1823–1895 · United States · Romantic
Faustina Hasse Hodges was an English-American organist and composer who died in Philadelphia in 1895. She worked as a church organist, taught organ, piano and voice, and wrote keyboard and vocal music. Her popular song Dreams, for voice and piano, is among the sheet music on our site.
Faustina was born in Malmesbury, England. She was one of four children of the organist and composer Edward Hodges, and every child in the family became an organist.
Edward Hodges emigrated to New York in 1838. Faustina joined her father there in 1841.
In the 1850s Faustina Hodges held church organist posts in Brooklyn and in Philadelphia. She also gave lessons in organ, piano and singing at Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary.
As the 1870s drew to a close, she was serving as organist in two churches in Philadelphia.
Faustina started to publish her own pieces in the 1850s, and she went on composing and publishing until she died. Her output covered many kinds of keyboard and vocal music, and that is what made her name.
Edward Hodges lost his wife in 1863 and went back to England afterwards. In 1874 Faustina issued one of his cathedral services to memorialize his life. She also wrote a biography of her father, which appeared in 1896, one year after she died.
Faustina passed away in 1895 in Philadelphia, where her grave lies beside St. James the Less church.
Faustina Hodges became known for keyboard and vocal music of many kinds. Her secular sentimental songs of 1859, Dreams and The Rose Bush, were especially popular. Her output included comic works too, among them the song The Indignant Spinster from the 1860s.
Among the sheet music on our site is Dreams for voice and piano, at the advanced level.