Peter van der Merwe was born in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, South Africa. He is a self-taught

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

, author, and librarian. He has written several books on the history of modern popular and classical music. He studied at the College of Music at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

. He also works as a cataloguer at the municipal library in

Pietermaritzburg Pietermaritzburg (; Zulu: umGungundlovu) is the capital and second-largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838 and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its Zulu name umGungundlovu ...

Bibliography

*(1989). ''Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music''. Oxford: Clarendon Press. . *(2005) ''Roots of the Classical: the Popular Origins of Western Music''.

ref>see a review by

Richard Taruskin Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as ...

, published in the

Music & Letters ''Music & Letters'' is an academic journal published quarterly by Oxford University Press with a focus on musicology. The journal sponsors the Music & Letters Trust, twice-yearly cash awards of variable amounts to support research in the music fie ...

Journa
Vol. 88, No. 1 (Feb., 2007), pp. 134-139
as it is available via

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

website

References

South African musicologists Year of birth missing (living people) South African College of Music alumni Living people Musicians from Cape Town Afrikaner people South African people of Irish descent South African people of Dutch descent Place of birth missing (living people) {{SouthAfrica-writer-stub