April-June 2019

The String Quartets of Arthur Foote

Arthur Foote (1853-1937) was born in Salem, Massachusetts and trained entirely in America. His main teacher was John Knowles Paine. Foote was primarily influenced by the leading Central European Romantic composers of the day, such as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Dvorak and Brahms. If his name is not entirely unknown, it is fair to say that his music is. This is a shame especially as far as we chamber musicians are concerned. Foote’s chamber music is first rate, deserving of regular public performance.

String Quartet No.1 in g, Op.4 , which dates from 1884, is Foote’s earliest chamber work. The captivating and somewhat nervous Allegro appassionato immediately shows him as a master of this genre. The Scherzo, allegro con spirito, fine though it is, sounds more like an opening movement than a traditional scherzo. A gorgeous Andante con moto leads to the finale, Molto allegro. It is exciting and effective with a riveting coda. This is a very mature work for an Op.4 It belongs in the repertoire and the fact that it did not enter it is only because Foote was an American, far from the then center of chamber music performance.

String Quartet No.2 in E, Op.32 dates from 1893 and is in four movements. After its first public performance, Foote withdrew the work from publication although he did not destroy the manuscript. He eventually allowed the third movement, Theme & Variations to be published as his Op.32.  From this vantage point, it is hard to see what bothered Foote about the opening Allegro giocoso which is well-written and in no way feeble or boring. The same could be said for the finely wrought Scherzo vivace which follows. Foote did eventually release it for publication in 1918 as a work for Flute and String Quartet. The Tema con variazioni is the longest movement and perhaps Foote felt that it did not fit together well with the other movements as part of a set. Certainly it can stand alone as a short piece for quartet and might work well as a stunning encore. Beginning with the poignant Andante espressivo theme, six superb variations follow, each is strikingly different in mood, color and tempo. The finale, Allegro assai, a kind of moto perpetuo is not an anti-climax to what has come before. 

String Quartet No.3 in D Major, Op.70. Foote’s last quartet dates from 1911. In this work, Foote shows that he had remained au current with the latest trends coming out of Europe. His melodic language has moved far away from Schumann or Mendelssohn and even beyond that of Brahms and Dvorak. This can be heard at once in the more wayward tonality of the main theme to the opening Allegro. It shows the influence of the French impressionists as well as the post-romantics and is certainly more modern in feel than say Dohnanyi’s Second Quartet Op.15. Again in the excellent Scherzo we have classical structure with updated tonality. It shares much in common with those composers such as Karl Weigl or Ernst Toch who chose not to follow Schonberg into the land of atonality but still were searching for new ways of melodic expression. In the following Andante espressivo, there is a tribute to Brahms but again Foote goes beyond that master. The finale, Andante espressivo—Allegro non troppo marcarto, features a powerful but melancholy introduction to the restless and faster main section. This is without doubt an early 20th century masterpiece, as good as anything being written at the time.  When one looks at how Foote evolved and assimilated new developments throughout his life and contrasts this to a relatively major composer like Max Bruch (1838-1920), who began with Mendelssohn as his model and barely went beyond him, it becomes obvious that Foote does not belong in the back ranks of composers.

You can hear soundbites to all three string quartets by clicking on the links above. And all are available from Edition Silvertrust.