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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Edward MacDowell, by Lawrence Gilman
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+
+
+
+
+Title: Edward MacDowell
+
+Author: Lawrence Gilman
+
+Release Date: November 21, 2004  [eBook #14109]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDWARD MACDOWELL***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Newman and the Project Gutenberg Online
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+
+
+EDWARD MACDOWELL
+
+A Study
+
+by
+
+LAWRENCE GILMAN
+
+Author of _Phases of Modern Music_; _The Music of Tomorrow_; _Stories
+of Symphonic Music_; _A Guide to Strauss' "Salome"_; _Debussy's
+"Pelleas el Melisande": A Guide to the Opera_; _Aspects of Modern
+Opera_; etc.
+
+London: John Lane, The Bodley Head
+New York: John Lane Company
+MCMIX
+
+1908
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Edward MacDowell]
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY T. FINCK
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This study is based upon the monograph on MacDowell which I
+contributed in 1905 to the "Living Masters of Music" series. That
+book could not, of course, remain in the series after the death of
+MacDowell three years later; it was therefore taken from its place
+and used as a foundation for the present volume, which supersedes it
+in every respect. The biographical portion is almost wholly new, and
+has been greatly enlarged, while the chapters dealing with
+MacDowell's music have been revised and extended.
+
+In completing this survey of one who in his art is still of to-day, I
+have been poignantly conscious throughout of the fact that posterity
+has an inconvenient habit of reversing the judgments delivered upon
+creative artists by their contemporaries; yet to trim deftly one's
+convictions in the hope that they may elastically conform to any one
+of a number of possible verdicts to be expected from a capricious
+futurity, is probably as dangerous a proceeding as to avow, without
+equivocation or compromise, one's precise beliefs. It will therefore
+be understood that the critical estimates which are offered in the
+following pages have been set down with deliberation.
+
+I desire to acknowledge gratefully the assistance which I have
+received from various sources: Primarily, from Mrs. Edward MacDowell,
+who has rendered help of an indispensable kind; from Mr. Henry T.
+Finck, who furnished me with his views and recollections of MacDowell
+as a pianist; and from reminiscences and impressions contributed by
+Mr. W.H. Humiston, Miss J.S. Watson, and Mr. T.P. Currier--pupils and
+friends of MacDowell--to _The Musician_, and by Mr. William Armstrong
+to _The Etude_, parts of which I have been privileged to quote.
+MacDowell wrote surprisingly few letters, and comparatively little of
+his correspondence is of intrinsic or general interest. I am indebted
+to Mr. N.J. Corey for permission to quote from several in his
+possession; while for the use of letters written to MacDowell and his
+wife by Liszt and Grieg my thanks are due to Mrs. MacDowell.
+
+L.G.
+
+DIXVILLE NOTCH, NEW HAMPSHIRE,
+September 18, 1908.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+THE MAN
+
+   I RECORDS AND EVENTS
+
+  II PERSONAL TRAITS AND VIEWS
+
+
+THE MUSIC-MAKER
+
+ III HIS ART AND ITS METHODS
+
+  IV EARLY EXPERIMENTS
+
+   V A MATURED IMPRESSIONIST
+
+  VI THE SONATAS
+
+ VII THE SONGS
+
+VIII SUMMARY
+
+     LIST OF WORKS
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+PLATE NO.
+
+   I  EDWARD MACDOWELL (Frontispiece)
+
+  II  MACDOWELL AT FOURTEEN
+       From a sketch drawn by himself
+
+ III  MACDOWELL AT EIGHTEEN, AS A MEMBER OF RAFF'S CLASS AT THE
+      FRANKFORT CONSERVATORY
+
+  IV  A SKETCH OF LISZT BY MACDOWELL, DRAWN IN 1883
+
+   V  FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM LISZT TO MACDOWELL
+
+  VI  A LETTER FROM LISZT TO MACDOWELL ACCEPTING THE DEDICATION OF
+      THE FIRST PIANO CONCERTO
+
+ VII  MACDOWELL AND TEMPLETON STRONG
+        From a photograph taken at Wiesbaden in 1888
+
+VIII  MACDOWELL IN 1892
+
+  IX  FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM GRIEG TO MACDOWELL, ACCEPTING THE
+      DEDICATION OF THE "NORSE" SONATA. ONE OF GRIEG'S RARE ATTEMPTS
+      AT ENGLISH COMPOSITION
+
+   X  THE HOUSE AT PETERBORO, NEW HAMPSHIRE, WHERE MACDOWELL SPENT
+      HIS SUMMERS
+
+  XI  THE PIAZZA AND GARDEN WALK AT PETERBORO
+
+ XII  A WINTER VIEW OF THE PETERBORO HOUSE
+
+XIII  THE "HOUSE OF DREAMS UNTOLD"--THE LOG CABIN IN THE WOODS AT
+      PETERBORO WHERE MACDOWELL COMPOSED, AND WHERE MOST OF HIS
+      LATER MUSIC WAS WRITTEN
+
+ XIV  FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF THE MS. OF THE "SONATA TRAGICA"
+
+  XV  FACSIMILE OF A PASSAGE FROM THE ORIGINAL MS. OF THE "KELTIC"
+      SONATA
+
+ XVI  THE MUSIC-ROOM AT PETERBORO
+
+
+
+
+                  ... we grow immortal,
+  And that ... harp awakens of itself
+  To cry aloud to the grey birds; and dreams,
+  That have had dreams for fathers, live in us.
