Three Works by American Romantic Arthur Foote

Arthur Foote

Our long series of American music recordings today features the works of Bostonian Arthur Foote (1853-1937), another neglected but worthy composer. The Harvard graduate was a member of the so-called Boston Six, which also included George Chadwick and Edward MacDowell, who have appeared on this blog previously.

Richard Franko Goldman wrote of Foote, "It is not difficult to understand why, in the excitement generated by new sounds and techniques after World War I, such composers as Foote and [Horatio] Parker were so quickly and completely forgotten. They were the 'old-school,' unadventurous, derivative, and unsurprising. But history has a way of wheeling around, and after a while it is possible to get new perspectives. 

"They were composers of their time, and even if they were not 'advanced' during the years in which they were active, this is not always or necessarily a fatal disqualification."

This program of Foote's music shows why. It encompasses two LPs of orchestral works, both conducted by Karl Krueger for his Music in America mail-order series of the 1960s. The first album contains Foote's Suite in D minor of 1895. The second includes the Symphonic Prologue, Francesca da Rimini of 1892 and the Four Character Pieces after the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám of 1905.

Karl Krueger

Karl Krueger (1894-1979) is sadly forgotten, but he was an important figure in American music, helping to found the symphony orchestra in Kansas City, then serving as conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 1943-49. Although he was born in the US, Krueger was of German descent and spent his early years as a professional in Germany and Vienna working with Arthur Nikisch and Franz Schalk. He founded the Society for the Preservation of the American Musical Heritage in 1958 with the backing of industrialist Henry H. Reichhold, who had been a trustee of the Detroit Symphony. The society funded these recordings, among others.

Suite in D minor, Op. 36

Foote's Suite in D minor is in four varied movements. Goldman wrote of it, "This work is not only well made and rather elegant, but has moments of real surge and fire."

In this 1963 performance, the first movement in particular is let down by the string sound, which was unduly strident above forte, which I have addressed. The other movements are less acidulous, but the acoustic was cramped throughout. I've added a small amount of air to the space.

Krueger's view: "The Suite heard in this recording is perhaps his [Foote's] most extended orchestral composition - 'practically a symphony,' he said of it. Composed during the years 1894-1895, the Suite had its first performance, from manuscript by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Emil Paur in 1896. Foote wrote: 'It was only fairly successful, but with two really good movements... Its fortune has been the usual one of American compositions of its sort. It had a few first performances by orchestras here (and one in England by Henry J. Wood), and afterwards little chance. The movement in variation form really satisfied me.'"

LINK to Suite in D minor

Francesca da Rimini, Op. 24; Four Character Pieces after the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám

The tale of Francesca da Rimini comes from the 13th century. Krueger: "Francesca, daughter of Guido da Polenta of Ravenna, was married by proxy to Giovanni Malatesta, the Lame, Lord of Rimini; the proxy was Giovanni's young and handsome brother, Paolo, who became Francesca's lover. Giovanni, discovering their guilt, killed them. Dante has immortalized the story in the Divine Comedy, and it was the subject of works by others. It inspired Tchaikovsky's famous symphonic poem, as well as paintings by Ingres, Watts and others."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Paolo and Francesca da Rimini

Francesca da Rimini was of interest to the Pre-Raphaelites as well. The Rossetti watercolor above is from 1855. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám was another subject of fascination in the second half of the 19th century, in artistic circles such as the Pre-Raphaelites and among musicians, including Foote.

Khayyám was a 13th century Persian astronomer and poet whose work became popular in the English-speaking world following the free translations published serially by Edmund FitzGerald beginning in 1855.

FitzGerald described his methods in a letter as follows: "My translation will interest you from its form, and also in many respects in its detail: very un-literal as it is. Many quatrains are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omar's simplicity, which is so much a virtue in him." Indeed, the work is as much FitzGerald as Khayyám.

A page from an illustrated edition by
William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones

The most famous quatrain from the Rubaiyat is the following, from FitzGerald's 1889 edition:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou 
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

A literal translation of a similar Khayyám quatrain:

If a loaf of wheaten-bread be forthcoming,
a gourd of wine, and a thigh-bone of mutton, and then,
if thou and I be sitting in the wilderness, —
that would be a joy to which no sultan can set bounds.

The "jug of wine" quatrain was the inspiration for the third section of Foote's work. The LP's notes delineate all the relevant verses.

The music for both these works is delightful throughout; these are some of the most attractive American works of the period. The sound of this 1968 LP is very good - more spacious than that accorded to the Suite.

