Arthur Foote (1853-1937)
Piano Quartet in C major, Op. 23 (1890)
Nocturne ('A Night Piece') and Scherzo for
Flute and String Quartet (1918)
String Quartet No.1 in G minor, Op. 4
(1882/1883)
Arthur William
Foote was born in Salem, Massachusetts on 5th March, 1853. His father, Caleb
Foote (1803-1894), was editor of the Salem
Gazette. His mother, Mary Wilder White Foote (1810-1857), died when
he was four. As a small child he showed neither unusual talent nor particular
interest in music. Foote indicated an interest in music for the first time when
he was twelve years old, his desire to study music probably stimulated by
observing his sister's piano study. Since there were no gifted musicians in his
family and no real music programme existed in Salem schools, he received his
first music lessons at the age of fourteen. His first teacher was Miss Fanny
Paine, whose teacher Benjamin Lang took an interest in the young boy and at
Lang's suggestion Foote registered at the New England Conservatory of Music in
Boston, where he took a harmony course from Stephen Emery. In September, 1870,
Foote entered Harvard University. There he conducted the Harvard Glee Club and
took music courses from John Knowles Paine, receiving his Bachelor of Music
degree in 1874. That summer he also took organ lessons from Benjamin Lang. The
latter, convinced of Foote's talents encouraged him to continue his music
studies and pursue a music career. Foote did graduate studies at Harvard and
became the recipient of the Degree of Master of Arts in June, 1875, the first
such degree awarded by an American university. Paine was an excellent teacher,
however his musical viewpoint was largely influenced by German romanticism as
reflected by the compositions of Schumann and Mendelssohn. Foote, despite his
American upbringing, continued in his teacher's footsteps, expanding slightly
towards the 'newer' German school of Brahms and Wagner.
Foote spent the
summer of 1876 at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, an experience that was to
influence him for life. Two years later, he was appointed organist and
choirmaster of the First Unitarian Church in Boston, a post he held for 32
years. He became an integral and most influential member of his musical
community and began a series of chamber music concerts and many of his finest
works were first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Rupert Hughes
commented in 1900 that "Almost all of Foote's compositions are written in
the close harmony and limited range of vocal music, and he very rarely sweeps
the keyboard in his piano compositions, or hunts out startling novelties in
strictly pianistic effect. He is not fond of the cloudy regions of the upper
notes, and though he may dart brilliantly skyward now and then just to show
that his wings are good for lighter air, he is soon back again, drifting along
the middle ether. He has won his high place by faithful adherence to his own
sober, serene ideals, and by his genuine culture and seriousness."
The style he
established in his earliest works he would use for the rest of his life.
According to David Ewen, Foote's music is "always thoroughly lyrical, with
broad and stately melodies; romantic in rhapsodic moods; and classical in
structure, a reflection of his life-long adoration of Brahms and Wagner."
He was not a prolific composer, writing only eight orchestral works. His large
choral works, The Farewell of Hiawatha, The
Wreck of the Hesperus, and The
Skeleton in Armor (all to texts by Long fellow) show clear
influences of Wagner. According to Wilma Reid Cipolla, in Foote's output there
are 73 numbered works, from Opus 1 to Opus 80, with Opp. 2, 19, 35, 56, 57,66,
and 75 unaccounted for. Among the 130 unnumbered compositions, there are 54
songs and 57 choral works. Among his most popular works is the >Suite in E major, for strings (1907), a
neo-romantic work within a baroque structure. During his life, he received two
honorary doctorates in music and was made a fellow of the American Academy of
Arts and Letters. He was one of the founders and also president of the American
Guild of Organists. Foote died on 8thApril, 1937.
Arthur Foote
completed his Piano Quartet in C major, Opus 23, in August, 1890, and
dedicated the work to John Knowles Paine. The first performance took place on
21st April, 1891, in Boston with members of the Kneisel Quartet and the
composer at the piano. The work became very popular and was played by the
composer at least forty times in public concerts. Frequent performances were
also given in Europe and in the United States by the Adamowski, Dannreuther, and
other well known quartets. His biographer Nicholas E. Tawa finds that "The
piece makes a statement that is benevolent and compassionate rather than
passionate. Foote makes no attempt to achieve the heroism of Beethoven, the
sensuousness of Wagner, the nostalgic sadness of Brahms, or the hysteria of
Tchaikovsky. Like Schubert, he is a melodist first, but of quite a different
sort. Schubert's edge of bitter-sweetness, ingenuous yearning, and moments of
vehement excitement are absent. In contrast, Foote feels there is room in
humankind's experience for a long stretch of quietude and repose that is
relatively free from high turbulence, mental agitation, and emotional pressure.
The quartet inhabits an expressive domain that is strictly the composer's own."
The opening movement is marked Allegro
comodo, an opening which he wants to be in a lively tempo, but also
to be performed with ease and in comfort. From the opening measures, we feel
that Foote is in a celebratory mood. There is no Germanic angst here, but rather
a well-integrated texture of strings and piano reminding of, perhaps, late
nineteenth century French styles. The Scherzo
which follows is vivacious and sprightly. The slow movement, marked Adagio, ma con moto, is one of Foote's
most soulful and songful chamber music moments. Musicologist and historian,
John Sullivan Dwight, compliments this movement's "Finer feeling and
sweeter melody, with more to say well worth the hearing." The honey-sweet
opening melody is haunting and unforgettable. The leisurely-paced movement
unwraps its musical gifts ever so gently, takes a short break, and returns to
the opening music convening the movement as if saying, "There it is...
wasn't it just a beauty?" The finale, marked Allegro non troppo, wakes us out of our peaceful repose. It
is a forceful, bustling ending, moderately fast paced, somewhat tense, and even
includes an old hymn and a fugato passage.
