Peter Godfrey
Former chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, who transformed choirs across New Zealand
PETER GODFREY, who has died aged 95, was a British-born choirmaster and conductor who made a major contribution to the English choral tradition in New Zealand; he was also thought to be the first person to serve as chorister, choral scholar and head of music at King’s College, Cambridge.
Godfrey moved to Auckland in 1958 when he was appointed lecturer at the university and over the next 24 years developed the music department into a centre of excellence. He also served as director of music at St Mary’s Cathedral, conducting the Auckland String Players, forming the Symphonia of Auckland and leading the University Festival Choir to success at a choral festival in New York in 1972.
Taking charge of the New Zealand Dorian Choir in 1961, Godfrey fashioned them into a formidable force, and they won the BBC’S Let the People Sing competition 10 years later. In August 1977 they were heard at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral and at the Proms.
Peter David Hensman Godfrey was born in Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire, on April 3 1922, the only son of an impoverished farmer. Encouraged by his mother, an unfulfilled singer, he auditioned for the choir of King’s College in 1930, but was unsuccessful. “She wouldn’t give in,” he told Radio New Zealand of his mother, and in September 1931 he reauditioned and was offered a place at King’s College School. In 1937 he won a music scholarship to Denstone College, Derbyshire, returning to King’s College four years later as a bass choral scholar.
During the war he served with the King’s African Rifles in Kenya, Abyssinia and Ceylon, rising to the rank of captain. He returned to Cambridge in 1946 then entered the Royal College of Music while teaching at Felsted School, Essex. In 1949 he became director of music at Marlborough College.
His time at Auckland University, where he was eventually appointed dean and head of the music department, was interrupted in 1978 when he returned to King’s College, Cambridge, in a six-month job swap with Philip Ledger, director of music at King’s, a period that he described as “stimulating”.
Moving to Wellington in 1982, Godfrey took charge of the music at St Paul’s Cathedral, fashioning its choir into a formidable force. He composed anthems, motets, carols, responses, services, hymn tunes and imaginative descants. Much of his music is reflective, in the manner of his popular Communion Service based on traditional Maori tunes, with the occasional hint of grandeur, as in his arrangement of the National Anthem for unaccompanied voices.
In retirement he lived at Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast, where his passion for gardening and music continued unabated. He was appointed MBE in 1978, advanced to CBE in 1988. The launch of his biography, Peter Godfrey: Father of New Zealand Choral Music, in 2015 was accompanied by 170 guests singing the four-part grace Oculi Omnium.
In 1945 Godfrey married Sheila Mcneile. She died in 1993 and the following year he married Jane Barnett, a piano teacher, who survives him with three daughters of his first marriage. Another daughter predeceased him.
Peter Godfrey, born April 3 1922, died September 28 2017