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{{Compositor

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Much of Joseph's compositional [[Work of art|oeuvre]] was never published and has been lost. Of her published works, two early short orchestral pieces, ''Morris Dance'' and ''Bergamask'' won considerable critical praise, although neither became part of the general orchestral repertory. Two choral works, ''A Festival Venite'' and ''A Hymn for Whitsuntide'' were admired during her lifetime, but seldom performed thereafter. Her carol "A Little Childe There is Ibore" was thought by Holst to be among the best of its kind. In the eight decades after her death there were no commercial recordings of Joseph's music,{{refn|The [[British Library Sound Archive]] collection contains a single recording of Joseph's: the carol "A Little Childe There is Ibore", probably derived from a 1995 BBC broadcast. There is no indication that this recording was issued commercially.<ref>{{cite web|title= Explore the British Library|url= http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?mode=Basic&vid=BLVU1&vl%28freeText0%29=A%20Little%20Childe%20There%20is%20Ibore&fn=search&tab=local_tab |publisher= British Library|accessdate= 8 June 2016}}</ref>| group=n}} but there have been occasional broadcast performances.

 

 

Jane Joseph was born on 31 May 1894 at 23 Clanricarde Gardens, in the [[Notting Hill]] district of the [[Metropolitan Borough of Kensington|Borough of Kensington]], London, to a prosperous Jewish family. Her father, George Solomon Joseph (1844–1917), a [[solicitor]] in his family's firm, had married Henrietta, née Franklin (1861–1938) in 1880. Jane was their fourth child; the youngest of her three brothers was seven years older than her. George Joseph had a deep interest in music, which he passed on to his children; two sons, Frank (1881–1944) and Edwin (1887–1975), became competent string players, while Jane learned piano (she took her first examination at the age of seven) and later, double-bass. In time, Frank's musical children, with Jane and friends, formed the basis of a "Josephs orchestra" that performed concerts at Frank's home for many years.<ref name= Gibbs99>{{cite journal|last= Gibbs|first= Alan|title= The Music of Jane Joseph|jstor= 946669|journal= Tempo|issue= 299|date= July 1999|pages=14–18}} {{subscription}}</ref><ref>Gibbs 2000, p. 25</ref>

 

[[File:Holst-by-rothenstein-1920.jpg|left|thumb|upright||Holst, as drawn by [[William Rothenstein]]]]

In 1909 Joseph won a scholarship to [[St Paul's Girls' School]] (SPGS) in [[Hammersmith]].<ref name= G26>Gibbs 2000, p. 26</ref> The school had opened in 1904, as an offshoot of the long-established [[St Paul's School, London|St Paul's School]] for boys.<ref>{{cite web|title= History of the School|url=http://spgs.org/about/history/ |publisher= St Paul's Girls' School|accessdate= 8 June 2013}}</ref> Its high mistress, Frances Ralph Gray, was a formidable figure with traditional views about female education,<ref>{{cite web|last= Coutts|first= Elizabeth|title= Gray, Frances Ralph|url= http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/48642|work= Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|edition=online|year= 2004|accessdate= 30 April 2013}} {{subscription}}</ref> who nevertheless provided a lively and varied learning environment in which Joseph excelled. Apart from her academic successes, Joseph played double-bass in the school orchestra,<ref name= Gibbs99/> gave an acclaimed piano performance of [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]]'s [[D minor]] keyboard concerto, began to compose, and won a prize for [[sight-reading]].<ref name= G26/> While at the school she composed "The Carrion Crow", a song setting which, in 1914, became her first published work.<ref name= G28>Gibbs 2000, p. 28</ref> Outside music she supported the school's Literary Society, where she presented papers on [[Charlotte Brontë]] and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]. She also won Honours in the examinations of the [[Royal Drawing Society]].<ref name= G26/>

