Here’s interesting news from Lionel about some music that he and Patrick worked on back in 2008.

I’ve just discovered that the Cello Concerto of Arthur Foote (1853-1937), of which Patrick and I prepared an edition in 2008, has now received its first commercial recording.

It wasn’t published in the composer’s lifetime, and our edition was based on the manuscript copy (with corrections to the composer’s score by cellist Douglas Moore) held in the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and with final references to the composer’s autograph held in the New York Public Library.

Foote was a member of the Second New England School (also known as “The Boston Six”) and an important figure in US musical history. 

Here are a couple of links to this premiere recording:

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/arthur-foote-the-complete-cello-works/hnum/12809239

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9879290–arthur-foote-the-complete-cello-works

According to an article in The Strad magazine, Julian Schwarz was clearly unaware of Patrick’s publication and had prepared his own edition from the same sources we used. I thought I’d draw it to your attention anyway.

It’s said that “no good deed goes unpunished.” Maybe it’s also true that some good deeds go completely unobserved!

I listened to the recording yesterday while reading along with the full score of our edition and I couldn’t spot any differences, apart from the reworking of the ending of the piece that Julian refers to in the article (which is, in any case, pretty minor). As is always the case, we probably had a few typos, but nothing leapt out at me, and I think we did a good job.

JP

I’m the son of Patrick of Meadows.