Collection ID: 15628428 MS#2058
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Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Davis, Peter G.
Abstract:
This collection contains the papers of Peter G. Davis (1936-2021), who worked as a classical music critic at various national and specialist publications from 1962-2018. It includes the vast majority of Davis's writings on music (published or draft), along with print material relating to these writings, Davis's compositions (1957-1964), material relating to Davis's early education (1948-1959), and correspondence and interviews with a number of major classical musicians.
Extent:
13 Linear Feet, 2 record storage cartons, 21 manuscript boxes, and 2 flat boxes, 78 Megabytes, and 13 floppy disks (5.25-inch) and 43 floppy disks (3.5-inch).
Language:
Most of the materials are in English. However, there is some correspondence in German, and some print material in Italian.
Preferred citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Peter G. Davis Papers; Box and Folder (if known); Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection consists primarily of material relating to Davis's career as a writer and a music critic (circa 1962-2018), which spanned a number of national and specialist publications, including The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Times of London, High Fidelity, Musical America, and Opera News. A significant portion of the collection is devoted to notated music—mostly relating to Davis's early work as a composer—including sketches, fragments, manuscript vocal and full scores, and performing scores/parts. The collection also contains material relating to Davis's education and early compositions.

The collection contains both and draft copies of Davis's writings on music, including clippings/tearouts, printouts, and full published editions of the publications that Davis wrote for. Various other items - such as correspondence from editors, theater tickets, and clippings - are tucked within full publications. These materials are complemented by correspondence that Davis exchanged with his editors and his readers - among whom a number of major musical figures are represented. Davis also collected a number of photographs of prominent opera singers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - for publication in his book and as personal memorabilia. Notably, the collection holds an array of material relating to the publication of Davis's 1997 monograph, The American Opera Singer: The Lives and Adventures of America's Great Singers in Opera and Concert from 1825 to the Present, including a large amount of draft and editorial material stored on floppy disks. Other textual materials held in this collection include notebooks, diaries, souvenir programs and ticket stubs, and related print materials. Many textual items have been printed on the back of reused paper, which also may contain material with research value (such as drafts, annotated radio schedules, etc.).

The Peter G. Davis papers contain a significant audio component, which includes recordings of: Davis's interviews with a number of prominent opera singers, conductors, impresarios, and instrumentalists; Davis's compositions; Davis's radio appearances; and Davis's early performances.

Biographical / Historical:

Peter Graffam Davis (1936-2021) was a music critic for various national and specialist publications. Based in New York City, he wrote primarily about opera, reviewing recordings and performances from a range of artists and institutions from 1962 to 2018, including (among others) the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, and the Bard Festival.

Davis was born in 1936 in Concord, Massachusetts. He attended Belmont Hill School from 1948-1954, before graduating from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1958. After a one-year exchange at the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik, Davis completed a Master of Arts in composition at Columbia University in 1961. During this period, he composed a number of pieces, including a song cycle for soprano and tenor, two string quartets, a cabaret-style revue, an operetta to a text by W.S. Gilbert, and the opera Zoe (a reworking of Davis's earlier opera The Catalyst), which was recorded in Milan by the musicians of La Scala.

Davis began his career as a music critic by writing reviews of recordings for the journal Musical Letters in the early 1960s. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Davis served as a music editor for both High Fidelity and Musical America, while also writing freelance about opera for the Times of London, the New York Times, Playbill, and Opera News. In 1974, he was hired as the full-time music critic and classical music editor for the New York Times. Davis left the Times in 1981 to serve as the full-time classical music critic for New York magazine: he remained at the magazine for over 25 years, publishing a regular review column, along with various feature stories about the opera industry. Davis was laid off from New York magazine in 2007 as part of a sector-wide trimming of full-time classical music critics. In the last fourteen years of his life, Davis returned to Musical America, the New York Times, and Opera News as a freelance writer, penning regular reviews and profiles for these publications.

As a critic, Davis penned a number of influential commentaries on the development of operatic aesthetics in the late twentieth century: his controversial writings on the career of Beverly Sills and "Three Tenors" phenomenon questioned the relationship between mass media, vocal performance, and operatic celebrity; similarly, his blunt appraisal of the musical biopics of Ken Russell brought a new critical lens to the representation of music history in cinema. In 1992, he coined the term "CNN opera" to describe a fashion for "ripped-from-the-headlines" plots in American operas of the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, Davis was a prolific commentator on the relationship between opera and American national identity: his 1997 monograph, The American Opera Singer: The Lives and Adventures of America's Great Singers in Opera and Concert from 1825 to the Present, charted the role of American singers in shaping global operatic aesthetics, seeking out a distinctly American vocal identity on both sides of the Atlantic and questioning the role of "Americanness" within an artform that was once viewed as a distinctly European export.

