Hubert J. Foss
Encyclopedia
Hubert James Foss was an English pianist
, composer
, and first Musical Editor (1923–1941) for Oxford University Press
(OUP) at Amen House in London. His work at the Press was a major factor in promoting music and musicians in England between the world wars, most notably Ralph Vaughan Williams
, through publishing and encouraging performance of their works. In doing this work, he made the Music Department of OUP a major publisher of music in the early and mid-twentieth century.
, to the south of London
, the youngest of the thirteen children of Frederick Foss (1850–1968), a solicitor, and Anne Penny Bartrum (1853–1924). His father's father, Edward Foss
(1787–1870), had also been a solicitor as well as a historian and biographer of English law and judiciary. Foss's elder sister, Josephine (1877–1983), served as a missionary and teacher of English in Asia and Africa.
Foss's childhood aptitude for both music and language led to his undergraduate education at Bradfield College
in these areas as well as in drama. After brief military service towards the end of the First World War, he took a variety of jobs in various teaching and journalistic positions, during which time he married (1921) his first wife, Kate Frances Carter Page (1900–1952), but the marriage only lasted about two years. It was also in 1921 that he was hired by Humphrey S. Milford
of OUP's London branch (first at Amen Corner, from 1924 at Amen House) as a sales representative in education. Discussing the antecedents of the Music Department in his history of the Press, Sutcliffe says that Foss "was not particularly interested in education: he was passionately interested in music ... Milford had personal and business relations with cathedral organists and hymnologists. And he also had Hubert Foss."
Foss's experience in education and his musical talents and interest fused with Milford's when Foss brought to Milford a proposal in 1922 for a series or collection of essays on famous composers to be written by well-known contemporary musicians and musicologists. Originally conceived purely as an educational book for the broadcast, recording, and concert-going audience, it may have been the catalyst (Milford's motivation is not clear) for Milford to initiate the creation of a new music publishing department within the London offices. The proposed collection eventually became the first volume of the three-volume Heritage of Music; but upon the new department's undertaking publication of the Oxford Choral Songs series (1923, and still in publication today), Milford made Foss the in-house editor for the series. His work there apparently so impressed Milford that later that year, Foss was appointed the department's head with the title of Musical Editor. Foss also brought his mind to bear on the typographical design of the OUP's music publications at this period.
Foss, working with characteristic energy and enterprise, soon expanded the musical work of the London branch from its original concern with hymnals and music education to every branch of music publication and promotion. He quickly established sales agreements with publishers in other countries, and even in the United States (with Carl Fischer Music
) where OUP had its own New York publishing office. He also travelled in Europe and to the United States as a member of the International Society for Contemporary Music
(ISCM) whose international festival OUP hosted in 1931. In addition, he was keeping up his own work of composition and piano performance, often accompanying his second wife, the soprano Dora Maria Stevens (1893–1978), whom he married in 1927.
As Foss worked at expanding the scope of the Music Department's work (adding "some 200 titles a year" ), he also spent much time and energy turning his earliest speculative and underfunded productions into a solid foundation of remunerative publications which would—eventually—both reimburse the Press for the music it had already produced and in turn allow it to introduce new music and composers to the public. In this he had Milford's support, though Milford said that he came nearer than any other single man to ruining the Press.
The London office's parent body in Oxford was less sympathetic. The difficulty lay in OUP's concept that while the Oxford side (The Clarendon Press) as an academic publisher could and did lose money, the purpose of Amen House was to publish respectable but remunerative books. OUP's accounting traditions further emphasized early write-off as losses of unsold stocks of books, whereas Foss regarded his inventory of music, books on music, performance and "mechanical" (recording and broadcasting) rights, and above all the composers who published with Oxford all as investments. Added to the general economic difficulties of the 1930s, some personal health issues, and the shock caused by the move of the London branch's offices to Oxford to escape The Blitz
and the consequent decrease in resources physical and financial, OUP's pressure to reduce his intense efforts to expand the Music Department's scope led to bouts of depression and alcoholism. Foss, "after some difficulties" (which may have included attempted suicide), resigned his editorship in 1941.
