John Herbert Foulds was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 of classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

. Largely self-taught as a composer, he was one of the most remarkable and unjustly forgotten figures of the "British Musical Renaissance".

A successful composer of light music

Light music

Light music is a generic term applied to a mainly British musical style of "light" orchestral music, which originated in the 19th century and had its heyday during the early to mid part of the 20th century, although arguably it lasts to the present day....

 and theatre scores, his principal creative energies went into more ambitious and exploratory works that were particularly influenced by Indian music

Music of India

The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...

. Suffering a setback after the decline in popularity of his World Requiem

World Requiem

A World Requiem, Op. 60 is a large-scale symphonic work with soloists and choirs by the British composer John Foulds. Written as a requiem and using forces similar in scale to Gustav Mahler's Eighth Symphony, the work calls for a full symphony orchestra, soloists, massed choirs including children's...

(1919–1921), he left London for Paris in 1927, and eventually travelled to India in 1935 where, among other things, he collected folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, composed pieces for traditional Indian instrument

Indian musical instruments

Indian musical instruments can be broadly classified into four categories, mainly classical, western and folk. See Carnatic music and Hindustani music. The instruments are further sub-classified into the type based on the science behind the same....

 ensembles, and worked for a radio station.

Foulds was an adventurous figure of great innate musicality and superb technical skill. Among his best works are Three Mantras for orchestra and wordless chorus (1919–1930), Essays in the Modes for piano (1920–1927), the piano concerto Dynamic Triptych (1927–1929), and his ninth string quartet Quartetto Intimo (1931–1932).

Biography

John Foulds was born in Hulme

Hulme

Hulme is an inner city area and electoral ward of Manchester, England. Located immediately south of Manchester city centre, it is an area with significant industrial heritage....

, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, on 2 November 1880, the son of a bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

ist in the Hallé Orchestra

The Hallé

The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...

. Prolific from childhood, Foulds himself joined the Hallé as a cellist

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 in 1900, having already served an apprenticeship

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

 in theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 and promenade

Promenade concert

See The PromsAlthough the term Promenade Concert is normally associated today with the series of concerts founded in 1895 by Robert Newman and the conductor Henry Wood – a festival known today as the BBC Proms – the term originally referred to concerts in the pleasure gardens of London where the...

 orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

s in England and abroad. Hans Richter

Hans Richter (conductor)

Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...

 gave him conducting experience; Henry Wood

Henry Wood (conductor)

Sir Henry Joseph Wood, CH was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences...

 took up some of his works, starting with Epithalamium at the 1906 Queen's Hall

Queen's Hall

The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...

 Proms

The Proms

The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...

.

In some respects ahead of his time (he started using quarter-tones

Quarter tone

A quarter tone , is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which is half a whole tone....

 as early as the 1890s, while some of his later works anticipate Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

 and Minimalism

Minimalism

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

), Foulds was in others an intensely practical musician. He became a successful composer of light music

Light music

Light music is a generic term applied to a mainly British musical style of "light" orchestral music, which originated in the 19th century and had its heyday during the early to mid part of the 20th century, although arguably it lasts to the present day....

 – his Keltic Lament was once a popular favourite and in the 1920s the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 scheduled his music on a daily basis. This was a source of irritation to Foulds; in 1933 he complained to Adrian Boult

Adrian Boult

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...

 at the BBC that his serious music was not being performed: "[My light works] number a dozen or so, as compared with the total of 50 of my serious works. This state of affairs is rather a galling one for a serious artist." Foulds also wrote many effective theatre scores, notably for his friends Lewis Casson

Lewis Casson

Sir Lewis Thomas Casson MC was a British actor and theatre director and the husband of Dame Sybil Thorndike.-Early life:...

 and Sybil Thorndike

Sybil Thorndike

Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE was a British actress.-Early life:She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral...

. Perhaps the best known was the music for the first production of George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

's Saint Joan

Saint Joan (play)

Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...

(Foulds conducted a Suite from it at the Queen's Hall Proms in 1925). He also wrote the score for Casson's highly successful West End production of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's Henry VIII

Henry VIII (play)

The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight is a history play by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication...

, which ran from December 1925 to March 1926. However, his principal creative energies went into more ambitious and exploratory works, often coloured by his interest in the music of the East

Asian music

Asian music encompasses numerous different musical styles originating from a large number of Asian countries.Musical traditions in Asia* Music of Central Asia** Music of Afghanistan** Music of Kazakhstan** Music of Mongolia** Music of Uzbekistan...

, especially India

Music of India

The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...

.

