The Boston Six

[albion]

Coming back recently to the music of the 'Boston Six' (Amy Beach, George Chadwick, Arthur Foote, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine and Horatio Parker) I was struck by the extraordinary quality of music produced by these pioneering Americans: Lisztian, Wagnerian, Brahmsian, Dvorakian, yes, but not stifled by the models which they affectionately embrace.

Chadwick has been fairly well-served by Chandos and MacDowell has always claimed a foothold in the catalogue, but others have been less fortunate. One of the least represented members is Horatio Parker, who beautiful A Northern Ballad has had a couple of recordings - his great choral masterpiece Hora Novissima is represented by a single, less than ideal, recording on Albany: clearly there is much more of value in this composer's output.

What are other members' impressions of this 'school'? 

[Mark Thomas]

Are they a "school"?

I don't really listen much to Amy Beach's music (my loss, I'm sure), and have found Paine surprisingly Beethovenian for someone writing at the end of the 19th century, but I do agree about Parker's A Northern Ballad and have also enjoyed greatly his very muscular Overture Count Robert of Paris and the Symphonic Poem (?) Vathek. Macdowell's debt to Raff and Liszt is too clear in his orchestral music (which I do enjoy, of course) but I very much admire the four Piano Sonatas. Good, strong works. I used to find Chadwick a bit run of the mill Germanic, but his five String Quartets are delightful and have a lyrical swell which is really engaging.

My favourite, though, must be Arthur Foote. Several of his major chamber works have been available on Marco Polo and Naxos for years and they are utterly gorgeous. The orchestral music, what little there is of it, is slowly becoming available and it too is marked by sumptuous harmonies, rich colours and sensuous melodies - try the Omar Khayyam pieces or Francesca Da Rimini. For his time and location, I think Foote is a real original. I have a radio dub of the Cello Concerto and that is a more conventional piece, but still hugely attractive. For me, Foote is The Man.

[Amphissa]

I too am a big fan of Arthur Foote. I especially enjoy his chamber music, but have not heard anything by him that left me dissatisfied. I have a bunch of LPs and CDs of his music.

I must meekly admit, though, I've never heard any orchestral music by Horatio Parker. I wasn't even aware that there were any recordings.

[eschiss1]

Parker's organ concerto and some choral music (Hora Novissima, I think) were recorded some while back- maybe other works too...

[eschiss1]

Re Foote, Tawa's 1997 book "Arthur Foote: a musician in the frame of time and place" - which I see only from Google Books excerpts available only in the US, but which seems recommendable from them - seems a fine book conveying the composer's breadth and abilities.  He wrote some vocal and choral music that I have seen but not heard, but which looks fine too...

Google Books also has a preview of a book about Huss- not one of the Boston Six, but an intriguing composer. 

... getting back to the Six (not les Six )- have a listen, I suggest, to Beach's opus 89 string quartet in two movements (1921-29, not published until quite recently apparently) (recorded, I think, three times- on Leonarda, Arabesque and more recently- well, 2003 - on Chandos. Maybe a time before that too).   Given the 1921-9 date - well, ok, maybe Beach was the Boston Six's Frank Bridge
I believe several of these composers were - maybe not surprisingly - at least a little more than the constriction of their reputations (but then I remember being so surprised to find that Piston was, too, in a parallel and different way. My surprise was the problem, and the typecasting maybe but that was my fault too.)

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I often think it misleading to think of this group as forming a 'six' and preface it with a definite article. There isn't surely such a thing or group as 'The Boston Six' if that implies they shared a musical 'aesthetic', subscribed to broad agreements about the role or function of music, or composed works in similar style (as did to a large degree 'Les Six'). All you've got here are six damned good composers who lived most of their lives in New England and often Boston itself. (Haven't checked, but I believe what they do have in common is that they made the European pilgrimage when young and, more interesting, studied in Germany with people like Rheinberger.) All went on to write music of high quality - and all of it is very much rooted in late 19th century German music.

Possibly I'm making the mistake of reading too much into 'the Boston Six', and then making the comment that what I assumed isn't in fact to be found? But the collective title seems to indicate something distinctively 'American'. And - doubtless someone will shoot me down - there isn't here anything distinctly 'American' (as there certainly is in the case of the next generation of composers like Ives, Copland, Harris and Schuman).

That isn't of course a dismissive comment - in my view all 6 (but maybe Beach and Foote in particular) are fine composers and their present reputation doesn't do justice to their actual achievements. Foote's chamber music - esp the Pf Quartet and Pf Quintet - is first rate. (But if you listened to it blind, I'm sure you wouldn't think it 'Bostonian', and would think it written by yet another of those many 'second rate great' German composers in the late 19th / early 20th century).