In the following years, he energetically pursued a number of freelance musical occupations, serving as critic, reviewer, journalist, and broadcaster. In this last, he was highly regarded and warmly commended by the BBC and other radio authorities during and after the war. He continued to serve as an editor and compiler of articles and works about music and its analysis and appreciation as well as publishing his own works. In the late war years, Foss began his study of Ralph Vaughan Williams, to which the composer himself contributed "A Musical Autobiography". Foss had been asked to assume the editorship of The Musical Times
when he suffered a stroke following an operation. He died at the age of 54 at his home in London.
Foss was survived by his second wife, and by children from both his first and second marriages.
, Jr., the influential editor of Astounding and Analog
), Foss's primary influence in music was as a developer of music and musicians. In this the primary example must be Ralph Vaughan Williams
, most of whose music in various forms OUP originally published and still produces. Other composers for whom the Press formed a stepping stone to long and successful careers include William Walton
, Edmund Rubbra
, and Peter Warlock
(the last of whom Foss and his first wife had known early in their lives). Hinnells writes that "Foss had a remarkable ear for the work of a new, younger generation," and Foss's willingness to take risks in publishing such then-unknown artists contributed to bringing them before the English public of his day. However, Foss did misjudge at least one leading British composer: Benjamin Britten
. After handling some of Britten's early music, Foss, "in a decision later much regretted by OUP, decided not to continue as his publisher."
In so doing, Foss brought his whole suite of talents to the selection and production of music. Wright quotes Foss as saying that "the literary side of a song is of equal importance with the musical, and that no one should be expected to sing words of an inferior character." His skills in art and typography manifested themselves in originating distinctive and unique covers, artwork, and layout for each of his "stable" of composers by which copies of their music could be visually identified. This pleased his composers as well as acting as a marketing tool for the sale or rental of their music. (His design for the publication of Lambert's The Rio Grande is still regarded as an outstanding example of music printing.)
Foss's influence on English music and the practice of music publishing between the wars is hard to underestimate. With Milford's support, he expanded and deepened OUP's music publishing scope from a limited number of hymnals and educational sheet music to a comprehensive inventory of operas, orchestral works, chamber pieces, choral and vocal works, and piano pieces, along with the production facilities and distribution channels to handle them. The educational works were increased and expanded, paralleling increased government support for music education. "The largest part of its publishing came to be of educational and tuitional works. It produced music courses at all levels for schools, textbooks for music colleges and colleges of education, and for universities."
Moreover, Foss played a major role in the industry's recognition of the long-term revenue benefits to be gained by renting scores and parts for large musical works (in contrast to trying to sell them in large quantities when demand was unknown or uncertain) and by acquiring performance and mechanical rights. The latter became increasingly important with the growth of radio and of recorded music. Foss, OUP, and Vaughan Williams were among those who originally opposed the Performing Right Society
(PRS) as likely to inhibit musical performance due to their fees. Their position changed, however, as a consequence of decreasing returns from music publication and increasing revenue from broadcasting, and OUP joined the PRS in 1936.
As Musical Editor, Foss expanded OUP's publication of books on music, music analysis, and music appreciation. Continuing OUP's already-established tradition for printing works in series, Foss initiated the booklet series Musical Pilgrims with such authors as C. S. Terry covering the works of Bach and Cecil Gray on the symphonies of Sibelius. Still another series, Oxford Church Music, provided inexpensive but accurate editions of both old and contemporary music for churches and schools; this series still continues today.
In addition to the articles and presentations which would later form the basis for his own studies of Vaughan Williams, Walton, and others, he edited many of the writings of Sir Donald Tovey
. Foss found Tovey "fascinating, inspiring, and exhausting," according to Hinnells; but "Foss was credited as being the only man who could have managed to produce [Tovey's] six volumes of Essays in Musical Analysis. It was also Foss who encouraged and supported Percy Scholes
during the latter's years as critic and broadcaster; and it was to Foss that Scholes brought what became the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music
in 1938. Late in life, Foss translated Léon Vallas' biography of César Franck
. During the same period, he contributed many "liner notes" for long-playing disk recordings.