Foulds moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 before World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, and in 1915 during the war he met the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist Maud MacCarthy, one of the leading Western authorities on Indian music

Music of India

The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...

. His gigantic World Requiem

World Requiem

A World Requiem, Op. 60 is a large-scale symphonic work with soloists and choirs by the British composer John Foulds. Written as a requiem and using forces similar in scale to Gustav Mahler's Eighth Symphony, the work calls for a full symphony orchestra, soloists, massed choirs including children's...

(1919–1921), in memory of the dead of all nations, was performed at the Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Foulds, under the auspices of The Royal British Legion

The Royal British Legion

The Royal British Legion , sometimes referred to as simply The Legion, is the United Kingdom's leading charity providing financial, social and emotional support to those who have served or who are currently serving in the British Armed Forces, and their dependants.-History:The British Legion was...

 on Armistice Night, 11 November, in 1923 by up to 1,250 instrumentalists

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 and singers; the latter were called the Cenotaph

Cenotaph

A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...

 choir. Performances in 1924 and 1925 took place at the Queen's Hall. In 1926 it returned to the Albert Hall, but this was to be the last performance until 2007, again at the Albert Hall. The performances in 1923-26 constituted the first Festivals of Remembrance. While some critics were not impressed by the work, it was nonetheless popular. One newspaper wrote: "The scope of the work is beyond what anyone has dared to attempt hitherto. It is no less than to find expression for the deepest and most widespread unhappiness this generation has ever known. As such it was received by a very large number of listeners, who evidently felt that music alone could do this for them." However, the work ceased to be performed after 1926. Some commentators have suggested a conspiracy against Foulds – his biographer Malcolm MacDonald

Malcolm MacDonald (music critic)

Malcolm MacDonald is a British author, mainly writing about music. He was born in Nairn, Scotland in 1948 and educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh and Downing College, Cambridge; he has lived in England since 1971, first in London and since 1992 in Gloucestershire.He has written several...

 has, for instance, implied some sort of "intrigue". It appears Foulds was regarded as an inappropriate composer for the occasion because he had not fought in the war, or because of his suspected Left-wing

Left-wing politics

In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

 views.

When interest in the World Requiem lapsed, Foulds suffered a grave setback and in 1927 left for Paris, working there as an accompanist for silent films. In 1934 he published an immensely stimulating book on contemporary musical developments, Music To-day. In 1935 he travelled to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, where he collected folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, became Director of European Music for All-India Radio in Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

, created an orchestra from scratch, and began to work towards his dream of a musical synthesis of East and West, actually composing pieces for ensembles of traditional Indian instruments

Indian musical instruments

Indian musical instruments can be broadly classified into four categories, mainly classical, western and folk. See Carnatic music and Hindustani music. The instruments are further sub-classified into the type based on the science behind the same....

. He was so successful that he was asked to open a branch of the station in Calcutta

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

. Tragically, within a week of arriving there, he died suddenly of cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

 on 25 April 1939.

Foulds' most substantial compositions include string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

s, symphonic poem

Symphonic poem

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...

s, concerto

Concerto

A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...

s, piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 pieces and a huge "concert opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

" on Dante

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...

's The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature...

(1905–1908), as well as a series of "Music-Pictures" exploring the affinities between music and styles of painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

. (Henry Wood introduced one of them at the 1913 Proms.) Few of these works were performed and fewer published in his lifetime, and several, especially from his last period in India, are lost. (The missing scores included a Symphony of East and West for Oriental instruments and Western symphony orchestra.) Foulds' daughter deposited some of the surviving manuscripts by her father in the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

.

Revival

Foulds became a footnote to English music after his death, but from 1974 Malcolm MacDonald, editor of the music journal Tempo

Tempo (journal)

Tempo is a quarterly music journal published in the UK and specialising in music of the 20th century and contemporary music. Originally founded in 1939 as the 'house magazine' of the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes, Tempo was the brain-child of Schoenberg's pupil Erwin Stein, who worked for Boosey...

under the alias Calum MacDonald, conducted an often lonely campaign for Foulds after he came across the Foulds scores deposited in the British Library. MacDonald tracked down Foulds' daughter, who took him to a garage and showed him two coffin-sized boxes full of sketches and manuscripts she had been left by her mother. Unfortunately, many of the manuscripts were damaged: apparently, rats and ants had got at them while they were in India, where Foulds' wife stayed after his death.

