Remembering Dorothea Angus

Published in Limelight, January-February 2016

DOROTHEA ANGUS –
CHAMPION OF MIRIAM HYDE AND DULCIE HOLLAND

In 1938, noted Australian composer Miriam Hyde was a student at Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium. She had completed the University Diploma (AMUA) and was embarking on her Mus.Bac. degree. She made a pact with fellow-student Dorothea Angus to exchange new compositions. Dulcie Holland in Sydney joined the pact.

Dorothea Angus was soon reputed to have the largest collection of Australian music. She also became an accomplished sensitive accompanist and pianist. Her piano teacher was H. Brewster Jones, and in 1934, she shared the A.M.E.B.’s Licentiate prize with Lloyd Vick. After Brewster Jones’ death, the noted organist John Horner became her teacher, and after recitals in Adelaide and Sydney, Dorothea was feted as ‘Australia’s top organist’.

The ABC recognised her talent. She made over 250 broadcasts first in Adelaide, and then in Perth, after shifting to Perth in 1938 to establish music teaching at Perth College. She broadcast live mainly on ‘Australia Makes Music’. Often after a long day of teaching, she would ride the tram down Beaufort Street to the old ABC in the Stirling building in the Supreme Court gardens to perform on air, or technicians and announcers would come to Perth College for live broadcasts from the Chapel organ.

In these concerts, she frequently accompanied the contralto Phyllis Everett, and the pair were often joined by rising violinist Vaughan Hanly. Dorothea played the classic repertoire, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. She also championed Australian music. Her former pupil Pam Hesling (née Mawby) describes how tattered and dog-eared her Australian sheet music was from vigorous practice and rough thrusting into her music case.

Little remains now of her vast collection of music. Pam Hesling has her letters and papers, but no music. I met Dorothea in 1975 and she gave me some of her organ music, which is now in the National Library in Canberra. Those 16 pieces are all that is left.

Dorothea Angus appointed in 1936 as ‘Assistant to the Precentor’ in Adelaide’s St Peter’s Cathedral. J.M. Dunn had been cathedral organist since 1891, and he died in 1936. The vacancy was given to Canon Horace Finnis, who was also Precentor and Bishop’s Vicar. It is not hard to imagine the talented Dorothea being called anonymously to the organ console or to lead choir practice while Finnis took the credit.

In Perth, Dorothea Angus is remembered now by a group of former Perth College music students who still meet annually to reminisce about the woman they call ‘Fungi’ or ‘Gus’. They are proud of the fashionable woman who encouraged their music and to take leadership in their music club. Pam Mawby gasps when she remembers turning the pages as Dorothea sight-read a Brahms sonata one morning for a performance that afternoon. Jean Bourgault du Coudray (née Macgregor) remembers Dorothea’s insistence on clarity of expression. They remember how their Principal, Sister Rosalie, would sit quietly in a corner of the Studio in the late afternoon during Dorothea’s personal practice time.

Dorothea continued to develop Perth College’s music program for 32 years. As the West Australian Symphony Orchestra found its feet in the 1950s, Dorothea began the custom of whisking the boarders off to symphony concerts. The author accompany the school to a performance of Sibelius’ Finlandia in 1975 and was astonished as they gave WASO a standing ovation, cheering and calling ‘Bravo’. They had been well briefed by Fungi! Some of them may even have known that ‘Finlandia’ was her favourite piece.

Dorothea too stretched her range and was a not infrequent concertist with WASO, playing, for example, Mozart’s A major piano concerto (K488) under Henry Krips.

But all the time, Miriam Hyde and Dulcie Holland were sending their compositions to Dorothea and Dorothea was playing them on the ABC and in concerts around Western Australia. During these years, Dulcie Holland’s music grew in reputation from being regarded only as set pieces for A.M.E.B. exams to worthwhile compositions. Pam Mawby claims that other composers, including London- and Canada-based Arthur Benjamin, regularly contributed to Dorothea’s Australian music collection.

The names of Miriam Hyde and Dulcie Holland figure largely in Australian music of last century. By her indefatigable broadcasting Dorothea Angus was one of their key interpreters and champions.