+
+--_The Shadowy Waters._
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+RECORDS AND EVENTS
+
+
+Edward MacDowell, the first Celtic voice that has spoken commandingly
+out of musical art, achieved that priority through natural if not
+inevitable processes. Both his grandfather and grandmother on his
+father's side were born in Ireland, of Irish-Scotch parents. To his
+paternal great-grandfather, Alexander MacDowell, the composer traced
+the Scottish element in his blood; his paternal great-grandmother,
+whose maiden name was Ann McMurran, was born near Belfast, Ireland.
+Their son, Alexander, born in Belfast, came to America early in the
+last century and settled in New York, where he married a countrywoman,
+Sarah Thompson, whom he met after his arrival in the New World. A son,
+Thomas (Edward's father), was born to them in New York--where, until
+his retirement some time ago, he was engaged in business for many
+years. He married in 1856 Frances M. Knapp, a young American woman of
+English antecedents. Five years later, on December 18, 1861, their
+third son, Edward Alexander (he discarded the middle name toward the
+end of his life), was born at 220 Clinton Street, New York--a
+neighbourhood which has since suffered the deterioration common to
+many of what were once among the town's most irreproachable
+residential districts.
+
+From his father, a man of genuine aesthetic instincts, Edward derived
+his artistic tendencies and his Celtic sensitiveness of temperament,
+together with the pictorial instinct which was later to compete with
+his musical ability for decisive recognition; for the elder MacDowell
+displayed in his youth a facility as painter and draughtsman which his
+parents, who were Quakers of a devout and sufficiently uncompromising
+order, discouraged in no uncertain terms. The exercise of his own gift
+being thus restrained, Thomas MacDowell passed it on to his younger
+son--a somewhat superfluous endowment, in view of the fact that the
+latter was to demonstrate so ample a gift for an equally effective
+medium of expression.
+
+[Illustration: MACDOWELL AT FOURTEEN
+(From a Sketch drawn by Himself)]
+
+Edward had his first piano lessons, when he was about eight years
+old, from a friend of the family, Mr. Juan Buitrago, a native of
+Bogota, Colombia, and an accomplished musician. Mr. Buitrago was
+greatly interested in the boy, and had asked to be permitted to teach
+him his notes. Their piano practice at this time was subject to
+frequent interruptions; for when strict supervision was not exercised
+over his work, Edward was prone to indulge at the keyboard a fondness
+for composition which had developed concurrently with, and somewhat
+at the expense of, his proficiency in piano technique. He was not a
+prodigy, nor was he in the least precocious, though his gifts were as
+evident as they were various. He was not fond of drudgery at the
+keyboard, and he lacked the miraculous aptness at acquirement which
+belongs to the true prodigy. He was unusual chiefly by reason of the
+versatility of his gifts. His juvenile exercises in composition were
+varied by an apt use of the pencil and the sketching board. He liked
+to cover his music books and his exercises with drawings that showed
+both the observing eye and the naturally skilful hand of the born
+artist. Nor did music and drawing form a sufficient outlet for his
+impulse toward expression. He scribbled a good deal in prose and
+verse, and was fond of devising fairy tales, which were written not
+without a hint of the imaginative faculty which seems always to have
+been his possession.
+
+He continued his lessons with Mr. Buitrago for several years, when he
+was taken to a professional piano teacher, Paul Desvernine, with whom
+he studied until he was fifteen. He received, too, at this time,
+occasional supplementary lessons from the brilliant Venezuelan,
+Teresa Carreno. When he was in his fifteenth year it was determined
+that he should go abroad for a course in piano and theory at the
+Paris Conservatory, and in April, 1876, accompanied by his mother, he
+left America for France. He passed the competitive examination for
+admission to the Conservatory, and began the Autumn term as a pupil
+of Marmontel in piano and of Savard in theory and composition--having
+for a fellow pupil, by the way, that most remarkable of contemporary
+music-makers, Claude Debussy, whom MacDowell described as having
+been, even then, a youth of erratic and non-conformist tendencies.
