Arthur Foote
Arthur William Foote (March 5, 1853 in
Biography
Foote was appointed organist of the First Church in Boston (Unitarian) in 1878, remaining there 32 years. A founder of the American Guild of Organists, he was one of the examiners at the first Guild Fellowship examination. He helped organize the New England chapter of the AGO, and from 1909 to 1912 (when the office was discontinued) he served as National Honorary President of the AGO, succeeding Horatio Parker in that position.[3] He was one of the editors of Hymns of the Church Universal, a Unitarian hymnal published in 1890.[4]
The modern tendency is to view Foote's music as "Romantic" and "European" in the light of the later generation of American composers such as Aaron Copland, Roy Harris and William Schuman, all of whom helped to develop a recognizably American sound in classical music. A Harvard graduate and the first noted American classical composer to be trained entirely in the U.S.,[5] in some sense he is to music what American poets were to literature before Walt Whitman.
Foote was an early advocate of Brahms and Wagner and promoted performances of their music. Foote was an active music teacher and wrote a number of pedagogical works, including Modern Harmony in Its Theory and Practice (1905), written with Walter R. Spalding. It was republished as Harmony (1969). He also wrote Some Practical Things in Piano-Playing (1909) and Modulation and Related Harmonic Questions (1919). He contributed many articles to music journals, including "Then and Now, Thirty Years of Musical Advance in America" in Etude (1913) and "A Bostonian Remembers" in Musical Quarterly (1937).
A good part of Foote's compositions consists of
Foote lived in
Selected works
- Three Pieces for Cello & Piano, Op. 1 (1881)
- String Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 4
- Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 5 (1883)
- Three Pieces for Violin & Piano, Op. 9
- Sonata for Violin & Piano, Op. 20
- Scherzo for Cello & Piano, Op. 22
- Piano Quartet in C major, Op. 23 (1890)
- Francesca da Rimini, Op. 24 (1890)
- Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 25
- Three Pieces for Oboe (or Flute) & Piano, Op. 31 (Flute = Op. 31B)
- String Quartet No. 2 in E major, Op. 32 (Finale performed separately as Tema con Variazione) (1893)
- Cello Concerto in G minor, Op. 33
- Romanza for Cello & Piano, Op. 33 (piano reduction of slow movement of Cello Concerto, Op. 33)
- Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 38 (1897)
- Melody for Violin & Piano, Op. 44
- Four Character Pieces after the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Op.48 (1900)
- Suite in E major for Strings, Op. 63 (premiered and first recorded by the Boston Symphony Orchestra) (1907)
- Piano Trio No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 65 (1907–1908)
- Ballad for Violin & Piano, Op. 69
- String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 70
- Seven Pieces for organ. Op. 71
- Two Pieces for Violin & Piano, Op. 74
- Legend for Violin & Piano, Op. 76
- Aubade for Cello & Piano, Op. 77
- Sonata for Viola & Piano, Op. 78A
- Nocturno & Scherzo for Flute & String Quartet, WoO. (1918, Nocturno also known as A Night Piece')
- At Dusk for Flute, Harp and Cello, WoO
- Sarabande & Rigaudon for Oboe (or Flute), Viola (or Violin) and Piano, WoO
References
- ^ "MusicSack". Retrieved February 14, 2011.
- ^ "LOC Authority Reference". Retrieved February 14, 2011.
- ^ AGO Founders Hymnal, 2009, pp. 95-96
- ^ "Arthur Foote › Hymnals | Hymnary.org". hymnary.org.
- ^ AGO Founders Hymnal, 2009, p. 95
- ^ Tawa 1997, p. 189.
- ^ Tawa 1997, p. 11.
- ^ "7 Mar 1929, Page 1 - Bradford Evening Star and The Bradford Daily Record at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2021-11-23.
Works cited
- Tawa, Nicholas E. (1997). Arthur Foote: A Musician in the Frame of Time and Place. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-3295-4.
Further reading
- The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, Ed. Sadie, Stanley, MacMillan 1980, ISBN 0-333-23111-2
- The Chamber Music Journal, Vol XIII, No.2, 2002, p. 11, ISSN 1535-1726(link does not lead to article content)
- A Catalog of the Works of Arthur Foote, 1853–1937, Cipolla, Wilma Reid, Information Coordinators 1980, ISBN 0-89990-000-3
External links
- Free scores by Arthur Foote at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also includes List of Works
- The Chamber Music of Arthur Foote. Sound-bites and information from several works.
- Arthur Foote - biography page at the Unitarian UniversalistAssociation web site
- Art of the States: Arthur Foote Three Character Pieces, op. 9 (1885)
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