Journal Article

Singing for Pleasure: An Introduction to the Life and Works of Imogen Hoist

Maidens, Liza Calisesi

2023

Overview

Don't try to be clever and to prove it by saying something negative.1 -Imogen Hoist On March 14, 1984, at seventy-seven years of age, Imogen Hoist died of a heart attack. While her funeral contained the words and music of J. S. Bach and her father, British composer Gustav Hoist, the most poignant moment occurred when her mourners spontaneously sang Sanctus, the five-voice round she adapted from the music of the Franco-Flemish composer Clemens non Papa.2 She taught this particular round to many amateur singers throughout her life and published it as part of Singing for Pleasure, the collection she composed in 1957 for the National Federation of Women's Institutes, the largest women's organization in England. Imogen attended St. Paul's Girls' School from 1921 to 1924, where she took composition lessons with Herbert Howells.5 She attended the Royal College of Music from 1926 to 1930, where she studied composition with George Dyson, Gordon Jacob, and Ralph Vaughan Williams; took piano lessons with Kathleen Long; and balanced a busy schedule of additional coursework that included score reading, aural training, paperwork, choral class, ballet class, and folk dancing class.6 In 1926 as part of her paperwork course assignment for Dyson, she composed her Mass in A Minor, one of her longest compositions and in the style of a Renaissance mass, similar to Vaughan Williams's Mass in G Minor (1921). Come Follow, Summer is a coming in, Boyce's three part Alleluya, Tallis's canon in eight parts, Purcell's If Music be the Food of Love sung by women's voices, two choral settings of Somerset folk songs, one for SATB and the other SSA, the madrigal Sing We and Chant It, two interludes of instrumental music played by the local professionals (for loved) or by really reliable local amateurs, and finally two hymns, Ye Watchers and Ye Only Ones and Turn Back 0 Man sung in harmony with orchestral accompaniment.

• Publisher: American Choral Directors Association
• Subject: Amateurs / Britten, Benjamin (1913-1976) / Composers / Democratization / Folk music / Howells, Herbert / Musical performances / Musicians & conductors / Orchestras / Personal profiles / Repertoire / War / Women