Francis Boott (composer)

Biography

Boott was born of British parentage. He was educated at Samuel and Sarah Ripley's school in Waltham, where Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the tutors, and at Round Hill School, followed by Harvard College from which he graduated in 1831. In the 1850s, following the death of his wife, Boott took his young daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie) (1846–88) to Florence, Italy, where he studied harmony with Luigi Picchianti.

Boott became an honorary professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. He was friends with others in the Anglophone community in Florence, including Henry and William James, the Brownings, Isa Blagden and Constance Fenimore Woolson. Francis Boott and his daughter Lizzie Boott lived at the Villa Castellani in the Bellosguardo heights. Lizzie became a painter, and married the painter Frank Duveneck, who went to live with her and her father in the villa. The novelist Henry James visited them there and used the villa as a model for Italian villas in his Roderick Hudson and The Portrait of a Lady.

In 1888 Boott returned to America, and continued to compose music.

He died on 1 March 1904 at the age of 91 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Boott bequeathed $10,000 to Harvard University as a prize fund for the best 4-part vocal work written by a Harvard student. In 1960 the amount was increased to $15,246 through capital gains. The prize continues to be awarded by the Harvard University Department of Music.

Music

Boott's first six songs appeared in 1846 under the pen name of Telford; Upton described them as "quite undistinguished". In 1857 eight songs were published, followed by many individual songs in the following years. Boott composed at least 140 songs during his long life, as well as a handful of duets, choral works, part-songs, and instrumental works. He also composed hymns for church services, many of which were included in the hymnal for King's Chapel in Boston.

While his melodies and piano accompaniments are considered "commonplace, with little harmonic interest", his choices of texts were sophisticated, embracing the literary world of his time. In 1857 John Sullivan Dwight wrote that his songs are "not strikingly original, but graceful and facile, much to be preferred to the popular sweetish, sentimental type".

Musical compositions

Songs for voice and piano

under the pseudonym Telford:

Six Songs, 1846, G. P. Reed Publishing

1. The Convict's Lullaby (Henry Kirke White); revised 1874, S. Brainard's Sons, publisher
2. It is O'er (Mrs. Jameson)
3. Lass of Northmaven (from The Pirate)
4. Byron's Farewell (Lord Byron)
5. Tirana Española; revised 1874, S. Brainard's Sons, publisher
6. My Home and Thee

The Blind Man's Bride (Ballad) (Caroline Sheridan Norton), G. P. Reed, 1846; revised 1874, S. Brainard's Sons, publisher

Cleveland's Farewell (Sir Walter Scott), G. P. Reed, 1846

under his own name

Florence, 8 songs, Oliver Ditson, 1857

1. Sands o' Dee (Charles Kingsley)
2. Stars of the Summer Night (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
3. The Night is Clear and Cloudless (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
4. Ring Out Wild Bells (Alfred Lord Tennyson)
5. Break, Break, Break, at the Foot of Thy Stones, O Sea (Alfred Lord Tennyson)
6. From the Close-shut Window (Lowell)
7. Battle of the Baltic (Campbell)
8. I am Weary with Rowing (William Wetmore Story)

Six Songs (Bret Harte), Oliver Ditson, 1870

1. The Heathen Chinee
2. Chiquita
3. Twenty years
4. Jim
5. Flynn of Virginia
6. Upon the Stanislow

Our Young Folks: Six Little Songs, G. D. Russell publisher, 1870

1. (Unknown song)
2. The Rivulet (Lucy Larcom)
3. Lady Moon (Lord Houghton/Richard Monckton Milnes)
4. Little Nanny (Lucy Larcom)
5. Swing Away (Lucy Larcom)
6. Berrying Song (Lucy Larcom)

Three Songs, G. D. Russell publisher, 1870

1. Violet (Colonel John Hay), 1825
2. We Two (Jean Ingelow), 1840
3. The Lighthouse-keeper's Child (Thomas Hood), 1849

Two Barcaroles (Luigi Catani), Ditson

1. The Honeymoon, 1884
2. A Year After, 1886

other single songs, all published by Oliver Ditson unless noted

Aftermath (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), 1873

Ah! When the Fight is Won (Recitative and Air) (from Lowell's R.G.S. Memoriae Positum), 1892

