Picken, Laurence Ernest Rowland

Laurence Picken (b. July 16, 1909, in Nottingham; d. March 16, 2007, in Cambridge) was a British zoologist and musicologist who specialized in Asian, particularly Chinese, music.

From the description of Laurence Picken papers, 1900-2001 (bulk 1936-1999). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 760178087

Epithet: Dr zoologist and musicologist

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001026.0x0000dc

Biographical Note

British zoologist and musicologist Laurence Ernest Rowland Picken was born on July 16, 1909 in Nottingham, England. He studied piano as a child, and composed music during the mid-1920s and 1930s. In 1928, he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge and studied natural sciences. During the 1930s, he held a Rockefeller Studentship in the Geneva School of Chemistry for two years where he became fluent in French and German and conducted groundbreaking scientific research. He finished his Ph.D. in 1935. In 1944, he became a fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and in 1946 assistant director of research in the zoology faculty, spending the next twenty years researching and teaching biology. In 1944, he joined Joseph Needham’s scientific mission to China where he studied Chinese music and learned to play the zither. In 1959, Picken was appointed visiting professor of zoology at Washington University. He published his landmark book The Organization of Cells and other Organisms the following year in 1960.

Though employed as a scientist, Picken published his first musical paper in 1950 on the identification of an unknown fugue by Bach. His reputation as a musicologist grew along with his knowledge and understanding of Asian culture and he continued to publish papers and encyclopedia entries on Asian music throughout 1950s. Picken served as editor for the journal of the International Folk Music Council in the 1960s. In 1966, he was appointed assistant director of research in the faculty of oriental studies at Cambridge. In 1977, he started the journal Musica Asiatica which he would co-edit until 1984. Picken donated over 700 musical instruments to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge in 1977.

The music of the Chinese Tang and Song dynasties was the major focus of Picken's lifelong scholarship. In 1972, he began to transcribe and analyze pieces from the secular Tang court repertory in Japan which led to a projected 25-volume series Music from the Tang Court (1981-2000), of which Picken would complete only seven volumes. Picken also wrote on the music of Turkey, central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In 1975, he published The Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey, a comprehensive study of Turkish instruments. In 1990, Picken and N.J. Nickson supervised and directed a program of Tang and Song dynasty transcriptions at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Starting in 1998, Picken was also involved with the Ancient Asian Music Project at the Library of Congress. He died at the age of 97 on March 16, 2007, in Cambridge, England.

From the guide to the Laurence Picken Papers, 1900-2001, (bulk 1936-1999), (Music Division Library of Congress)