Joseph Payne

Joseph Payne (6 July 1937 – 14 January 2008) was a British/Swiss German harpsichordist, clavichordist, organist and musicologist, whose worldwide reputation was based on his performances of music of all periods, though best known for his pioneering recordings of early keyboard music accompanied by his meticulously informative liner notes. He was born in the Chahar province of China in 1937, the son of a British father, Joseph (c.1909–1955), and a Swiss-German mother, Wilhelmina ("Mina", 1908–1993), who were licensed preachers and missionaries to Mongolia. During World War II he and his family were imprisoned in a Japanese internment camp in Shanghai. The family subsequently moved to England and then to Switzerland, where Payne received his primary musical education. where, while studying at the Collège de Vevey, Payne exhibited an aptitude for languages and an interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and started receiving musical education. Payne's family moved again, this time to Connecticut, where his father became the pastor of Faith Assembly of God in Hartford. However, Rev. Payne's health had been compromised by the tortures of the internment camp, from which he never fully recovered. He served the Hartford church from 1951 till a fatal heart attack on 12 November 1955, at age 46. (His death was a blow to the church, which under his leadership doubled in size.) Meanwhile, his son Joseph studied at Trinity College and Hartt College of Music; his teachers included Raymond Hanson, Noretta Conci, Clarence Watters, Josef Marx, Luigi Silva and Fernando Valenti; he was the last, youngest pupil of Wanda Landowska. While at Hartt, he met cellist Phoebe Joyce, who became his wife in 1966. The young couple settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Payne served for many years as lecturer at Boston University and He lectured at Northeastern University and at the Boston Architectural Center. He toured extensively throughout North America and then in Europe, where his first appearances were under the aegis of the BBC. For many years he was organist and music director for Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston; under his direction, WGBH offered the first live broadcast in North America of a Christmastime Festival of Lessons and Carols. His most personal and signal honour was the invitation to play at the reinaugration of the restored Wenzelkirche organ at Naumburg, the only large organ designed by Bach.