Among the music teachers at SPGS, most significantly in terms of her musical development, Joseph encountered the emergent composer [[Gustav Holst]], then little known, who taught her composition. After leaving the [[Royal College of Music]] in 1898 Holst had earned his living as an organist, and as a trombonist in various orchestras, while awaiting critical recognition as a composer.<ref>{{cite web|last=Matthews|first=Colin|title=Holst, Gustav|url=http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/13252|publisher= Grove Music Online|accessdate=22 March 2013|authorlink=Colin Matthews}} {{subscription}}</ref> In 1903 he gave up his orchestral appointments to concentrate on composing, but found that he needed a regular income. He became a music teacher, initially at the [[James Allen's Girls' School]] in [[Dulwich]];<ref>Short, pp. 50–53</ref> in 1905 he was recommended to Frances Gray by Adine O'Neill, a former pupil of [[Clara Schumann]], who taught piano at SPGS.<ref>Short, p. 57</ref> He was first appointed on a part-time basis to teach singing, and later extended his activities to cover the school's wider music curriculum including conducting and composition.<ref>Short, p. 57 and p. 60</ref> According to the composer Alan Gibbs, Joseph quickly came under Holst's spell, and adopted his principles as her own.<ref name= Gibbs99/> Holst later described her as the best girl pupil he ever had: "From the first she showed an individual attitude of mind and an eagerness to absorb all that was beautiful".<ref name= MMR>{{cite journal|authorlink= Gustav Holst|last= Holst|first= Gustav|title= Jane Joseph: A brief discussion of her published music|url= http://landofllostcontent.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/jane-joseph-brief-discussion-of-her.html|journal= The Monthly Musical Record|date= April 1931|pages=97–98}}</ref>{{Clear}}

 

 

[[File:Girton College, Cambridge, England, 1890s.jpg|thumb|Girton College, Cambridge, early in the 20th century]]

In the autumn of 1913, at the age of 19, Joseph began studying [[Classics]] at [[Girton College, Cambridge]].<ref name= Gibbs27>Gibbs 2000, p. 27</ref> At that time, under Cambridge University regulations that were not fully repealed until 1948, women were ineligible to receive degrees,<ref>{{cite news|last= Chambers|first= Suzanna|title= At last, a degree of honour for 900 Cambridge women|url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/at-last-a-degree-of-honour-for-900-cambridge-women-1157056.html|newspaper= The Independent|date= 31 May 1998}}</ref> although they could sit the degree examinations, in Joseph's case the [[Classical Tripos]]. She soon found much in the university's life to divert her from her regular studies: debating, drama and, above all, music. In her first term she became a double-bass player in the [[Cambridge University Musical Society]] orchestra, under its conductor [[Cyril Rootham]]. She also sang [[alto]] in the society's choir, and may have participated in a performance of [[Hector Berlioz|Berlioz]]'s ''[[La damnation de Faust]]'' that was praised in the ''Cambridge Review'' of 17 June 1914.<ref name= Gibbs27/> During vacations she continued her composition studies under Holst; in 1916 her "Wassail Song", a companion piece to "The Carrion Crow", was published. At Girton she wrote incidental music for a performance of [[W. B. Yeats]]'s verse play ''[[The Countess Cathleen]]'', in which she acted the part of the First Dragon.<ref name= G28/>

From 1915 Joseph's association with Holst became closer. Overextended by his teaching duties and other commitments, Holst required assistance in the task of organising his music for publication and performance, and used a group of young women volunteers—his "scribes"—to make fair copies of his scores, write out instrumental or vocal parts, or prepare piano arrangements. In 1915 the composer was working on his largest and best-known work, the orchestral suite ''[[The Planets]]'', and invited Joseph, in her vacations, to join his scribes.<ref name= G28/> Among these were Vally Lasker, a piano teacher from SPGS, and Nora Day, who had been a pupil with Joseph at the school and since 1913 had been teaching there.<ref>Short, p. 82</ref><ref>Gibbs 2000, pp. 149–50</ref> Joseph's main assignment for ''The Planets'' was to copy the "Neptune" movement, of which almost the entire original manuscript is written in her hand.<ref name= G28/> For the rest of her career she remained one of Holst's most regular [[amanuenses]],<ref name= Gibbs99/> and he came to rely on her more than on any other. Her commitments to musical activities at Girton, combined with her work for Holst, had an adverse effect on her formal studies. In the 1916 Classical Tripos examinations she was awarded only a Class III pass, a disappointing result duly noted in her parting testimonial from the college.<ref name= G29>Gibbs 2000, pp. 29–30</ref>

 

