation and in 1811, under his direction, the work was given its first complete performance on the American continent, some years before its production by the Händel and Haydn Society of Boston. In the music library of the Moravian Church at Bethlehem the perfectly formed notes and the beautiful handwriting of Peter covered many hundreds of pages. Some of his copies of symphonies by Haydn are dated between 1760 and 1770 and reveal quite clearly the nature of his early training, for the much thumbed and marked copies speak eloquently of hard rehearsals.
He died suddenly as he stepped down from the organ bench after a rehearsal.
Achievements
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For fifteen years John Frederick Peter was the inspiration that gave activity to the musical life of Bethlehem. He was, undoubtedly, the first composer of serious concerted music in America. He composed more than thirty anthems for chorus, solo, and orchestra, and copied vocal and instrumental parts of works by the great composers of his day, for church and concert use. His only secular work is a set of six quintettes for two violins, two violas, and cello, written in the traditional sonata style; they show not only mastery of form, but also originality of melodic outline.
Views
Peter was well acquainted with the contrapuntal music of Bach, but his own compositions reflect Haydn rather than the father of the moderns. His choruses are usually written in five parts and seldom pass very far into free counterpoint, but his instrumental accompaniments are always independent of the voices, as to form. With respect to harmony, he very often shows a strong tendency toward the modern habit of chromatic alteration.
Connections
He married Catharine Leinbach in Salem.
