A subscriber to Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts at the turn of the century would have known the name of Arthur Foote. A leading member of...

A subscriber to Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts at the turn of the century would have known the name of Arthur Foote. A leading member of the group of composers called the Boston Classicists, Foote's works were programmed regularly in Symphony Hall and one of them, the genial E Major Suite for Strings, was recorded memorably there by Serge Koussevitsky. Derivative in nature, his music evokes comparisons with Mendelssohn, Schumann or Brahms. As Boston Symphony program annotator John Burke wrote: "his art has no concerns to shake the world. It no more than searches the beauties of certain tonal combinations within the suitable confines of an accepted form."
This is one of two discs of Foote's chamber music, part of Naxos' laudable American classics series. It includes his early G Minor String Quartet and C Major Piano Quartet as well as his most popular work, the mildly evocative "Night Piece" which begins his Nocturne and Scherzo for Flute and Strings. The performances feature the Colorado-based Da Vinci Quartet, recorded with varying ambiance at the University of Denver's LaMont School of Music.