+
+MacDowell's experiences at the Conservatory were not unmixed with
+perplexities and embarrassment. His knowledge of French was far from
+secure, and he had considerable difficulty in following Savard's
+lectures. It was decided, therefore, that he should have a course of
+tuition in the language. A teacher was engaged, and Edward began a
+resolute attack upon the linguistic _chevaux de frise_ which had
+proved so troublesome an impediment--a move which brought him,
+unexpectedly enough, to an important crisis in his affairs.
+
+On one occasion it happened that, during these lessons in French, he
+was varying the monotony of a study hour by drawing, under cover of
+his lesson-book, a portrait of his teacher, whose most striking
+physical characteristic was a nose of extravagant bulk. He was
+detected just as he was completing the sketch, and was asked, much to
+his confusion, to exhibit the result. It appears to have been a
+remarkable piece of work as well as an excellent likeness, for the
+subject of it was eager to know whether or not MacDowell had studied
+drawing, and, if not, how he acquired his proficiency. Moreover, he
+insisted on keeping the sketch. Not long after, he called upon Mrs.
+MacDowell and told her, to her astonishment, that he had shown the
+sketch to a certain very eminent painter--an instructor at the Ecole
+de Beaux Arts--and that the painter had been so much impressed by the
+talent which it evidenced that he begged to propose to Mrs. MacDowell
+that she submit her son to him for a three-years' course of free
+instruction under his personal supervision, offering also to be
+responsible for his support during that time. The issue was a
+momentous one, and Mrs. MacDowell, in much perplexity of mind as to
+the wisest settlement of her son's future, laid the matter before
+Marmontel, who, fearful of losing one of his aptest pupils, urgently
+advised her against diverting her son from a musical career. The
+decision was finally left to MacDowell, and it was agreed that he
+should continue his studies at the Conservatory. Although it seems
+not unlikely that, with his natural facility as a painter and
+draughtsman and his uncommon faculties of vision and imagination, he
+would have achieved distinction as a painter, it may be questioned
+whether in that case music would not have lost appreciably more than
+art would have gained.
+
+Conditions at the Conservatory were not to the taste of MacDowell,
+for he found his notions of right artistic procedure frequently
+opposed to those that prevailed among his teachers and fellow
+students. His growing disaffection was brought to a head during the
+summer of 1878. It was the year of the Exposition, and MacDowell and
+his mother attended a festival concert at which Nicholas Rubinstein
+played in memorable style Tchaikovsky's B-flat minor piano concerto.
+His performance was a revelation to the young American. "I never can
+learn to play like that if I stay here," he said resolutely to his
+mother, as they left the concert hall. Mrs. MacDowell, whose fixed
+principle it was to permit her son to decide his affairs according to
+his lights, thereupon considered with him the merits of various
+European Conservatories of reputation. They thought of Moscow,
+because of Nicholas Rubinstein's connection with the Conservatory
+there. Leipsic suggested itself; Frankfort was strongly recommended,
+and Stuttgart seemed to offer conspicuous advantages. The latter
+place was finally determined upon, and Mrs. MacDowell and her son
+went there from Paris at Thanksgiving time, having agreed that the
+famous Stuttgart Conservatory would yield the desired sort of
+instruction.
+
+The choice was scarcely a happy one. It did not take MacDowell long
+to realise that, if he expected to conform to the Stuttgart
+requirements, he would be compelled to unlearn all that he had
+already acquired--would have virtually, so far as his technique was
+concerned, to begin _de novo_. Rubinstein himself, MacDowell was told
+by one of the students, would have had to reform his pianistic
+manners if he had placed himself under the guidance of the Stuttgart
+pedagogues. Nor does the system of instruction then in effect at the
+Conservatory appear to have been thorough even within its own sphere.
+MacDowell used to tell of a student who could play an ascending scale
+superlatively well, but who was helpless before the problem of
+playing the same scale in its descending form.
+
+His mother, disheartened over the failure of Stuttgart to justify her
+expectations, was at a loss how best to solve the problem of her
+son's immediate future. Having heard much of the ability of Carl
+Heymann, the pianist, as an instructor, Mrs. MacDowell thought of the
+Frankfort Conservatory, of which Joachim Raff was the head, and where
+Heymann would be available as a teacher.