A Letter (Frederick Locker-Lampson), 1876

Anacreontic (as sung by Mrs. Wilson Eyre) (Leigh Hunt), 1876

The Angelus (Frances L. Mace), 1883

At the Garden Gate (Frank Dempster Sherman), 1891

Ave Maria, 1873

After Absence (Lilla Cabot Perry), 1893

Aftermath (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Baby's Shoes (Julia Ward Howe), W. H. Boner & Co., 1870

Battle of the Baltic (unknown author), 1857

The Bell Buoy (Rudyard Kipling), 1901

Bells on the Wind (Mrs. F. M. Ritter), 1880s

Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping (with optional mixed quartet) (Horatius Bonar), 1876

The Black Friar (unknown author), 1858

The Bobolink (G. P. Lathrop), 1877

Bring Me No Cup (On a Motif from Lethe) (unknown author), 1891

Bring the Bowl which you Boast (unknown author), 1858

Broken Rhythm: My Oars Keep Time (H. Trusta/Elizabeth Stuart Phelps), 1850s, reissued 1876

Castibelza (after Victor Hugo), 1885

Changed (from Longfellow's Aftermath), 1873

Coming (words from Marigold Leaves) (unknown author), 1875

The Confession (Praed), 1873

The Cumberland (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), 1863

The Destruction of the Assyrians (from Hebrew Melodies) (Lord Byron), 1888

Dormi, Jesu! The Virgin's Cradle-hymn (Samuel Taylor Coleridge), 1859

Douglas, Tender and True (Miss Mulock), 1884

Echoes (Christopher Pearse Cranch), 1877

Egyptian Serenade (George William Curtis), 1887

The First Cricket (William Dean Howells), 1876

The Fisherman's Song (Rose Terry Cooke), 1870

Flow On, Sad Stream (William Wetmore Story), 1876

Garden of Roses (William Wetmore Story), 1863

Gipsies Song (unknown author), 1857

Goodbye (Samuel G. Goodrich), 1858

Guild the Engineer (Ballad) (unknown author), 1873

Heigh-Ho! (Christopher Pearse Cranch), William A. Pond & Co. publisher, 1870

Here’s a health to King Charles (William Makepeace Thackeray), 1867

Home (Last Words in a Strange Land) (James Thomas Fields), 1880

How to Put the Question (Mrs. Caroline Spencer), S. Brainard's Sons publisher, 1870

If You Love Me (L. Clark), 1890

I know not if Moonlight (unknown author), 1883

In Memory of Oliver Wendell Holmes (Samuel Francis Smith), C.W. Thompson & Co. publisher, 1899

In the Cathedral (Katherine Saunders), Arthur P. Schmidt publisher, 1881

In the Summer Even (from Rohan's Ghost" by Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford), 1876

Into my Heart a Silent Look (Edward Bulwer-Lytton), 1885

Jenny Kissed Me (Leigh Hunt)

King Macbeth (song for baritone) (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton/Owen Merideth), 1870

Kyrie Eleison (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), 1857

Laus Deo (with chorus ad lib) (John Greenleaf Whittier), 1868

Leoni (John Ruskin, C.W. Thompson & Co. publisher, 1900

Lethe (with optional 'cello or violin) (M.A. Barr), 1888, reissued 1911

My Life is like the Summer-Rose (unknown author), 1873

Love Song (Robert Burns Wilson), 1888

The Mahogany Tree (unknown author), 1858

Maria Mater (from Memento Rerum Conditor)

Master Love (Collin Rae-Brown), 1876

Memories Come O'er Me (William Wetmore Story), Lee & Walker publisher, 1876

Metempsychosis (J.B., from the London World), 1890

New Year's Bells (Alfred Tennyson), 1881

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (Francis William Bourdillon), 1874

The Nightingale (Lust'ge Vögel in dem Wald), 1889

Non Partir (And wilt thou go) (A. Casini; English version by Christopher Pearse Cranch), 1869

Nora Macarty (Thomas Bailey Aldrich), 1878

Notturno (Roman Serenade) (unknown author), White-Smith publisher

No More (Friedrich Rückert), 1873

O Domine Deus (O Lord my God) (prayer of Mary, Queen of Scots), Prüfer publisher, 1874

O Light at my Window (Christopher Pearse Cranch), William A. Pond & Co. publisher, 1870

O Long and Lagging Hours of Time (Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford, in Harper's Magazine, 1885

The Old Clock on the Stairs (with optional chorus) (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1886

