Arthur Foote - Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 5 (1883)

Arthur William Foote (March 5, 1853 in Salem, Massachusetts – April 8, 1937 in Boston, Massachusetts) 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.

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Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 5 (1883)
Dedication: Herrn George Henschel freundschaftlich gewidmet.

1. Allegro con brio (0:00)
2. Allegro vivace (9:31)
3. Adagio molto (14:35)
4. Allegro comodo (23:21)

Arden Trio

Arthur Foote was 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.

Foote was an early advocate of Brahms and Wagner and promoted performances of their music. Foote was an active music teacher and wrote a number of pedagogical works, including Modern Harmony in Its Theory and Practice (1905), written with Walter R. Spalding. It was republished as Harmony (1969). He also wrote Some Practical Things in Piano-Playing (1909) and Modulation and Related Harmonic Questions (1919). He contributed many articles to music journals, including "Then and Now, Thirty Years of Musical Advance in America" in Etude (1913) and "A Bostonian Remembers" in Musical Quarterly (1937).

A good part of Foote's compositions consists of chamber music and these works are generally among his best. The Chamber Music Journal (2002), discussing Foote's chamber music, has written, "If his name is not entirely unknown, it is fair to say that his music is. This is a shame. Foote's chamber music is first rate, deserving of regular public performance." His Piano Quintet, Op.38 and Piano Quartet, Op.23, are singled out for special praise. With regard to the Piano Quintet, the author writes, "Each of the movements is a gem. The Scherzo is particularly fine and the rousing finale beyond reproach. I believe that the only reason this work never received the audience it deserved and deserves is because it was written by an American who was 'out of the loop.'" As for the Piano Quartet, the opinion is that "it is as good as any late 19th century piano quartet."

The piano trio was dedicated to Sir Isidor George Henschel (18 February 1850 – 10 September 1934) who was a German-born British baritone, pianist, conductor, and composer. His first wife Lillian was also a singer. He was the first conductor of both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

He was a close friend of Johannes Brahms, whom he met in May 1874 at the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Cologne, where Henschel sang the role of Harapha in Handel's oratorio Samson. The friendship lasted until Brahms's death; Henschel reports in his memoirs that he arrived in Vienna only hours too late to see Brahms before his passing, and that their last meeting had been at a restaurant in Leipzig in 1896, where they were joined by Edvard Grieg and Arthur Nikisch.