John Sullivan Dwight writes. "The last movement seemed to us to contain
more musical good sense than any part of the quartet. Clear, spontaneous,
consistent, well wrought, especially in the contrapuntal passages near the end,
it satisfied the musical sense."
The String Quartet No.1 in G minor, Opus 4 was completed by Foote in
1883. It was performed for the first time by a quartet of Boston musicians
(Charles N. Allen, Theodore Human, Carl Meisel and Wulf Fries) on 7th December,
1883. According to Nicholas E. Tawa, "Warmth of feeling, directness of
expression, simplicity of means, and clarity of structure were found to be the
quartet's outstanding merits by the audience and critics who heard its
premiere." The first New York performance took place a decade later, on
5th May, 1893, when the Beethoven Quartette performed the work. The score bears
a dedication to Theodore Thomas. Although Foote never willingly honoured his
musical mentors in his music, their influences are particularly evident in this
early work Schumann's (and to a lesser degree, Mendelssohn's) shadow can be
felt throughout. The opening Allegro
appassionato is cast in a Schumannesque sonata-allegro form. The
musical material is fervent and direct. The respite Foote provides before the
agitated development section is lyrical but not too sentimental. The movement
ends in a rapid and dramatic passage, almost as if the quartet scatters off
stage. The Scherzo which follows
is a spirited, almost "woodland"-like piece of music, while the third
movement, marked Andante con moto, is
graceful and lovely. The finale, marked Molto
allegro, is essentially an energetic rondo.
The Nocturne and Scherzo for Flute and String Quartet were
composed in 1918 and dedicated to the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco.
The Nocturne, which is actually
untitled in the manuscript, was published four years later, in 1922, as A Night Piece for Flute and Strings. The Scherzo is Foote's arrangement of the
second movement of the unpublished String
Quartet No.2 in E major, Opus 32. The first performance took place
in San Francisco on 28th January, 1919. Members of the Chamber Music Society of
San Francisco - Elias Hecht, Louis Persinger, Louis Ford, Nathan Firestone, and
Horace Britt - were the performers. Ray Brown, the critic for the >San Francisco Examiner, wrote after the
première: "The Nocturne and Scherzo for flute and strings by Arthur
Foote, played for the first time anywhere, proved a surprise to those who
believed that the composer had about written his talent out. The work was
written last summer in Foote's sixty-fifth year, yet it shows not a trace of
encroaching age. It is fresh and spontaneous, plentiful in melody and colored
with beauty. The Nocturne has
nothing of the melancholy musings of disillusioned maturity, but is filled with
the quickening impulses of spring, and the Scherzo
has a nimble and joyous wit." The Nocturne (“A Night Piece”) eventually became Foote's best-known and most-performed
work. John Burke, programme annotator for the Boston Symphony provided the
following insightful comments about this work a few days after Foote's death in
1937. "The "Night Piece" may
well be considered to typify Arthur Foote and his art. It has no concern to
shake the world. It no more than searches the beauties of certain tonal
combination within the suitable confines of an accepted form. And this search
is made with a neat skill, a sensitive response to beauty which has enabled him
to capture a distillation of sheer sensuous delight. It need hardly be added
that result is far more precious to the audiences of 1919 or 1937 than the more
ambitious attempts of lesser men."
1998 Marina and
Victor Ledin, Encore Consultants
Da Vinci Quartet
Jerilyn Jorgensen,
Kay Kirelis, violins
Margaret Miller,
viola
Katharine Knight,
cello
The Da Vinci
Quartet was formed in 1980 under the aegis of the internationally renowned Fine
Arts Quartet at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 1982 the Quartet
became Artists-in-residence at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Prizewinners and finalists in the Dmitri Shostakovich International String
Quartet Competition and the Naumberg Award for Chamber Music, the Da Vinci
Quartet now resides in Colorado where it performs concert series in three
cities, teaches at the University of Denver , the Lamont School of Music and
serves as visiting faculty at the University of Northern Colorado. Jerilyn
Jorgensen, first violinist, is a graduate of the Juilliard School where she was
a scholarship student of Joseph Fuchs. Kay Kireilis, second violinist, is
assistant concertmaster of the Colorado Springs Symphony Orchestra. Margaret
Miller, violist is a graduate of Indiana Universityy and the Institute of
Chamber Music at the University of Wisconsin. Katharine Knight, cellist is
recipient of awards for cello and chamber music performance from Peabody
Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University, and the New England Conservatory.
James Barbagallo
James Barbagallo
was born in Pittsburgh, California on November 3, 1952. At nine he began to
play the piano. His teachers were James Beall, Julian White, and Sascha
Gorodnitzki. He received a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from The Juilliard
School in 1974 and 1976. At Juilliard, he was Mr. Gorodnitzki's assistant.
Although he was a prize winner at the University of Maryland International
Piano Competition in 1978, and at the Gina Bachauer International Piano
Competition in 1980, it was his Bronze Medal at the Seventh International
Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1982 that catapulted him into
international prominence. On February 26,1996 he died unexpectedly of a heart
attack in California where he had come for more recording sessions. He was just
43 years old. This performance of the piano quartet was one his last
recordings.
Jeani Muhonen
Foster
Jeani Muhonen
Foster received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Southern
California and the Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music,
where she was the recipient of the Pablo Casals Award for Musical
Accomplishment and Human Endeavor. Ms. Foster is the former Principal Flutist
of the Colorado Springs Symphony, Flute Instructor at The Colorado College,
faculty member of The Colorado College Summer Conservatory, and Lecturer in
Flute at the University of Denver.