O Well for the Fisherman's Boy (or Break, Break) (unknown author), 1857

Poor lone Hannah: As sung by Miss Adelaide Phillips (Lucy Larcom), 1869

Regrets (C. S. T.), 1876

Rose Aylmer (Walter Savage Landor), 1875

The Rose upon the Balcony (William Makepeace Thackeray), 1866

The Sailor's Wife (Charles Mackay), 1864

The Sea Has Its Pearls (Das Meer hat seine Perlen) (after Heinrich Heine), 1862

Serenade (Frederick Locker-Lampson), 1869

Sixty and Six (Thomas Wentworth Higginson), 1890

A Song of Long Ago (G. P. Lathrop), 1887

The Song of the Sea (William Dean Howells), 1872

Song of the Stromkerl (unknown author), 1868

A Spanish Cradle Song (unknown author), 1893

Spring Song (A Bird Sings Sweet and Strong) (George W. Curtis), 1866

The Stormy Petrel (Samuel G. Goodrich), 1876

Strike Me a Note (Thomas William Parsons), 1891

Sunset in Venice (Barcarole with English and Italian words) (Attilio Sarfatti), J. E. Ditson & Co., 1887

The Sunset Light (Barcarole) (Mary L. Ritter), Arthur P. Schmidt publishing, 1884

The Swallows (Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer), 1884

That Joyous Strain (Christopher Pearse Cranch), 1887

Thou and I (Words Address to her Sister) (Phoebe Cary), 1875

Thou dost not Remember the Hour (Ballad) (unknown author), S. Brainard's Sons publisher, 1874

Three Fishers (unknown author), 1868

Three Friends of Mine (Sonnet) (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), 1882

Through the Long Days” (Col. John Hay), 1878

A Toast (George Santayana), C.W. Thompson & Co. publisher, 1893

Twenty Years Ago (William Wetmore Story), 1882

Vanished Time (William Wetmore Story), 1877

Waiting for the Bugle (Thomas Wentworth Higginson), 1889

Waiting for you Jock (Mrs. Moulton's Concert Song) (from Blackwood's Magazine), 1874

We Shall Meet No More (unknown author), 1886

We Two are Bound Together (Wir beide sein verbunden), White-Smith publisher

When Sylvia Sings (Samuel P. Duffield), 1892

When the Boys Come Home (A Song of '65) (Col. John Hay), 1887

The Wind Exultant (William Dean Howells), 1888

Wishing (A Nursery Song), (William Allingham), 1859

Yon Faithful Star (Serenade) (unknown author), 1873

Vocal duets

The Brooklet (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), 1874

The Clover-blossoms Kiss Her Feet (duet for mezzo-soprano and tenor or baritone) (Oscar Laighton), 1882

Father the Watches of the Night are O'er (duet for equal voices) (Mrs. Ellen Sturgis Hooper), 1889

In the Dark, in the Dew (song and duet) (Miss Prescott), 1875

Love (song or duet for mixed voices) (Mrs. J. T. Fields), 1891

The Rivulet (duet for mezzo-soprano and tenor or baritone) (Alfred Tennyson), 1882

Large works

Maria Mater, soloists, chorus and orchestra

Mass, soloists, chorus and orchestra

Miserere, a cappella mixed chorus, Oliver Ditson, 1888

The Song of Zechariah, cantata

Te Deum (according to the liturgy of the Church of England), soloists, chorus and orchestra, 1884

Shorter choral works and part-songs

Ave Maria, women's voices and piano or organ, 1897

The Bells of San Blas (Longfellow), quartet for equal voices, 1882

Carmen tabernarium (Ad usum sodalium die anniversario XX : iterum impressum die anniversario XLV) (Walter Map), men's voices, published 1929

Good Lives on Earth (unknown author), canon for three voices, unpublished, c.1890

Here's a health to King Charles! (Sir Walter Scott), tenor solo and men's chorus, 1867; mixed voices, Ditson, published 1909

Lead Kindly Light (Rev. Newman), quartet for mixed voices, 1884

My Harp Has One Unchanging Theme (Deh Senti il Rio), trio for soprano, tenor, and bass, 1893

A National Anthem (Christopher Pearse Cranch), mixed voices, Ditson, 1881

Union and Liberty: National Anthem, (Oliver Wendell Holmes), mixed voices and piano, Ditson, 1894

Vestis Angelica (Thomas Wentworth Higginson), quartet for mixed voices, 1890

Instrumental works

String quartets