When Joseph left Girton, the [[First World War]] was at a critical state; the [[Battle of the Somme]] had begun on 1 July 1916. Joseph wanted to assist the war effort, and after considering work on the land or in a munitions factory, took up part-time welfare work in [[Islington]]. In the autumn of 1916 she began teaching at [[Caterham School|Eothen]], a small private school for girls in [[Caterham]], founded and run by the Misses Catharine and Winifred Pye.<ref name= G29/> In 1917 Holst's ten-year-old daughter [[Imogen Holst|Imogen]] started at the school; soon, under Joseph's guidance the young pupil was composing her own music.<ref name= IH9>Grogan (ed.), pp. 9–11</ref> Joseph extended her own musical activities by joining the orchestra at [[Morley College]], where Holst was the director of music and where her brother Edwin had played the cello before the war.<ref name= G31>Gibbs 2000, pp. 31–32</ref> At first she played the double-bass, but later took [[French horn]] lessons, possibly from [[Adolf Borsdorf|Adolph Borsdorf]];<ref>{{cite web|title= Borsdorf, Adolph|url= http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e1401?q=Adolph+Borsdorf&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit|work= The Oxford Dictionary of Music|edition=online|accessdate= 1 May 2013}} {{subscription}}</ref> later still, at very short notice, she taught herself the [[timpani]] part for a summer concert.<ref name= G31/> By 1918 she was a member of the Morley committee that on 9 March organised and produced an opera burlesque, ''English Opera as She is Wrote'', in which English, Italian, German, French and Russian opera styles were parodied in successive scenes. The performance was a great success and was repeated at several venues. It may have inspired Holst to use parody in his own opera, ''[[The Perfect Fool]]'', which he began composing in 1918.<ref name= G34>Gibbs 2000, pp. 34–35</ref> In her spare time Joseph founded and ran a choir for Kensington [[Nanny|nannies]], which took part in local singing contests as the "Linden Singers".<ref name= G29/>

[[File:Thaxted Windmill and Church - geograph.org.uk - 158193.jpg|thumb|left|Thaxted, Essex, scene of the Whitsun music festivals 1916–18]]

The years 1917 and 1918 also brought personal sadness. On 22 October 1917 Joseph's father died from a heart attack. On 27 May the following year, just after the Whitsun festival, her brother William was killed in action on the [[Western Front (World War I)|western front]]; in September, Edwin was severely wounded in the final Allied offensive of the war. In his monograph on Joseph's life and music, the composer Alan Gibbs writes that "there is no hint in Jane's letters of the effect these events had on her".<ref>Gibbs 2000, p. 34</ref> Gibbs quotes [[Duff Cooper]], who wrote of those times: "...&nbsp;if we wept—as weep we did—we wept in secret".<ref>Gibbs 2000, p. 34, quoting Cooper, p. 39</ref>

 

 

[[File:Vaughan-Williams-by-Rothenstein.jpg|thumb|upright= 0.7|Ralph Vaughan Williams, an appreciative critic of Joseph's early compositions]]

In 1919, seeking to consolidate her musical career, Joseph joined the [[Society of Women Musicians]] (SWM), founded in 1911 by the violinist and musicologist [[Marion Scott (musicologist)|Marion Scott]] and others to promote the interests of women in music.<ref name= G40>Gibbs 2000, p. 40</ref> Scott was known to Joseph, having been [[Concertmaster|leader]] of the Morley orchestra.<ref>{{cite web|title= Scott, Marion|url= http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/25254?q=Marion+Scott&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit|publisher= Grove Music Online|accessdate= 4 May 2013}} {{subscription}}</ref> Joseph became a member of the SWM's Composers' Sectional Committee, and occasionally gave lectures to the society on subjects such as "The Necessity of Practical Experience for Composers", and "The Composer as Pupil".<ref name= G40/> In the summer of 1919 she took conducting lessons from [[Adrian Boult]], whom she described as "the most chinless man I have ever met".<ref name= G38>Gibbs 2000, pp. 38–39</ref> The purpose of the lessons was to enable her to conduct her orchestral work ''Bergamask'', which was performed at the [[London Coliseum|Coliseum Theatre]] under a scheme devised by [[Sir Oswald Stoll]] to showcase new British music. In that same summer she met [[Ralph Vaughan Williams]], a close friend of Holst. She played him some of her music, probably a piano reduction of ''Bergamask'', and described him as "a very appreciative critic".<ref name= G38/>