During the years at Amen House, Foss made the acquaintance of the poet and writer on theology Charles Williams. Williams and Frederick Page were then editors for the Press, and there was a great friendship among all three men. It was for two of Williams' "Amen House Masques" (in 1927 and 1929) that Foss wrote the music and arranged the dances that were performed by some of the employees for festive occasions in honor of Milford and the staff of Amen House. Williams and Foss at about the same time collaborated on a short essay on "Meaning in Poetry and Music" which appeared in Music and Letters.
Most of Foss's own musical compositions are short forms: songs, piano pieces, and chamber music. As might be expected in one who championed the English tradition, his works often involve folk song and Elizabethan influences. Thus, he avoided atonal or "spiky" elements; Foss's music "frequently included complex chromatic harmonies, but his melodic lines remained lyrical in nature." Among the most notable are his contributions (together with Vaughan Williams and Clive Carey
) of piano accompaniments for Folk Songs from Newfoundland collected by Maud Karpeles
; and his Seven Poems by Thomas Hardy
for baritone solo, mens chorus, and instruments.
Showing the "colorful diversity of [his] tastes," Foss contributed articles and letters on the business and the craft of publishing and printing music, and was one of the founders of the Double Crown Club
, a dining club for leading printers and typographical designers. He also helped organize the (London) Bach Cantata Club and directed some of its performances.
The composer Herbert Howells
, speaking at Foss's memorial service at St. John's Church, St. John's Wood, on 24 June 1953, said that he [Howells]:
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, and first Musical Editor (1923–1941) for Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
(OUP) at Amen House in London. His work at the Press was a major factor in promoting music and musicians in England between the world wars, most notably Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
, through publishing and encouraging performance of their works. In doing this work, he made the Music Department of OUP a major publisher of music in the early and mid-twentieth century.
Life and career
Foss was born at CroydonCroydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...
, to the south of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the youngest of the thirteen children of Frederick Foss (1850–1968), a solicitor, and Anne Penny Bartrum (1853–1924). His father's father, Edward Foss
Edward Foss
Edward Foss was an English lawyer and biographer.He was born in London. He became a solicitor, and on his retirement from practice in 1840, devoted himself to the study of legal antiquities. His Judges of England was regarded as a standard work, characterized by accuracy and extensive research...
(1787–1870), had also been a solicitor as well as a historian and biographer of English law and judiciary. Foss's elder sister, Josephine (1877–1983), served as a missionary and teacher of English in Asia and Africa.
Foss's childhood aptitude for both music and language led to his undergraduate education at Bradfield College
Bradfield College
Bradfield College is a coeducational independent school located in the small village of Bradfield in the English county of Berkshire.The college was founded in 1850 by Thomas Stevens, Rector and Lord of the Manor of Bradfield...
in these areas as well as in drama. After brief military service towards the end of the First World War, he took a variety of jobs in various teaching and journalistic positions, during which time he married (1921) his first wife, Kate Frances Carter Page (1900–1952), but the marriage only lasted about two years. It was also in 1921 that he was hired by Humphrey S. Milford
Humphrey S. Milford
Humphrey Sumner Milford was an English publisher and editor who from 1913 to 1945 was Publisher to the University of Oxford and head of the London operations of Oxford University Press...
of OUP's London branch (first at Amen Corner, from 1924 at Amen House) as a sales representative in education. Discussing the antecedents of the Music Department in his history of the Press, Sutcliffe says that Foss "was not particularly interested in education: he was passionately interested in music ... Milford had personal and business relations with cathedral organists and hymnologists. And he also had Hubert Foss."
Foss's experience in education and his musical talents and interest fused with Milford's when Foss brought to Milford a proposal in 1922 for a series or collection of essays on famous composers to be written by well-known contemporary musicians and musicologists. Originally conceived purely as an educational book for the broadcast, recording, and concert-going audience, it may have been the catalyst (Milford's motivation is not clear) for Milford to initiate the creation of a new music publishing department within the London offices. The proposed collection eventually became the first volume of the three-volume Heritage of Music; but upon the new department's undertaking publication of the Oxford Choral Songs series (1923, and still in publication today), Milford made Foss the in-house editor for the series. His work there apparently so impressed Milford that later that year, Foss was appointed the department's head with the title of Musical Editor. Foss also brought his mind to bear on the typographical design of the OUP's music publications at this period.
