Peter R. Hallock papers, 1942-2014

Peter R. Hallock was a mystic, solitary, composer, organist, liturgist, and countertenor forever linked to Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, Seattle. The youngest of five children, Peter was born on November 19, 1924 to George Oakley Hallock and Estella Rasmussen Hallock. Peter died of congestive heart failure on Sunday afternoon, April 27, 2014 in Fall City, Washington. He was 89. At age five, Peter’s parents enrolled him in piano lessons, and sent him, along with his siblings, to Sunday School and worship at Saint James Episcopal Church in Kent, Wash. At the age of 9, Peter had his first encounter with the numinous at Saint James; five years later, Hallock was playing the organ there. His organ teacher at the time was Clayton Johnson of Tacoma, Washington. Peter’s sisters Tillie and Barbara would often trek to Saint James to hear Peter play miniature organ recitals on Sunday afternoons; whatever Hallock was doing, his sisters were always there. He was active and creative from an early age, not just in music, but also arts and crafts, weaving, letter writing, puppet theater, and soap box derby car racing. After high school, Peter enrolled at the University of Washington (UW), but was drafted into the U.S. Army after only one year of study. From June 1943–February 1946, he served as a chaplain’s assistant and sharpshooter in the Pacific theater during World War II. After the war, he re-enrolled at the UW and resumed organ performance studies with Walter Eichinger, composition with George McKay, and took music courses with Miriam Terry and Eva Heinitz, all of whom maintained a lifelong collegial relationship with Peter.

Though Hallock had completed all required coursework by 1949, eighteen months of government-paid education remained, so Peter enrolled at the College of Saint Nicolas of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), then based in Canterbury, England. He became the first American Choral Scholar at Canterbury Cathedral, singing under the direction of Gerald Knight. In June 1951, he completed both the RSCM program and was graduated from the UW with a Bachelor of Arts in Music degree. Later, in 1958, he took the Master of Arts in Music degree from the UW. Among his many contributions to local and national church music traditions are the introduction of countless audiences in the United States, and the Pacific Northwest in particular, to the countertenor voice, and founding the chant study group that eventually became known as the Compline Choir—an ensemble that has led to a resurgence of interest in the Office of Compline. He also fought successfully for installation of the Flentrop tracker-action organ at the cathedral, making Saint Mark’s the first Episcopal cathedral to have such an instrument. He developed the Advent and Good Friday Processions and introduced liturgical dramas at the cathedral. Perhaps his greatest contribution to church music was composition and publication of The Ionian Psalter.

Peter began work as organist/choirmaster at Saint Mark’s Cathedral on October 28, 1951, a position he held until his involuntary retirement in 1991. He was named Canon Precentor, the second layperson in the Episcopal Church to hold such a title; he received two Bishop’s Crosses from two Bishops of Olympia, was named an Associate of the Royal School of Church Music, and was granted a Doctor of Church Music degree honoris causa by Church Divinity School of the Pacific. In 1992, at the invitation of the Rev. Ralph Carskadden, Peter became organist at Saint Clement of Rome Episcopal Church, Seattle, a position he held until March 2013.

Hallock composed nearly 240 works, from occasional church music to extended anthems, to dramatic works (sacred and secular), to music specifically written for the Compline Choir. No piece of music was immune to revision, even those already published. His last compositions include Advent Calendar (2012), commissioned by the Compass Rose Society to honor Archbishop Rowan Williams on the occasion of his retirement, and Victimae Paschali (2014), a work that was undergoing final revisions at the time of his death. At Peter’s invitation, twelve men from the university and community began study of chant in 1955. This study group solidified into a choir that sang the Office of Compline on Sundays at 9:30 p.m. beginning in late 1956. Classical 98.1 KING-FM began broadcasting the service in 1962. Peter directed the Compline Choir until his retirement in June 2009.

As a soloist, Peter began to concertize as a countertenor in 1951, exposing audiences to that unique sound for the first time. The countertenor voice was so unusual in the U.S. that colleges and universities across the country soon requested performances—from the University of California, Berkeley, to the University of South Alabama. As a conductor, Peter’s most memorable conducting might be his first performance of Handel’s Messiah using period or replicas of period instruments in 1985. This period style performance was a first for Seattle; concerts sold out and critics raved. Hallock worked extensively within The Episcopal Church, having been appointed to the Joint Commission on Church Music in 1965; he also directed the choir for the 1967 General Convention of the Episcopal Church. His work with the Joint Commission on Church Music centered primarily on production of the 1973 Songs for Liturgy and More Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Embedded within Songs for Liturgy was the introduction of new, intriguing sounds, like handbells, percussion, and clapping and antiphonal congregational texts, into the worship space.

Though Hallock’s music, creativity, innovations, and contributions to church music are notable, his greatest legacy is the community and family of musicians, mystics, solitaries, composers, weavers, theologians, humanists, agnostics, acousticians, “sound nuts,” chefs, gardeners, nature lovers, and lovers of beautiful things with whom Peter cultivated lifelong friendships. Whether meeting him in the office, organ loft, or his home, following his direction in a rehearsal or performance, sharing a martini over lunch or dinner, exchanging letters or emails, weaving with him at the loom, hiking or walking with him along a nature trail, digging in the dirt with him in his Japanese garden, or collaborating with him on a recording or video project, it was the friendship that mattered most.

-- Jason Allen Anderson, Peter Hallock’s Biographer, Friend, and Caregiver and second director of the Compline Choir