Arthur William Foote was an American classical 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.
Background
He was born in Salem, Massachussets, the son of Caleb and Mary Wilder (White) Foote. He was the youngest of six children, of whom three died in infancy.
His father was part owner and chief editor of the Salem Gazette; his mother died in 1857, and he was taken care of mainly by his older sister, the author Mary Wilder (Foote) Tileston.
Education
Foote was educated at the Salem High School and at Harvard University.
At Harvard he became the leader of the Glee Club, took courses with John Knowles Paine, graduated in 1874, and received the A. M. degree in music in 1875. In the summer of 1874 he began the study of organ with Benjamin J. Lang of Boston.
Career
Though he had long expected to make the law his career, Lang persuaded him that his future lay in music.
Foote's interests, however, transcended the modest occupation of church organist.
In 1881 he organized and took part in a series of chamber music concerts in Boston. Between 1890 and 1910 he played piano with the celebrated string quartet headed by Franz Kneisel.
Meanwhile he had begun a long and successful career as teacher of piano. One of the founding members of the American Guild of Organists, he served as its president from 1909 to 1912.
It was as a composer, however, that Foote made his most significant contribution. His compositions achieved ready support in music-conscious Boston.
Of these the Suite for Strings in E major has proved the most popular and has often been performed at festivals of American music. The catalogue of Foote's works includes also Four Character Pieces after Omar Khayyam for piano (also scored for orchestra); three cantatas, The Farewell of Hiawatha, The Wreck of the Hesperus, and The Skeleton in Armor; some ten works of chamber music; many piano works; and more than a hundred songs, of which the most distinguished are The Night Has a Thousand Eyes and In Picardie.
With Professor Walter Spalding he wrote a manual, Modern Harmony (1905); he also translated Richter's Treatise on Fugue. From the start Foote followed current musical developments with interest (in 1876, for example, he attended the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth), but these developments had little effect on his own style.
He spent his entire life in or around Boston and died there, of pneumonia, at the age of eighty-four. His body was cremated.
In 1876 he became organist at the Church of the Disciples in Boston, moving two years later to the First Unitarian Church, where he remained until 1910.
Views
In his own works he used simple and lyric forms deeply rooted in the classical tradition and colored with a romantic feeling for the picturesque aspects of nature.
Quotations:
As he later explained it, "my influences from the beginning, as well as my predilection, were ultra-conservative. . The idea that certain things simply must not be had become too thoroughly ingrained" (Autobiography, pp. 57-58).
Membership
He was a member of the Glee Club. In recognition of his achievement as a composer he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Personality
Foote was of less than average height, but his body was a reservoir of energy. His most striking feature was his piercing eyes; his rough-hewn cast of countenance masked a fine sense of humor.
His gentleness in personal relationships and his constant interest in the arts and literature earned him respect and friendship among his colleagues.
Connections
In 1880 he married Kate Grant Knowlton, by whom he had one child, Katharine.