Foss, working with characteristic energy and enterprise, soon expanded the musical work of the London branch from its original concern with hymnals and music education to every branch of music publication and promotion. He quickly established sales agreements with publishers in other countries, and even in the United States (with Carl Fischer Music
Carl Fischer Music
Carl Fischer Music is a major publisher of sheet music based in New York City that has been in business since 1872. As one of the few remaining family-owned music publishers, it supplies educational materials to professional and beginning musicians of all ages, as well as new music works.Notable...
) where OUP had its own New York publishing office. He also travelled in Europe and to the United States as a member of the International Society for Contemporary Music
International Society for Contemporary Music
The International Society for Contemporary Music is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.ISCM was established in 1922, in Salzburg. Its core activity is the World Music Days Festival, held every year at a different location. The festival includes cutting edge productions...
(ISCM) whose international festival OUP hosted in 1931. In addition, he was keeping up his own work of composition and piano performance, often accompanying his second wife, the soprano Dora Maria Stevens (1893–1978), whom he married in 1927.
As Foss worked at expanding the scope of the Music Department's work (adding "some 200 titles a year" ), he also spent much time and energy turning his earliest speculative and underfunded productions into a solid foundation of remunerative publications which would—eventually—both reimburse the Press for the music it had already produced and in turn allow it to introduce new music and composers to the public. In this he had Milford's support, though Milford said that he came nearer than any other single man to ruining the Press.
The London office's parent body in Oxford was less sympathetic. The difficulty lay in OUP's concept that while the Oxford side (The Clarendon Press) as an academic publisher could and did lose money, the purpose of Amen House was to publish respectable but remunerative books. OUP's accounting traditions further emphasized early write-off as losses of unsold stocks of books, whereas Foss regarded his inventory of music, books on music, performance and "mechanical" (recording and broadcasting) rights, and above all the composers who published with Oxford all as investments. Added to the general economic difficulties of the 1930s, some personal health issues, and the shock caused by the move of the London branch's offices to Oxford to escape The Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
and the consequent decrease in resources physical and financial, OUP's pressure to reduce his intense efforts to expand the Music Department's scope led to bouts of depression and alcoholism. Foss, "after some difficulties" (which may have included attempted suicide), resigned his editorship in 1941.
In the following years, he energetically pursued a number of freelance musical occupations, serving as critic, reviewer, journalist, and broadcaster. In this last, he was highly regarded and warmly commended by the BBC and other radio authorities during and after the war. He continued to serve as an editor and compiler of articles and works about music and its analysis and appreciation as well as publishing his own works. In the late war years, Foss began his study of Ralph Vaughan Williams, to which the composer himself contributed "A Musical Autobiography". Foss had been asked to assume the editorship of The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
when he suffered a stroke following an operation. He died at the age of 54 at his home in London.
Foss was survived by his second wife, and by children from both his first and second marriages.
Influences and connections
As with others in similar positions (for example, John W. CampbellJohn W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...
, Jr., the influential editor of Astounding and Analog
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
), Foss's primary influence in music was as a developer of music and musicians. In this the primary example must be Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
, most of whose music in various forms OUP originally published and still produces. Other composers for whom the Press formed a stepping stone to long and successful careers include William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
, Edmund Rubbra
Edmund Rubbra
Edmund Rubbra was a British composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras. He was greatly esteemed by fellow musicians and was at the peak of his fame in the mid-20th century. The most famous of his pieces are his eleven...
, and Peter Warlock
Peter Warlock
Peter Warlock was a pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine , an Anglo-Welsh composer and music critic. He used the pseudonym when composing, and is now better known by this name....
(the last of whom Foss and his first wife had known early in their lives). Hinnells writes that "Foss had a remarkable ear for the work of a new, younger generation," and Foss's willingness to take risks in publishing such then-unknown artists contributed to bringing them before the English public of his day. However, Foss did misjudge at least one leading British composer: Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
. After handling some of Britten's early music, Foss, "in a decision later much regretted by OUP, decided not to continue as his publisher."