Peter Davis passed away in New York in 2021. He is survived by his husband and long-time partner Scott Parris. A couple since 1979, they married in 2009 in South Kent, Connecticut.

Acquisition information:
Received from Scott Parris, Peter G. Davis's husband, in 2021-2022.
Custodial history:

Parts of this collection were organized and labeled by Davis's husband, Scott Parris, prior to their arrival at the RBML. Parris's handwritten labels have been retained within the collection.

Processing information:

This collection was processed by Callum Blackmore (GSAS). Finding aid written by Callum Blackmore in June 2023.

The processing of this collection was made possible by a Graduate Internship in Primary Sources from Columbia Libraries.

Part of this collection was reboxed and refoldered by Jennifer Lee upon its arrival at the RBML. Further reboxing and refoldering was performed by Callum Blackmore (GSAS) in June 2023. Generally, the original order of items has been maintained (where known).

Davis generally organized his published print material firstly according to publication, and then by time period (loosely chronologically, usually by decade). Consequently, the processing archivist has organized loose materials chronologically by year and then according to publication. Clippings, tearsheets, and printouts have generally been refoldered in the loose chronological order in which Davis kept them. All paper clips were removed by the archivist but the original order of the materials that were clipped together has been maintained wherever possible. Groups of print material from the same publication were combined in a single chronological order, following the arrangement of each individual grouping. A small number of unrelated articles found interspersed with clippings in Series I were left in place.

Davis organized his manuscript scores primarily according to work. The processing archivist has roughly maintained this ordering. Loose materials relating to the same work have been housed together (for example, much of the loose material relating to Davis's song cycle Shards). Loose fragments and sketches (those that Davis did not organize according to work) have been housed in their original ordering.

CDs, floppy disks, cassette tapes, long-playing records, and open-reel audiotape were rehoused into boxes 20 and 21. Some CDs, floppy disks, and cassette tapes were grouped together with rubber bands: these rubber bands have been removed. Where items were rubber-banded together, the processing archivist has maintained that original order in the order of the numbering. Loose paper notes have been kept with the items which they describe. CDs are organized thematically.

Bulky items were placed in a separate box (box 13): the portrait of Lisa Della Casa has been removed from its original framing. Loose print material relating to Davis's education (prior to his MA at Columbia in 1959) were housed (box 13) according to the educational institution that it corresponds to (while maintaining the original order of documents from the same institution). Where an institution could not be identified, items have been kept alongside the materials that they were originally stored with.

Davis generally printed materials single-sided and frequently reused his printing paper: thus, many of the documents in this series are printed on the back of unrelated material. In these cases, the materials have generally been kept in their original order and housed according to the side of the paper whose content is most consistent across the grouping. These materials can primarily be found in series I; however, they may be marginally present in series II, III, and VII.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged in seven series. Floppy disks and audio-visual materials have been housed separately from print materials. Oversized items have also been housed separately. Original order has been maintained wherever possible.

Series I and III are organized firstly by publication, then chronologically. The order and grouping of materials in Series I follows Davis's own. Series V is organized according to musical genre, then according to musical work, with sketches and fragments housed separately.

Series VI is organized into three roughly chronological groupings (corresponding to the institutions where Davis studied prior to 1959): Belmont Hill School, Harvard College, and Davis's education after his graduation from Harvard in 1958. Series VII consists primarily of souvenir programs, which are organized chronologically by year and then by institution. All other items are foldered thematically, while maintaining Davis's original sequence at the item level.

Accruals:

No additions are expected.

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

All original copies of audio / moving image media are closed until reformatting. Please email rbml@columbia.edu for more information.

This collection is located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.

TERMS OF ACCESS:

Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.

PREFERRED CITATION:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Peter G. Davis Papers; Box and Folder (if known); Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.

LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
6th Floor East Butler Library
535 West 114th St.
New York, NY 10027, United States
Link to repository site
CONTACT:
(212) 854-5590
rbml@library.columbia.edu