Oriental Sketch

Arthur William Foote (5 March 1853 in Salem, Massachusetts – 8 April 1937 in Boston, Massachusetts) was an American composer, and a member of the "Boston Six." The other five were George Whitefield Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker.

Foote was appointed organist of the First (Unitarian) Church in Boston 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. He was one of the editors of Hymns of the Church Universal, a Unitarian hymnal published in 1890.

The modern tendency is to view Foote's music as "Romantic" and "European" in 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., in some sense he is to music what American poets were to literature before Walt Whitman.

In keeping with my "theme" of "summertime" organ music, and having uploaded a piece by Chadwick yesterday, I thought that I'd keep it American. This morning, without intending to do so, I thought about Foote's music. From time to time I've said that I would do his entire organ works, but, I've only done 1 to date - until today.

I will run out of space here, so, I will need to give my performance/musical notes in the First Comment.

If anyone is interested in having the score, I will scan it and send it to them.

Attached below are photos of Arthur Foote and Sumner Salter (1856-1944), the man to whom this piece is dedicated, a well-known American organist of the period.

There is also an illustration from the Rubaiyat.