In so doing, Foss brought his whole suite of talents to the selection and production of music. Wright quotes Foss as saying that "the literary side of a song is of equal importance with the musical, and that no one should be expected to sing words of an inferior character." His skills in art and typography manifested themselves in originating distinctive and unique covers, artwork, and layout for each of his "stable" of composers by which copies of their music could be visually identified. This pleased his composers as well as acting as a marketing tool for the sale or rental of their music. (His design for the publication of Lambert's The Rio Grande is still regarded as an outstanding example of music printing.)
Foss's influence on English music and the practice of music publishing between the wars is hard to underestimate. With Milford's support, he expanded and deepened OUP's music publishing scope from a limited number of hymnals and educational sheet music to a comprehensive inventory of operas, orchestral works, chamber pieces, choral and vocal works, and piano pieces, along with the production facilities and distribution channels to handle them. The educational works were increased and expanded, paralleling increased government support for music education. "The largest part of its publishing came to be of educational and tuitional works. It produced music courses at all levels for schools, textbooks for music colleges and colleges of education, and for universities."
Moreover, Foss played a major role in the industry's recognition of the long-term revenue benefits to be gained by renting scores and parts for large musical works (in contrast to trying to sell them in large quantities when demand was unknown or uncertain) and by acquiring performance and mechanical rights. The latter became increasingly important with the growth of radio and of recorded music. Foss, OUP, and Vaughan Williams were among those who originally opposed the Performing Right Society
Performing Right Society
PRS for Music is a UK copyright collection society undertaking collective rights management for musical works. PRS for Music was formed in 1997 as the MCPS-PRS Alliance, bringing together two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society and Performing Right Society...
(PRS) as likely to inhibit musical performance due to their fees. Their position changed, however, as a consequence of decreasing returns from music publication and increasing revenue from broadcasting, and OUP joined the PRS in 1936.
As Musical Editor, Foss expanded OUP's publication of books on music, music analysis, and music appreciation. Continuing OUP's already-established tradition for printing works in series, Foss initiated the booklet series Musical Pilgrims with such authors as C. S. Terry covering the works of Bach and Cecil Gray on the symphonies of Sibelius. Still another series, Oxford Church Music, provided inexpensive but accurate editions of both old and contemporary music for churches and schools; this series still continues today.
In addition to the articles and presentations which would later form the basis for his own studies of Vaughan Williams, Walton, and others, he edited many of the writings of Sir Donald Tovey
Donald Francis Tovey
Sir Donald Francis Tovey was a British musical analyst, musicologist, writer on music, composer, conductor and pianist...
. Foss found Tovey "fascinating, inspiring, and exhausting," according to Hinnells; but "Foss was credited as being the only man who could have managed to produce [Tovey's] six volumes of Essays in Musical Analysis. It was also Foss who encouraged and supported Percy Scholes
Percy Scholes
Percy Alfred Scholes was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music...
during the latter's years as critic and broadcaster; and it was to Foss that Scholes brought what became the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music
The Oxford Companion to Music
The Oxford Companion to Music is a music reference book in the series of Oxford Companions produced by the Oxford University Press. It was originally conceived and written by Percy Scholes and published in 1938. Since then, it has undergone two distinct rewritings, one by Denis Arnold, in 1983,...
in 1938. Late in life, Foss translated Léon Vallas' biography of César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
. During the same period, he contributed many "liner notes" for long-playing disk recordings.
During the years at Amen House, Foss made the acquaintance of the poet and writer on theology Charles Williams. Williams and Frederick Page were then editors for the Press, and there was a great friendship among all three men. It was for two of Williams' "Amen House Masques" (in 1927 and 1929) that Foss wrote the music and arranged the dances that were performed by some of the employees for festive occasions in honor of Milford and the staff of Amen House. Williams and Foss at about the same time collaborated on a short essay on "Meaning in Poetry and Music" which appeared in Music and Letters.
Most of Foss's own musical compositions are short forms: songs, piano pieces, and chamber music. As might be expected in one who championed the English tradition, his works often involve folk song and Elizabethan influences. Thus, he avoided atonal or "spiky" elements; Foss's music "frequently included complex chromatic harmonies, but his melodic lines remained lyrical in nature." Among the most notable are his contributions (together with Vaughan Williams and Clive Carey
Clive Carey
Francis Clive Savill Carey CBE , known as Clive Carey, was a British baritone, singing teacher, composer, opera producer and folk song collector.-Biography:Clive Carey was born at Sible Hedingham, Essex in 1883...
