Article in the New Grove Dictionary of American Music (1986)

Fuller, Albert (b Washington, DC, 21 July 1926). Harpsichordist. He began his musical education as a chorister in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Washington, DC, studying the organ there with Paul Callaway. After attending the Peabody Conservatory and Georgetown and Johns Hopkins universities, he continued his education at Yale, where he began serious harpsichord studies with Ralph Kirkpatrick and also studied theory with Paul Hindemith. He received the MMus degree from Yale in 1954, and was awarded a Ditson Fellowship which enabled him to do research in Paris into French Baroque keyboard music. On his return to the USA he began his performing career, making a New York recital début in 1957, followed by his first European concerts in 1959. Since then, he has made frequent tours in North America and Europe, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. Fuller’s extensive repertory, much of which has been recorded, encompasses the major styles and national schools of the 18th century with particular emphasis on French music and the sonatas of Scarlatti. His performing style is brilliant, colorful within the limitations of the classical harpsichord, clear, and precise. He is especially admired as an imaginative and tasteful continuo player. He has edited the keyboard music of Gaspard le Roux. In 1972 Fuller set up the Aston Magna Foundation for the study and revival of 17th- and 18th-century music; he remained its president and artistic director until 1983 and was closely involved in its annual festivals and, Latterly, summer academies at Great Barrington, Massachusetts. As a conductor, he presided over performances of Rameau’s Dardanus, Les indes galantes, and Les sauvages, and Handels’ Acis and Galatea and Xerxes. In 1964, he was appointed professor of harpsichord at the Juilliard School, and from 1976 to 1979, he taught at Yale University.

By Howard Schott
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music 1986