Hubert James Foss (2 May 1899 – 27 May 1953) was an English pianist, composer, and first Musical Editor (1923–1941) for Oxford University Press (OUP) at Amen House in London.
[2] 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.
His work there apparently so impressed Milford that later that year, Foss was appointed the department's head with the title of Musical Editor.
[8] In addition, he was maintaining his own work of composition and piano performance, often accompanying the baritone John Goss, and also his second wife, the soprano Dora Maria Stevens (1893–1978), whom he married in 1927.
[14] 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.
In the late war years, Foss began his study of Ralph Vaughan Williams, to which the composer himself contributed "A Musical Autobiography".
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).
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.
"[21] 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.
[23]) With Milford's support, Foss 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.
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.
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.
Thus, he avoided atonal or "spiky" elements; Foss's music "frequently included complex chromatic harmonies, but his melodic lines remained lyrical in nature.
"[32] 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, men's chorus, and instruments.
[36] 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]: 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.
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.