4 Character Pieces after the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, Op. 48

Composer: FOOTE, Arthur
  • Foote’s Four Character Pieces after the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1900) originated as a piano cycle titled Five Poems after Omar Khayyám, Op. 41 (1898). For the reworked “Character Pieces,” Foote eliminated the third piece from the original five and orchestrated the rest.1
  • Each movement of the orchestral work begins with a translated verse from the Rubáiyát (translated into English by Edward Fitzgerald):

First Movement
Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,
And Jamshyd’s Sev’n-ring’d Cup where no one knows;
But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine,
And many a Garden by the Water blows.

Second Movement
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahrám, that great Hunter – the Wild Ass
Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

Yet ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

Third Movement
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
Oh, Wilderness, were Paradise enow!

Fourth Movement
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again –
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden – and for one in vain!

Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavor and dispute;
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.2

Sources

  1. Nicholas Tawa, “Foote, Arthur,” Grove Music Online (January 31, 2014), accessed September 30, 2026, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002257535.
  2. Maureen Buja, “The Pleasures of Life: Foote’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,” Interlude (2022), accessed September 30, 2026, https://interlude.hk/the-pleasures-of-life-footes-rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam/.

Cut IDs

11653