) of piano accompaniments for Folk Songs from Newfoundland collected by Maud Karpeles
Maud Karpeles
Maud Karpeles was a collector of folksongs and dance teacher.Maud Karpeles was born in London in 1885. In Berlin at the "Hochschule für Musik" she studied piano for six months. In 1892 a women's settlement had been created in Cumberland Road, Canning Town in 1892...
; and his Seven Poems by Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
for baritone solo, mens chorus, and instruments.
Showing the "colorful diversity of [his] tastes," Foss contributed articles and letters on the business and the craft of publishing and printing music, and was one of the founders of the Double Crown Club
Double Crown Club
The Double Crown Club is a dining club and society of printers, publishers, book designers and illustrators in London that was founded in the 1920s...
, a dining club for leading printers and typographical designers. He also helped organize the (London) Bach Cantata Club and directed some of its performances.
The composer Herbert Howells
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...
, speaking at Foss's memorial service at St. John's Church, St. John's Wood, on 24 June 1953, said that he [Howells]:
- often pondered the struggles between heart and mind that must have torn [Hubert] in the exercise and responsibilities of his chief enterprise—-the building of the Music Department of the Oxford University Press. . . . The fruits of that work have been rich and abundant. . . . The heart and mind of a man governing the accumulation of an extensive catalogue ought, under Providence, to be inhumanly poised and balanced. If the catalogue came to include dusty items among its shining riches, need one wonder? If what we now recognize as deadweight seemed, in its springtime, to deserve the first opportunity for young-eyed creative effort, need we complain? Shall we criticize the generous spirit of the man who took a risk? It is precisely that generosity of his that now so moves us to admiration and affection. And there went with it two other qualities—-courage and loyalty. . . .
- There are in this gathering of his friends so many who could speak with direct authority on other of his activities and cherished causes. Those who were for five or six years his leading collaborators in the Bach Cantata Club have told me of his selfless work for the important music-making of that society. There are discerning musicians who think of him first as the man whose settings of Thomas Hardy revealed the sensitive creative gift that was in him. A series of Christmas cards signed "Dora and Hubert" are of the kind one keeps and treasures: for to their choice and printing and whole presentation went the grace and exquisite taste that marked his influence in many a distinguished product of the Oxford Press. His heart and mind were attuned to the beauty of sound: his eye to the beauty of a printed page. To the excitement of writing a poem he could add that of printing it with all the experienced skill of a born typographer. On small and great things he lavished an equal care and discernment. . . .
Author
- Music in My Time (1933)
- The Concertgoer's Handbook (1946, 2nd edition 1951)
- Books About Music: A Reader's Guide (1947)
- Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Study (1950)
- Mussorgsky (1951?)
- London Symphony: Portrait of an Orchestra (posthumous, completed by N. Godwin, 1954)
Editor
- Heritage of Music (editor, 3 volumes; 1927, 1934, 1951)
- Tovey: Essays in Musical AnalysisEssays in Musical AnalysisDonald Francis Tovey's Essays in Musical Analysis are a series of analytical essays on classical music.The "essays" actually came into existence as programme notes written by Tovey to accompany concerts given by the Reid Orchestra in Edinburgh. Between 1935 and 1939 they were published in six...
: Chamber Music (1944) - Tovey: Beethoven (1945)
- Wood (Sir Henry)Henry Wood (conductor)Sir Henry Joseph Wood, CH was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences...
: About Conducting: With a Prefatory Note by Hubert Foss (1945) - Tovey: Essays and Lectures on Music (1949)
- Tovey: The Main Stream of Music and Other Essays (1949)
- Warlock (Heseltine): Frederick DeliusFrederick DeliusFrederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
: Reprinted with Additions Annotations and Comments by Hubert Foss (1952)
Translator
- Vallas: César Franck (1951 tr. of La véritable histoire de César Franck, 1950)
Compositions
- "As I Walked Forth" and "Infant Joy" (words by William BlakeWilliam BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
) (19??) - Seven Poems by Thomas Hardy (1925)
- "The Nurse's Song" (Blake)(1925)
- "New Mistress" (A. E. HousmanA. E. HousmanAlfred Edward Housman , usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900...
