Celebrated Dutch soprano and singing teacher.
She was the third child of Jacob Vincent (4 Dec 1868, A’ dam – 22 Febr 1953, A’dam) and Geertruida Johanna Meijer (1862 – 20 July 1938, Maartensdijk). Her father was a piano teacher and the carillon player of the Palace on the Dam at Amsterdam. They married 22 June 1893. They go three musical children: Truus became a piano teacher and the carillon player like her father, Piet also became a carillon player and Music school director, but the youngest and third child Jo Vincent became a celebrated singer.
Already as a toddler Jo Vincent wanted to become a singer and at age nine she became member of the children’s choir of singing pedagogue and composer Catharina van Rennes (2 Aug 1858 – 23 Nov 1940). After finishing the MULO – her father initially found doing secretary work a more save future for his talented daughter – she studied with the help of her father for becoming a solo singing teacher, succeeded in 1919 cum laude for the diploma en started to give singing lessons. Meanwhile she followed singing lessons with the famous voice teacher Cornelie van Zanten (2 Aug 1855, Dordrecht – 10 Jan 1946, Den Haag).
Her first public solo was in 1920 with an of sacred music ignorant public in a smoky room in Assendelft with “Die Schöpfung” of Haydn. But many hearts were enlightened and her fame grew. In 1923 she sang the Matthäus Passion and in the Concertgebouw-Orkest under Cornelis Dopper. From 21 December 1924 till 1 April 1942 she worked with the Concertgebouw-Orkest and conductor Willem Mengelberg and was the best Dutch soprano (Youtube). Jo Vincent got many invitations from other countries, but she had no interest in an career abroad. Instead she took some trips to Paris (1929) to sing under Pierre Monteux “Marguérite” in “La damnation de Faust” of Berlioz, to Wien (1934) to sing under Mengelberg the 4th symphony of Mahler and in 1936 in Wien under Arturo Toscanini singing the Missa solemnis of Beethoven. In Londen she sang several times in the Queen’s Hall under sir Henry Wood at the Proms.
On 1 April 1942 she stopped suddenly her successful singing career. The reason was the erection of the “Nederlandse Kultuurkamer” by the Germans, the equivalent of the in 22 September 1933 erected “Reichskulturkammer” of Joseph Goebbels, the “Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda”. Few days before she had rejected and publicly scorned “Reichskommissar” Seyss-Inquart, who adored her and saw her as an Aryan celebrity. During the rest of the war she gave house concerts paid “in natura” at her villa “Tetterode” in Overveen to prevent Kulturkammer fines on the then illegal singing of Mendelssohn, Mahler and other Jewish composers.
On 9 and 10 June 1945 she starred at the “Vrije Klanken” (Free Sounds) concerts of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a liberated Amsterdam. After the war she was a well paid soprano, but still took lessons with soprano Ruth Horna. She felt she had to remain very disciplined to sing her high level of art. She sang recitals of her favourite composers Schubert en Hugo Wolf and on Thursday 14 July 1949 she sang next to Kathleen Ferrier the première of Benjamin Brittens opus 44 Spring symphony under Eduard van Beinum in Amsterdam. But she also gave school concerts to interest children in the beauty of music.
She gave her last concert on 30 December 1953 in Haarlem. She and her second husband the physician C.G.J. Bos moved to the French Riviera where she hoped to find rest with her hobbies: walking, gardening and house animals. Record companies thought that she had died and mentioned Jo Vincent (1898-1955) on the labels. But in 1956 the couple returned to Holland as they did not feel at home in France. From 1956 to 1965 she gave singing lessons at the music school of her brother Piet Vincent in Haarlem. After the death of her second husband (April 1971) she moved to Cap d’Ail near Monte Carlo to live a withdrawn life till her death by disease on 28 November 1989 in a hospital in Monaco (age 91).
Personal
Jo vincent married twice. On 31 July 1924 she married the Jewish pianist and conductor Maurice van Ijzer (20 Febr 1898, A’ dam – 1970). In her first years of this unhappy marriage she called herself Jo van IJzer-Vincent (Ijzer means “iron”) , but later changed it in Jo Vincent. Van Ijzer survived the war by hiding with Godfried Bomans. After their divorce (9 Jan 1930) she married the general practitioner Cornelis Gerardus Johannes Bos ( – April 1971) on 8 May 1934. She got no children in both marriages.
Link to Dutch Wikipedia