An acclaimed recording of Foulds' string quartet music, including the previously unperformed Quartetto Intimo, by the Endellion Quartet

Endellion Quartet

The Endellion String Quartet is a British string quartet named after St Endellion in Cornwall.The quartet was formed in 1979 and has been 'Quartet in Residence' at Cambridge University since 1992. It has an extensive discography and appears in concert halls around the world. In 1997 the quartet...

 in the early 1980s, began to reawaken interest in him, and this was sustained in the early 1990s by Lyrita Recorded Edition's decision to issue some of Foulds' works including Three Mantras and Dynamic Triptych on CD

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

. A Proms performance of Three Mantras in 1998 was well received, and soon after the Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 Sakari Oramo

Sakari Oramo

Sakari Markus Oramo OBE is a Finnish conductor.Oramo started his career as a violinist and concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1989, he enrolled in Jorma Panula's conducting class at the Sibelius Academy...

 began to champion Foulds' work in concerts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...

 (CBSO), to huge critical acclaim. In November 2005, the CBSO, with Peter Donohoe, gave the first live performance for more than 70 years of Foulds' piano concerto

Piano concerto

A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...

, the Dynamic Triptych (1927–1929). The orchestra has issued two well-received CDs of Foulds' music. On Armistice Night, 11 November 2007, the Royal Albert Hall staged the first performance for 81 years of the World Requiem under the auspices of the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, with the Trinity Boys Choir and Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein is an American conductor and the President of Bard College . Botstein is the music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director and principal conductor from 2003-2010...

 as conductor. The performance was recorded live and released in Super Audio CD

Super Audio CD

Super Audio CD is a high-resolution, read-only optical disc for audio storage. Sony and Philips Electronics jointly developed the technology, and publicized it in 1999. It is designated as the Scarlet Book standard. Sony and Philips previously collaborated to define the Compact Disc standard...

 format by Chandos Records

Chandos Records

Chandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...

 in January 2008.

Foulds' Keltic Lament has once again become popular due to its regular playing on Classic FM

Classic FM (UK)

Classic FM, one of the United Kingdom's three Independent National Radio stations, broadcasts classical music in a popular and accessible style.-Overview:...

, and BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

 plans to revive a tradition of performing A World Requiem on Armistice Day.

Legacy

It is difficult to assess Foulds' achievement, or even to classify a composer who was master of a bewildering variety of styles. But he was clearly an adventurous figure of great innate musicality and superb technical skill. Such pieces as the Three Mantras for orchestra and wordless chorus (1919–1930), the Essays in the Modes for piano (1920–1927), the piano concerto Dynamic Triptych (1927–1929), and his ninth string quartet Quartetto Intimo (1931–1932) represent a powerful and individual contribution to the music of their time.

Personal life

John Foulds was only 21 when he married librarian Dora Woodcock in 1902. She was seven years his senior and the daughter of a Yorkshire-born bookseller who had settled in Llandudno. Their son Michael Raymond was born in Manchester in 1911.

Foulds met his musical soul mate Maud MacCarthy in 1915 after moving to London. She was married to William Mann with whom she had a daughter Joan, born in 1913.

According to Malcolm MacDonald's account, both were in unhappy marriages and it was love at first sight. Rather than enter into a clandestine affair, they laid the matter before their respective spouses. The two couples met together and agreed amicably on the divorces which would allow John and Maud to marry, though they did not in fact do so until 1932. They were to have two children: John Patrick born in 1917 and a daughter Marybride in 1921.

Music for soloists, chorus and orchestra

• The Vision of Dante, a "concert opera" on Dante
  Dante Alighieri
  Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
  
  's Divina Commedia
  The Divine Comedy
  The Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature...
  
  (The Divine Comedy) in the translation by Longfellow
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
  
  , Op. 7
• A World Requiem
  World Requiem
  A World Requiem, Op. 60 is a large-scale symphonic work with soloists and choirs by the British composer John Foulds. Written as a requiem and using forces similar in scale to Gustav Mahler's Eighth Symphony, the work calls for a full symphony orchestra, soloists, massed choirs including children's...
  
  , based on texts from the Bible
  Bible
  The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
  
  , John Bunyan
  John Bunyan
  John Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...
  