The Whitsun festivals, suspended during Holst's absence, resumed at Dulwich in 1920. Joseph's part in this event is unrecorded, but she made a major contribution to the following year's festivities, which began beside the Thames at [[Isleworth]] and concluded on Whit Monday at SPGS in the gardens of Bute House.<ref>Gibbs 2000, p. 91</ref> For the Monday's celebrations Joseph devised a presentation of [[Henry Purcell|Purcell]]'s [[semi-opera]] from 1690, ''[[Dioclesian]]''. Writing of the occasion after Joseph's death, Holst recalled that she had woven Purcell's music and [[Thomas Betterton]]'s text, both long neglected, "into a delightful out-door pageant founded on a fairy story, complete with lost princess, dragon and princely hero".<ref name= MMR/> Not satisfied with planning every aspect of the outdoor performance, Joseph prepared an indoors version of the entertainment, should the weather require this. The production was a great success, and was repeated that summer in [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]] and, in October 1921, at the [[The Old Vic|Old Vic]] theatre.<ref>Short, p. 198</ref> Throughout this considerable organisational task, Holst wrote, "Jane gave the minimum of worry to each person concerned by giving herself the maximum of hard work and forethought".<ref name= MMR/>

 

[[File:AllSaints Blackheath.jpg|thumb|upright|left|All Saints, Blackheath, venue for the 1922 Whitsun festival (2007 photograph)]]

In November 1921 Joseph organised the Morley forces to perform a large-scale pageant, celebrating the bicentenary of the church of [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]]. The text was by [[Laurence Housman]] and the music, directed by Holst, was taken from the Morley repertory.<ref>Gibbs 2000, p. 42</ref> In the following year Joseph's increasing recognition as a composer was confirmed when her ''Seven Two-Part Songs'' were performed at a SWM concert that included works by [[Ethel Smyth]] and other women composers.<ref name= G41>Gibbs 2000, p. 41</ref> Two of Joseph's works, ''A Hymn for Whitsuntide'' and ''A Festival Venite'' were introduced during the 1922 Whitsun festival at All Saints' church, [[Blackheath, London|Blackheath]], with Holst conducting. After the ''Venite'' premiere Joseph wrote appreciatively to Holst: "Do you suppose for one moment that any other conductor takes trouble like that? If you do, you are quite wrong".<ref>Gibbs 2000, p. 43</ref> The ''Venite'' was performed on 13 June 1923 at the [[Queen's Hall]], by the Philharmonic Choir under [[Charles Kennedy Scott]]; the ''[[The Spectator|Spectator]]{{'}}''s critic thought it a "very notable addition to modern British music".<ref>Cecil Hann in ''The Spectator'', 30 June 1922, quoted in Gibbs 2000, p. 44</ref> Amidst her compositional and other activities, Joseph found time, in 1922, to organise the first Kensington Musical Competition Festival,<ref name= GMO>{{cite web|title= Joseph, Jane M.|url= http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52756?q=Jane+Joseph&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit|publisher= Grove Music Online|accessdate= 5 May 2013}} {{subscription}}</ref> and to orchestrate many of the competition songs. In due course this festival became an important annual event in Kensington; Vaughan Williams was among the adjudicators.<ref>Gibbs 2000, p. 44</ref> On 12 October 1922, Vaughan Williams's 50th birthday, Joseph organised a choir which gave an early-morning surprise performance in the composer's garden of a song she had written to mark the occasion.<ref>Short, p. 205</ref>

In 1926 Joseph provided Holst with the libretto for his choral ballet ''The Golden Goose'', based on a story by the [[Brothers Grimm]],<ref>Dickinson, p. 78</ref> and arranged its first performance at the 1926 Whitsun festival, held at the James Allen school.<ref>Short, p. 245</ref><ref name= G48>Gibbs 2000, pp. 48–49</ref> Joseph also assisted Holst and the librettist [[Steuart Wilson]] in the production of a second choral ballet, ''The Morning of the Year''—the first work commissioned by the [[BBC]]'s newly formed music department—which was performed at the [[Royal Albert Hall]] in March 1927.<ref name= G48/><ref>Short, pp. 249–50</ref> The Morley College Annual Report of 1927 recorded the formation of a folk dance club, and noted Joseph's "skilful direction" of the group. Her increasing interest in dance led her, that year, to join the English Folk Dance Society and the Kensington Dance Club.<ref name= G36/>