Apologies - all clumsily expressed. A sure sign to pack up from the day's events!

Peter

[Josh]

Note: the below is all just my pure, uneducated opinion. I don't mean to bother anyone; let me know if any of it does, and I will consider rewording it. I don't like mentioning negative opinions in writing, since it seems more harsh in print, but a few pop up here.


While Chadwick's Symphony #2 has become one of my favourite symphonies - and symphonies are my second-favourite musical form after operas - I too must claim Foote as my favourite overall of that company.  If there is a Foote work I consider the worst I've heard, I still find it at the very least mildly pleasing; for me to find that from a composer outside the Classical period makes him nearly unique.  Foote is one of those composers that I can't believe isn't more famous.  In fact, if I were to try to force myself to name five composers that I thought could be more popular regardless of my own personal taste, I think would name Foote to such a list.  That may sound like too much praise, but I'm completely enraptured.  While there are some chamber works among my most adored pieces, that tends to be the exception... so coming from me, this shows just how incredible I consider Foote to be.  I think I might call Foote the greatest composer ever from the USA; I think I might call him the greatest composer born in either of the Americas.  Maybe that's unfair considering how relatively little there is to hear thus far.  For that matter, I don't think he was all that prolific.  But then, relatively speaking, neither was Chopin.  In my defence, I believe I have every single work of Foote's that has ever been commercially recorded.  To say that I have never been disappointed is a severe understatement.

But I've found at least one nice work by 5 members of the Boston Six, the odd man out being Amy Beach. (Something seems technically incorrect about that sentence, but as I pointed out recently, I'm not a very skilled writer.)  I'm open to further exploration, but what pass for the famous works of Beach do not appeal to me at all - yes, including the Gaelic Symphony.  Large passages are overtly repellent to me, unfortunately.

If you haven't heard Paine's Symphony #1, you're really missing out; it puts a very fine face on musically looking backwards more than forwards.  I've always been a big fan of ladder-climbers, not just ladder-builders.  Actually, I think I usually prefer the non-innovators in music!  The vast majority of Paine's 1st (1872-1875) seems like it could have been composed 30 years earlier, but this is musical conservatism in the hands of a skilled technician who unashamedly dug in to an earlier decade with some really terrific tunesmithing.  Give that first movement a listen if you haven't already, and if you like mid-19th century symphonies, I think you'll be very happy!  This one was a real surprise for me.  His 2nd sounds more in with the times, but for some reason, just doesn't do it for me.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's terrible or anything, but as I pointed out on this message board once before, I think maybe he was trying too hard to make a symphony that sounded more like what big European composers of the time were doing.  Maybe he was born in the wrong decade in some ways, but with his first symphony he seemed to accept it, and I think it worked brilliantly.  The 2nd has some passages that just seem dull and rambling to me, but it has a few minutes here and there that are okay.

I mentioned Chadwick's Symphony #2 above, and it's one of my most-frequently visited symphonic companions.  My preferred disc is from Chandos, with Neeme Järvi conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where it's paired with the 3rd.  Chadwick's 3rd is also a really, really good symphony as far as I'm concerned.  I was so swept away by this CD that I went on something of a spending splurge, and bought quite a few works by Chadwick without having any idea what I was getting into.  This was a happy accident.  He even wrote a piece in honour of another of the subjects of this thread, Elegy, in memoriam Horatio Parker.  If you're in a somber mood, I think this might catch you really perfectly.  Some of the orchestration sounds like a precursor to film music at times.

MacDowell wrote some really nice stuff.  Didn't he study under Raff briefly?  I may be in the minority for preferring his 1st Piano Concerto to his second, but I really like both.   I don't think his Piano Sonata #2 (Eroica) is very well-known, but I think it would surprise quite a few open-minded folks if they gave it a listen.

[edurban]

What's this Boston Six stuff ?!!  MacDowell was born here in New York and taught at Columbia University...

Foote and Beach are homegrown in the sense that they did not study in Europe...

Parker, for me, is the greatest talent, and a man who (like Paine) really burned himself out teaching.  Hora Novissima is one of the great late 19th century choral works and points to what Parker might have done.

Mark, see if you can get hold of a vocal score of Paine's oratorio St. Peter.  Fascinating, and well beyond Beethoven.  The really Beethovenish stuff ends with the 1st Symphony, I think.  (After that it's Mendelssonh and Schumann ...I even hear a little Raff and Rubinstein in the 2nd Symphony, though that big hymn tune in the last movement is pure New England...)

Foote was a man with a real melodic gift.  The three pieces for cello and piano are simply gorgeous.

