HINGSTON, John, was one of the musicians to Charles I, and afterwards entered the service of Oliver Cromwell, whose daughters he instructed in music. When the organ of Magdalen College was removed from Oxford to Hampton Court, about 1654, Hingston was appointed organist to the Protector at a salary of £100 per annum, and with two boys, his pupils, was accustomed to sing Dering's Latin motets to Cromwell, who greatly delighted in them. He had concerts at his house, at which Cromwell was often present. Hingston has been said to have been Dr. Blow's master, but this is doubtful. He composed some Fancies. He was buried at S. Margaret's, Westminster, December 17, 1683. A portrait of him is in the Music School, Oxford.
[ W. H. H. ]
HISTORIES OF MUSIC. [See Music, Histories Of.]
HOBBS, John William, was born Aug. 1, 1799, at Henley-on-Thames, where his father was bandmaster of a volunteer corps. He sang in public at the early age of three years, and at five was admitted a chorister of Canterbury Cathedral, of which his father was a lay vicar. The beauty of his voice attracting the attention of Goss, the alto singer and singing master, young Hobbs was articled to him. He appeared as principal singer at a Musical Festival at Norwich in 1813. On arriving at manhood his voice had developed into a tenor of limited compass, but of remarkable purity and sweetness. He became a member of the choirs of King's, Trinity and St. John's, Cambridge, and afterwards of that of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, of which his father was already a member. In 1827 he was appointed a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and in 1836 a lay vicar of Westminster Abbey. Hobbs long held a prominent position as a concert-singer. His singing was distinguished by taste, refinement and expression. He was the composer of a very large number of songs, several of which gained prizes from the Melodists' Club, and many were highly popular, especially 'When Delia sleeps,' 'My ancestors were Englishmen,' and 'The captive Greek girl.' He died at Croydon, Jan. 12, 1877. [App. p.677 "Add that 'Phillis is my only joy' is by him."]
[ W. H. H. ]
HOBRECHT. [See Obrecht.]
HOCKET. A term which occurs in old English writers on music, beginning with De Haudlo (1326), for passages which were truncated or mangled, or a combination of notes and pauses. The term puzzles Sir John Hawkins (Hist. chap. 53), but the late Mr. Chorley used ingeniously to explain it as a corruption of hocquet, a hiccup, and signifying a syncopation. [See Ochetto.]
[ G. ]
HODGES, EDWARD, Mus. Doc., born July 20, 1796, at Bristol, was organist of Clifton Church, and afterwards of the churches of St. James and St. Nicholas, Bristol. He produced a Morning and Evening Service and two Anthems on the reopening of St. James's organ, May 2, 1824, and published them in 1825. He obtained his doctor's degree at Cambridge in 1825. He was a contributor to 'The Quarterly Musical Magazine,' and 'The Musical World.' In 1838 he quitted England for America, and in the next year became organist of St. John's Episcopal Chapel, New York. He published 'An Essay on the Cultivation of Church Music' at New York in 1841. On the opening of Trinity Church, New York, May 21, 1846 (the organ in which had been built from his specifications), Dr. Hodges quitted St. John's to become its organist. He composed church music, some published in New York, and others in London. During his long residence in America he was much esteemed for his performance on the organ. Dr. Hodges returned to England in 1863, and died at Clifton, Sept. 1, 1867. His daughter, Miss Faustina Hasse Hodges, formerly organist in Brooklyn, and now (1878) organist of two churches in Philadelphia, has composed some songs and instrumental pieces.—His son, Rev. John Sebastian Bach Hodges, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, is an excellent organist.
[ W. H. H. ]
[App. p.677 "The following additions are to be made to the existing article:—At the age of 15 he developed remarkable inventive faculties, and some of his projects have since been adopted in different branches of mechanical science. Connected with music were improvements in organ bellows, etc., and, more important than all, the introduction of the C compass into England is claimed for him. His appointments to the churches of St. James and St. Nicholas, Bristol, took place in 1819 and 1821 respectively. The new organ in the former church, remodelled under his direction, and opened 1824, contained the first CC manual, and CCC pedal made in England. In 1838 he was appointed organist of the cathedral of Toronto, and in the following year became director of the music of Trinity Parish, New York, taking the duty at St. John's while the new Trinity Church was being built. Illness obliged him to give up duty in 1859, and in 1863 he returned to England. Besides the contributions to musical literature mentioned in the article, he wrote many pamphlets, etc. on musical and other subjects. He was an excellent contrapuntist, and possessed a remarkable gift of improvisation, and especially of extempore fugue-playing. His church compositions are numerous and elaborate. They comprise a Morning and Evening Service in C, with two anthems, a full service in F, and another in E, Psalm cxxii, etc. (all published by Novello), besides many MS. compositions, and occasional anthems for various royal funerals, etc.
[ M. ]
HOFFMANN, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm, a man of genius, and an extraordinarily clever and eccentric musician and litterateur, who though a voluminous composer will not live by his compositions so much as by some other productions of his pen. He was born at Königsberg Jan. 24, 1776; learned music and law at the same time, and bid fair to rise in the official world; but an irrepressible love of caricaturing put an end to such solid prospects and drove him to music as his main pursuit. His first musical appointment was to the theatre at Bamberg in 1809, but it was a post without salary, on which he starved. It fortunately urged him to writing a set of papers in the character of 'Johannes Kreisler the Kapellmeister' for the 'Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung' of Leipzig. They appeared at intervals from Sept. 20, 1810, and onwards, and in 1814 Hoffmann republished them with other essays in the same vein in two volumes as 'Fantasiestücke in Callot's Manier,' with a preface by Jean Paul, in whose style they are couched. Among the most interesting, and at the same time most practically valuable, are the essay on Beethoven's instrumental music—far in advance of the day—another on Gluck, and a third on Don Giovanni. The essays, which have often been reprinted, are all more or less humorous, some extremely so. They were followed by the 'Elixiere des Teufels,' a novel (1815); 'Nachtstücke' (1817), 'Serapionsbrüder' (4 vols. 1819–21); and by the 'Lebens ansichten des Kater Murr,' etc., or 'Views of life of Murr the tomcat, with fragments of the biography of Johann Kreisler, the Kapellmeister, from loose and spotted sheets.' Schumann's admiration of these pieces may be inferred from his imitations of them in his Florestan and Eusebius, and his adoption of their nomenclature in the titles of his music. After the fall of Napoleon, Hoffmann again obtained official employment at Berlin, which he discharged with efficiency, and kept till his death at a Silesian bath on June 25, 1822, of gradual paralysis, after much suffering for four months. He was fantastic and odd in the greatest degree, much given to liquor and strange company, over which 'he wasted faculties