 

The main feature of the 1928 Whitsun festival, held at [[Canterbury]], was a religious drama, ''The Coming of Christ'', commissioned by [[George Bell (bishop)|George Bell]], then [[Dean of Canterbury]], and written by [[John Masefield]].<ref>Gibbs 2000, pp. 103–07</ref> Holst provided the incidental music. In a photograph described by Gibbs, taken of the festival's organisers and performers, Joseph is sitting between Holst and Mrs Bell, "taller than either, an efficient-looking lady in her early thirties, clearly of some importance to the festival".<ref name= Gibbs99/> This was Joseph's last Whitsun. Towards the end of the year her health began to fail; there is a mention in Holst's diary for 29 November 1928, "Jane's concert 8.15", but no indication is given of whether she was a performer. In February 1929 she paid off the final amount owing to the piano manufacturer [[C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik|C. Bechstein]], for Morley's new piano for which she had been fundraising since 1926. On 9 March 1929 Joseph died at home, in Kensington, of kidney failure. After a private funeral she was buried in [[Willesden Jewish Cemetery]].<ref name= G50>Gibbs 2000, pp. 50–51</ref>

 

A friend who expressed personal sadness on hearing of Joseph's death revealed another aspect of her character: "England won't be the same without Jane. She was terribly difficult to get to know at all, and awfully lonely, I thought, in spite of all her friends—don't you think so?—but I can't imagine Music without her".<ref name= G53/>

 

{{Further|List of compositions by Jane Joseph}}

Much of Joseph's music was written for performances at modest-scale events by amateur performers. As such it was never published, and over the years many works have been lost.<ref name= Scowcroft>{{cite web|last= Scowcroft|first= Philip|url= http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Oct02/distaff.htm#ixzz2SRaxNEcS|title= The Distaff Side: some British women composers|publisher= MusicWeb International|date= March 1994|accessdate= 9 May 2013}}</ref> The published works and the few others that survive, Gibbs believes, place Joseph in the category of "progressive" English composers.<ref name= G53>Gibbs 2000, pp. 53–54</ref> Although her first few compositions were mainly songs, she demonstrated early abilities as an orchestral composer. Gibbs finds in her two short pieces, ''Morris Dance'' (1917) (originally ''Barbara Noel's Morris'') and ''Bergamask'' (1919), three and five minutes respectively, a "fine feeling for orchestral sound". The ''Morris Dance'' has added sparkle from a [[glockenspiel]], while ''Bergamask'' has a festive Italianate feel.<ref name= Gibbs99/> The music writer Philip Scowcroft praises Joseph's confident handling of the sizeable orchestral forces required for the ''Morris Dance'', while the composer [[Havergal Brian]], Holst's contemporary, found ''Bergamask'' "exhilarating" and "full of promise".<ref name= Scowcroft/> Gibbs suggests that these two works presage Holst's late choral ballets, and comments: "That these carefree pieces did not find a permanent place in the repertory is unfortunate".<ref name= Gibbs99/>

Joseph's carol "A Little Childe There is Ibore", is a setting of a 15th-century poem for three female voices and piano or strings. Holst considered this "the best of Jane's many carols, and perhaps the hardest to perform well."<ref name= MMR/> Written in alternate bars of five and seven beats, it was praised by Brian for its originality.<ref name= Scowcroft/> It was eventually broadcast by the BBC on 21 December 1995.<ref name= G55/> Brian was also an admirer of Joseph's many instructional piano pieces: "pleasingly simple and unaffected".<ref name= Scowcroft/> These were published between 1920 and 1925; Gibbs writes that these pieces "focus on technical aspects in tuneful and often modal contexts", with occasional excursions into other forms such as [[chaconne]] and [[Rondo#Rondo form|rondo]].<ref name= Gibbs99/>

 

'''Notes'''

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