Peter Angus Evans is an English musicologist, most noteworthy for his book The Music of Benjamin Britten.
Education
Evans studied with Arthur Hutchings and American Expeditionary Force Dickinson at Durham University from 1947 to 1951 (Bachelor 1950) He taught music at Bishop Wordsworth"s School in Salisbury (1951-1952) before gaining his Fellowship Diploma from the Royal College of Organists in 1952. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music from Durham in that year and took the Master of Arts with a dissertation on 17th-century chamber music manuscripts in Durham Cathedral Library. He was awarded the Doctor of Music by the university in 1958.
Career
He was then appointed a lecturer at Durham University in 1953. From 1961 to 1990 he was professor of music at the University of Southampton. After his early studies of viol music, in particular that of John Jenkins, Evans has 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.
According to Grove, he has brought to that subject "an acute analytical mind coupled with an approach in which musical values are firmly assigned first place".
He is now Emeritus Professor of Music at Southampton University.