  , Kabir
  Kabir
  Kabīr was a mystic poet and saint of India, whose writings have greatly influenced the Bhakti movement...
  
   and other sources, Op. 60

Music for voice and orchestra

• Lyra Celtica, concerto for wordless mezzo-soprano voice and orchestra, Op. 50 (unfinished; the two completed movements have been recorded)

Music for solo instrument and orchestra

• Lento e Scherzetto for cello and orchestra, Op. 12
• Cello Concerto in G major, Op. 17
• Apotheosis for violin and orchestra, Op. 18 (in memory of Joseph Joachim
  Joseph Joachim
  Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
  
  )
• Dynamic Triptych for piano and orchestra, Op. 88

Orchestral music

• Epithalamium, Op. 10
• Mirage, Op. 20
• Music-Pictures Group III, Op. 33
• Miniature Suite, Op. 38 (arr. from theatre music for Wonderful Grandmama)
• Hellas: A Suite of Ancient Greece for double string orchestra, harp and percussion, Op. 45
• April – England, Op. 48, No. 1
• Isles of Greece, Op. 48, No. 2
• Three Mantras, Op. 61B
• Sain Joan Suite, Op. 82A
• Suite in the Olden Style from 'Henry VIII, Op. 87
• A Puppet Ballet Suite (1934)
• Deva-Music, Op. 94 (fragments only)
• Chinese Suite, Op. 95
• Indian Suite (without opus number)
• Pasquinades Symphoniques, Op. 98 (unfinished; the two completed movements have been recorded)
• Kashmiri Boat Song
• Kashmiri Wedding Procession
• The Song of Ram Dass
• Grand Durbar March (1937–1938)
• Symphony of East and West, Op. 100 (lost)
• Symphonic Studies for string orchestra, Op. 101 (lost)

Light orchestral music

• Holiday Sketches, Op. 16
• Suite Française, Op. 22
• Keltic Overture, Op. 28
• Keltic Melodies for strings and harp (1911)
• Keltic Suite, Op. 29 (partly derived from Keltic Melodies – includes the Keltic Lament)
• Music Pictures Group IV for string orchestra, Op. 55
• A Gaelic Dream Song, Op. 68
• Le Cabaret Overture, Op. 72A (arr. from theatre music to Deburau)
• Suite Fantastique, Op. 72B (arr. from theatre music to Deburau)
• Gaelic Melodies (Music Pictures Group VI), Op. 81 (one movement derived from Keltic Melodies)
• Sicilian Aubade
• Hebrew Rhapsody

Chamber music

• String Quartet [No.4] in F minor (1899) (According to Malcolm MacDonald, Foulds wrote ten quartets, five of them before 1900, but did not give any of them numbers. The numbering used here is MacDonald's. Apparently only Nos. 4, 6, 8 and 9 survive complete.)
• String Quartet [No.6], Quartetto Romantico (1903) (originally designated Op. 5)
• Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 6
• String Quartet [No.8] in D minor, Op. 23
• String Trio, Op. 24 (only the second movement, Ritornello con Variazioni, survives complete)
• Two Concert Pieces for Cello and Piano, Op. 25
• Aquarelles (Music-Pictures Group II) for string quartet, Op. 32
• Ballade and Refrain Rococo for violin and piano, Op. 40, No. 1
• Caprice Pompadour for violin and piano, Op. 42, No. 2
• Greek Processional for string quintet
• String Quartet [No.9], Quartetto Intimo, Op. 89
• Lento Quieto (only completely surviving movement of String Quartet [No.10], Quartetto Geniale)
• About a dozen short pieces for an "Indo-European Ensemble" of traditional instruments (mostly fragmentary)

Piano music

• Dichterliebe Suite (1897–1898, unfinished)
• Variazioni ed Improvvisati su una Thema Originale, Op. 4
• Five Recollections of Ancient Greek Music (original version of Hellas)
• Ghandarva-Music, Op. 49
• Persian Love Song (1935)
• Essays in the Modes, Op. 78:
  • I. Exotic (Mode II A)
  • II. Ingenuous (Mode V K)
  • III. Introversive (Mode II C)
  • IV. Military (Mode V E)
  • V. Strophic (Mode V L)
  • VI. Prismic (Mode II P)
• Music-Pictures Group VI (Gaelic Melodies), Op. 81:
  • I. The Dream of Morven
  • II. Deirdre Crooning
  • III. Merry Macdoon
• Music-Pictures Group VII (Landscapes), Op. 13
  • I. Moonrise: Sorrento (after Morelli)
  • II. Nightfall: Luxor (after Cameron)
• English Tune with Burden, Op. 89
• Egoistic (Mode V L)
• April - England, Op. 48, No. 1

Songs

• Three Songs of Beauty for tenor and piano, Op. 11 (texts by Byron and Edgar Allan Poe
  Edgar Allan Poe
  Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
  
  )
• Five Mood Pictures for voice and piano, Op. 51 (texts by "Fiona MacLeod
  William Sharp (writer)
  William Sharp was a Scottish writer, of poetry and literary biography in particular, who from 1893 wrote also as Fiona MacLeod, a pseudonym kept almost secret during his lifetime...
  