LINK to Francesca da Rimini and the Rubaiyat

More Works by Arthur Foote

If Arthur Foote interests you, his music has appeared here three times before. All these records are newly remastered. The links below are to the downloads.

American Music for String Orchestra. In this Howard Hanson/Eastman-Rochester recording, Foote's Suite in E major is joined by Thomas Canning's Fantasia on a Hymn by Justin Morgan and Louis Mennini's Arioso.

Music for Flute by Griffes and Foote. The stellar flutist Julius Baker performs Charles T. Griffes' Poem with a chamber orchestra led by Daniel Saidenburg. He then presents Foote's A Night Piece with a string quartet.

Maurice Sharp: Music for a Golden Flute. Sharp, principal of the Cleveland Orchestra, is accompanied by the Cleveland Sinfonietta under Louis Lane. Griffes' Poem again figures here, as does Foote's A Night Piece, although this time with a chamber orchestra. The program is completed by Hanson's Serenade and Honegger's Concerto da Camera.

Flutist Maurice Sharp with the Clevelanders and Louis Lane

This is another in a series of recordings by spin-offs of the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by longtime assistant/associate/resident conductor Louis Lane. Today the spotlight is on the orchestra's principal flute, Maurice Sharp, who performs with a chamber ensemble of principals and others from the band, here called the Cleveland Sinfonietta.

The repertoire encompasses four 20th century works, three by Americans (Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Arthur Foote and Howard Hanson) and one by the French/Swiss composer Arthur Honegger.

Harvey McGuire joins Sharp for Honegger's Concerto da Camera for Flute, English Horn and Strings. Alice Chalifoux is the harpist in Hanson's Serenade.

Sharp joined the orchestra right out of the Curtis Institute, where he studied with William Kincaid, and remained principal flute for 50 years. He joined the ensemble when founding music director Nikolai Sokoloff was still in charge, with his tenure lasting to the brink of the Christoph von Dohnányi era.

Julius Baker (left) and Maurice Sharp, circa 1975

It is instructive to contrast Sharp's approach to another Kincaid pupil who became a famed orchestra principal - Julius Baker, who was solo flute both in Chicago and then for many years in New York (and who earlier spent several years in the Cleveland flute section). A while back I posted a Decca release in which Baker assays two of the works on this Cleveland issue - Griffes's Poem and Foote's A Night Piece. (Baker presents the Foote with string quartet accompaniment; Sharp uses the score for a larger ensemble.)

To my ears, Baker is the warmer of the two, although both are immaculate in their presentation. Sharp's cooler approach is in keeping with the proclivities of the Cleveland forces in the records they made with Lane - and with Szell, for that matter.

The sound on both LPs is very good - Baker in mono, Sharp in stereo. Michael Gray's discography tells us that the Cleveland recordings were taped in Severance Hall in July 1960. The Baker sessions date from June 1952.

LINK to 2026 remastered version

Julius Baker in Works by Foote and Griffes

Flutist Julius Baker made any number of records in the 1950s. During much of the period he was a New York freelance musician, but when these recordings were made, in June 1952, he was the principal flute of the Chicago Symphony. He later was the principal of the New York Philharmonic for many years.

Julius Baker

The repertoire could not be more welcome, consisting of the Poem for flute and orchestra by the American Impressionist Charles Tomlinson Griffes and "A Night Piece" by the American Romantic Arthur Foote.

Assisting in the Griffes is a chamber orchestra led by Daniel Saidenberg, also a busy performer during the period. In "A Night Piece" Baker is joined by the then violins of the Stuyvesant Quartet (Sylvan Shulman and Bernard Roberts), violist Harold Coletta of the NBC Symphony, and cellist Bernard Greenhouse, later of the Beaux Arts Trio.

These are excellent performances that I recommend. The sound is good. They come from American Decca's spartan (no notes) 4000 series of 10-inch LPs, dating from the early 1950s. I have a few more from this series coming up.

LINK to 2026 remaster

American Music for Strings

This is one of the many LPs of American music produced by Howard Hanson and Mercury when Dr. Hanson was the head of the Eastman School.

This program from circa 1955 presents three exceedingly beautiful pieces for string orchestra. The Thomas Canning work is an attempt to replicate Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis using a hymn tune by the American Justin Morgan. Louis Mennini's Arioso is recommended to anyone who enjoys Barber's Adagio for Strings. And Arthur Foote's Suite is a romantic work reminiscent of Tchaikovsky.

The Canning and Foote works have had more modern recordings, but not the Mennini, to my knowledge. Canning and Mennini were colleagues of Hanson at Eastman. Mennini's brother, Peter Mennin, was also a well-known composer.

LINK to 2026 remaster