) (1925) - "Carol of Amen House" (Charles Williams) (1927)
- Six Songs by Shakespeare (1929)
- "O! I ha'e seen the roses blaw" (arr. of an English North Country ballad) (1929)
- Three Airs for Two Players for violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
(1933) - Folk Songs from Newfoundland (ed. M. Karpeles; piano accompaniments of four tunes) (1934)
- "Come Sleep" (John FletcherJohn Fletcher (playwright)John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
) (1935) - "Winter Chant" (Richard Watson Dixon) (1937)
- "If I Had But Two Little Wings" (Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
) (1937) - A Book of French Songs (selected by E. M. Stéphan; arr. with piano accompaniments by Foss) (1939)
- Prince Otto: A Romance in Two Acts: Based on Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis StevensonRobert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
's Famous Novel: Book and Lyrics by Kenelm Foss. Music by Hubert J. Foss (1945?) - "Lullaby of an Infant Chief" (Sir Walter Scott) (1948)
- "The Gypsy" (Foss) (1949)
- "The Bargain" (Sir Philip Sidney) (1949)
- "Easter Tidings" (B. H. Alexander and an old Easter carol) (1949)
Sources
- Bosky, Bernadette Lynn. Introduction to Williams, Charles: The Masques of Amen House (see below), p. 1-30.
- Bratman, David. "Hubert J. Foss and the Music of the Masques." In Williams, Charles: The Masques of Amen House (see below), p. 159-164.
- Colles, H. C. "Foss, Hubert (James)." Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 3. Fifth edition. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1954.
- Colles, H. C., and Frank Howes. "Foss, Hubert J(ames)". The New Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 6. Second edition. New York: Grove's Dictionaries (ISBN 0-333-60800-3), 2001.
- Eaglefield, A. C. "Foss, Hubert James." A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians. London: J. M Dent & Sons, Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1924. Rpt. New York: Da Capo Press (ISBN 0-306-70086-7), 1971.
- Foden, Peter, and Paul W. Nash. "The wet grass of bookishness: Hubert J. Foss as book designer" in Matrix 14 (1992), pp. 139–147.
- Foss, Hubert J. "Modern Music Printing", Music and Letters, vol. 4, No. 4 (October, 1923), p. 340-47.
- ——— Music in My Time. London: Rich & Cowan Ltd., 1933.
- ——— "Paper for Printing", The Musical Times, vol. 84, no. 1210 (December, 1943), p. 381.
- ——— Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Study [RVW]. London: George G. Harrap, Ltd, 1952.
- Frank, Alan. "Hubert Foss" [Obituary]. The Musical Times, vol. 94, no. 1325 (July, 1953), p. 330.
- Hinnells, Duncan. An Extraordinary Performance: Hubert Foss and the Early Years of Music Publishing at the Oxford University Press [AEP]. Oxford: Oxford University Press (ISBN 978-0-19-323200-6), 1998.
- ——— "Foss, Hubert James". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), vol. 20. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Howells, Herbert. "Hubert Foss". Memorial speech rpt. in The Musical Times, vol. 94 no. 1326 (August 1953).
- Oxford University Press. Oxford Music: The First Fifty Years '23-'73. London: OUP, 1973.
- Sutcliffe, Peter. The Oxford University Press: An Informal History. Oxford: The Clarendon Press (ISBN 0199510849 ), 1978.
- Williams, CharlesCharles Williams (UK writer)Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings.- Biography :...
. The Masques of Amen House, together with Amen House Poems, and with Selections from the Music for the Masques by Hubert J. Foss. Edited and annotated by David Bratman, with an Introduction by Bernadette Lynn Bosky. Altadena, California: The Mythopoeic Press (ISBN 9781887726061), 2000. - Williams, Charles, and Hubert J. Foss. "Meaning in Poetry and Music". Music and Letters, vol. 10, no. 1 (January 1929), p. 83-90. Katherine Wilson's article which led to this essay will be found in the preceding issue of July, 1928, p. 211.
- Wright, Simon. "Oxford University Press and Music Publishing: A 75th Anniversary Retrospective". Brio 35, 2 (Autumn-Winter 1998), 90-100.