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| Arthur Foote |
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.
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| 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."
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| 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.
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| 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.