  ")
• Two Songs in "Sacrifice" for voice and string quintet, Op. 66 (texts by Rabindranath Tagore
  Rabindranath Tagore
  Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
  
  ; also performable with violins and tambura
  Tambura
  The tambura, tanpura, or tambora is a long-necked plucked lute . The body shape of the tambura somewhat resembles that of the sitar, but it has no frets – only the open strings are played to accompany other musicians...
  
  )
• Three Songs for Voice and Piano, Op. 69 (texts by Longfellow
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
  
   and Griffin)
• Garland of Youth, song-cycle Op. 86 (various texts)
• The Seven Ages, monologue with text by Shakespeare
  William Shakespeare
  William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
  
  , for baritone and piano

Choral works without orchestra

• Five Scottish-Keltic Songs for mixed chorus, Op. 70 (various texts)
• Three Choruses in the Hippolytus of Euripides for women's chorus with mezzo-soprano solo and piano, Op. 84B
• English Madrigals for unaccompanied voices (c.1933)

Theatre scores

• Wonderful Grandmama (Harold Chapin
  Harold Chapin
  Harold Chapin was an English actor and playwright.Chapin was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1886. Although “technically an American citizen, he was an English actor, and English playwright and died as a British soldier”...
  
  ), Op. 34
• The Whispering Well (Rose), Op. 35
• Julius Caesar (Shakespeare
  William Shakespeare
  William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
  
  ), Op. 39
• Sakuntala (Kālidāsa
  Kalidasa
  Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...
  
  ), Op. 64
• The Trojan Women (Euripides
  Euripides
  Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
  
  ), Op. 65
• Veils (Maud MacCarthy), Op. 70
• Deburau (Sacha Guitry
  Sacha Guitry
  Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
  
  ), Op. 72
• The Goddess (Nirjan Pal), Op. 75
• The Fires Divine (Rosaleen Valmer), Op. 76
• The Cenci (Shelley
  Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
  
  ), Op. 77
• Cymbeline (Shakespeare), Op. 80
• Saint Joan (George Bernard Shaw
  George Bernard Shaw
  George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
  
  ), Op. 82
• Masses and Man (Ernst Toller
  Ernst Toller
  Ernst Toller was a left-wing German playwright, best known for his Expressionist plays and serving as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, for six days.- Biography :...
  
  ), Op. 83
• Hippolytus (Euripides), Op. 84
• The Dance of Life (Hermon Ould), Op. 85
• Henry VIII (Shakespeare), Op. 87
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare) (1932)
• Dear Brutus (J. M. Barrie
  J. M. Barrie
  Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
  
  ) (1934)

Arrangements

• Borodin
  Alexander Borodin
  Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
  
  , Serenade, Op. 5, No. 5, arranged for small orchestra
• Glazunov
  Alexander Glazunov
  Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
  
  , Meditation, Op. 32, arranged for small orchestra
• Glazunov, Serenade Espagnole, Op. 20, arranged for small orchestra
• Schubert
  Franz Schubert
  Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
  
  , String Quartet in D minor, D 810 (Death and the Maiden)
  Death and the Maiden Quartet (Schubert)
  The String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, known as Death and the Maiden, by Franz Schubert, is one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire. Composed in 1824, after the composer suffered through a serious illness and realized that he was dying, it is Schubert's testament to death...
  
  , transcribed as a symphony for full orchestra (1930)

Discography

• John Foulds: Dynamic Triptych; Music-Pictures III; April-England; The Song of Ram Dass; Keltic Lament, CBSO, Oramo, Donohoe, Warner Classics 2564 62999-2
• John Foulds - Dynamic Triptych for Piano and Orchestra, Howard Shelley (piano), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley, Lyrita SRCD 211
• John Foulds: Le Cabaret; April-England; Pasquinade; Three Mantras; Hellas, Barry Wordsworth, LPO, Lyrita SRCD 212
• John Foulds: Three Mantras; Lyra Celtica; Apotheosis; Mirage, CBSO, Oramo, Susan Bickley (mezzo), Daniel Hope (violin), Warner Classics 2564 61525-2
• John Foulds: April-England, Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Philips 454 444-2
• John Foulds: Keltic Lament, Ronald Corp, New London Orchestra, Hyperion CDA 67400
• John Foulds: String Quartets: (Quartetto Intimo, Op.89, Quartetto Geniale, Op.97: Aquarelles), Endellion String Quartet, Pearl SHE CD 9564
• John Foulds: Piano Music including Essays in the Modes, Kathryn Stott, BIS-CD-933
• John Foulds: April-England (piano version); Gandharva-Music, Juan José Chuquisengo (piano), Sony SK93829

External links