David

[eschiss1]

from The Second New England School on Wikipedia -
"The Second New England School, or sometimes specifically the Boston Six"...  "They were particularly based in and around the city of Boston, Massachusetts..."

(ah, just read the brief article - less than a page - which is based on Tawa's 1991 book "The Coming of Age of American Art Music: New England's Classical Romanticists".)

[edurban]

Back in the days before Wikipedia, or, I suppose, the Tawa book I haven't read, it was always The Boston Group or The Boston Five (see John Tasker Howard's classic Our American Music (revised ed. 1939.)  Paine, as representative of the older generation and teacher of some of the younger members was not considered part of the group.  Howard's five were, sensibly, Foote, Chadwick, Parker, Beach and Arthur Batelle Whiting, who has not shared in whatever modest revival the others have enjoyed, although his very interesting nachlass is housed at the NYPL, Lincoln Center.  MacDowell, as a New Yorker, a virtuoso pianist of international standing, and founding Chairman of the Dept of Music at Columbia, merited a separate chapter.  The eight years during which he maintained a teaching studio in Boston...and from which he was frequently away on tour...were not enough to make him a Boston Classicist (as the group also used to be known)  'Classicism' did not apply to composers of 'advanced tendencies' who had studied with Liszt and Raff (and still less to even more advanced Bostonians like Loeffler.)  Studying with Paine and/or Rheinberger was the ticket.  Even an autodidact like Mrs. Beach was really on the fringe of the group.

David   

[giles.enders]

The term 'The Boston Six' has become a good way of keeping the lesser known 'members' in the public eye, like 'The Mighty Handfull' in Russia or The Group of Six in Paris.

I think Amy Beach's piano concerto the finest ever written by a woman and it is a piece that I never grow tired of.  Her symphony likewise is one of the finest of its period from the US.

I know of no finer chamber music from the US in the period that Arther Foote wrote his, perhaps others might suggest otherwise.

[chill319]

One composer rarely mentioned in connection with the Boston composers is Tchaikovsky. I believe the reason Foote withdrew his String Quartet 2 was because the first movement is so obviously an homage to Tchaikovsky's String Quartet 1.

Then there's Rimsky-Korsakov. When criticizing nationalism in music MacDowell pointedly refers to Antar, implying that its aesthetic and sound world have a good deal in common with his own "late" (early 1890s) orchestral music, so why label the one style Russian and the other American? Good point, yet I don't really see what the problem would be for a composer who has distinguished between two of his own sonatas by labeling one Norse and the other Keltic. Anyway, the obvious take-away: MacDowell was not only aware of R-K but felt a real kinship.

[jerfilm]

I totally agree with Giles.  Mrs. Beach's concerto is not just one of my "woman's" favorite but on my list of all time favorite PCs. I also am really fond of her Piano Quintet.  Her symphony I can take or leave.

And yes, love Arthur Footes music as well.  It is such a shame that we have these wonderful Romantics from the US and our own orchestras never play them.  If the Minnesota Orchestra has done ANYTHING by the Six, it hasn't been in the last 50 years!  And I gave up suggesting things year ago......

Jerry

[JimL]

Somebody who shall remain nameless  sent me the Foote Cello Concerto long ago.  A particularly fine work, whose neglect is totally inexplicable to me.  It bears a strong formal resemblance to Rubinstein's CC 2.

[EarlyRomantic]

I'm curious and excited about Parker. First, Mark, how did you come to hear Count Robert of Paris?Since I only knew of it, I did not know a performance or recording existed.Hora Novissima and a Northern Ballad do entice so much that one wants more. Relevant to this forum, Parker was affectionately taught by Rheinberger, who, in his turn, was educated by the Franz Lachner who has just spun quite his own long thread here this month.A lineage from Lachner to Rheinberger to Parker spans nearly the entire Romantic Era.With such tutelage, influence, and quality, there must  be some beautiful substance hidden from us in his as-yet-undiscovered works. Many orchestral works date from or immediately after his student days in Munich, while Lachner yet lived. If these early works may be derivative of Rheinberger or Lachner, well, we like that here, I think it's more than safe to say.Overtures, in Eb and A major, a "Venetian" Overture in Bb, and a Symphony in either C major or minor, depending on the source, were composed.A scherzoin G major, or minor. The mentioned Count Robert overture.So many Choral pieces.I've heard a Suite for violin, piano, cello that was enchantingly melodic and memorable.Two Operas, "Mona", and "Fairyland" were prize-winners, and critically acclaimed.A few chamber works.These are some creations I've wondered about for a long time. American music has had a renaissance of sorts, such as by Naxos even in a series specifically for it. But noone is touching Parker.