+
+She learned from a friend, to whom she had written for advice, that
+the pianist had promised soon to visit her at her home in Wiesbaden,
+and it was suggested that the MacDowells pay her a visit at the same
+time, and thus benefit by the opportunity of becoming acquainted with
+Heymann. Mrs. MacDowell and her son were not slow to avail themselves
+of this proposal, and the end of the year 1878 found them in
+Wiesbaden. Here they met Heymann, who had just concluded a
+triumphantly successful _tournee_ of the European capitals. They
+heard him play, and were impressed by his mastery and poetic feeling.
+Heymann was not, however, to begin teaching at the Frankfort
+Conservatory until the following autumn, so MacDowell remained in
+Wiesbaden, studying composition and theory with the distinguished
+critic and teacher, Louis Ehlert, while his mother returned to
+America.
+
+[Illustration: MACDOWELL AT EIGHTEEN (THE FIGURE AT THE EXTREME LEFT
+OF THE GROUP) AS A MEMBER OF RAFF'S CLASS AT THE FRANKFORT
+CONSERVATORY]
+
+"Ehlert," MacDowell has written, "was very kind to me, and when I
+asked him for 'lessons' he refused flatly, but said he would be glad
+for us to 'study together,' as he put it. This rather staggered me,
+as my idea in leaving Paris was to get a severe and regenerating
+overhauling. I worked hard all winter, however, and heard lots of new
+music at the _Cur Haus_, which was like manna in the desert after my
+long French famine. Ehlert, who thought that Heymann was not the man
+for me, spoke and wrote to Von Bulow about me; but the latter,
+without even having seen me, wrote Ehlert a most insulting letter,
+asking how Ehlert dared 'to propose such a silly thing' to him; that
+he was not a music teacher, and could not waste his time on an
+American boy, anyway. So, after all, I went to Frankfort and entered
+the conservatory." MacDowell's first interview with Raff, in the
+autumn of 1879, was, as he relates, "not promising." "Heymann took me
+to him and told him, among other things, that, having studied for
+several years the 'French School' of composition, I wished to study
+in Germany. Raff immediately flared up and declared that there was no
+such thing nowadays as 'schools'--that music was eclectic nowadays;
+that if some French writers wrote flimsy music it arose simply from
+flimsy attainments, and such stuff could never form a 'school.'
+German and other writers were to be criticised from the same
+standpoint--their music was bad, middling, or good; but there was no
+such thing as cramping it into 'schools' nowadays, when all national
+musical traits were common property."
+
+MacDowell remained in the Conservatory for two years, studying
+composition with Raff and piano with Heymann. His stay there was
+eminently satisfactory and profitable to himself. He found both Raff
+and Heymann artistic mentors of an inspiring kind; in Raff,
+particularly, he encountered a most sympathetic and encouraging
+preceptor, and an influence at once potent and engrossing--a force
+which was to direct the currents of his own temperament into definite
+artistic channels.
+
+For Heymann as a pianist MacDowell had a fervent admiration. He spoke
+of him as "a marvel," whose technique "seemed mysteriously capable of
+anything." "When I went to him," MacDowell has said, "I had already
+transposed most of the fugues and preludes of Bach (Paris ideas of
+'thoroughness'!) and had gone through much rough technical work.
+Heymann let me do what I wanted; but in hearing him practise and play
+I learned more in a week than I ever had before." When Heymann, who
+had already begun to show symptoms of the mental disorder which
+ultimately overcame him, left the Conservatory in 1881, he
+recommended MacDowell as his successor--a proposal which was
+cordially seconded by Raff. But there were antagonistic influences at
+work within the Conservatory. MacDowell's candidacy was opposed by
+certain of the professors, on account, it was said, of his "youth";
+but also, doubtless, because of the advocacy of Heymann, who was not
+popular with his colleagues; for he dared, MacDowell has said, "to
+play the classics as if they had been written by men with blood in
+their veins." So MacDowell failed to get the appointment. He
+continued, unofficially, as a pupil of Heymann, and went to him
+constantly for criticism and advice.
+
+MacDowell began at this time to take private pupils, and one of these
+pupils, an American, Miss Marian Nevins, was later to become his
+wife. He was then living in lodgings kept by a venerable German
+spinster who was the daughter of one of Napoleon's officers. She was
+very fond of her young lodger, and through her he became acquainted
+with the work of Erckmann-Chartrian, whose tales deeply engrossed him
+at this time. Later he moved to the Cafe Milani, on the Zeil, at that
+time an institution of considerable celebrity. As a teacher he made a
+rather prominent place for himself; the recommendation of Raff--who
+had said to one of MacDowell's pupils that he expected "great things"
+of him--had helped at the start, and his personality counted for not
+a little. His appearance at this time (he was then nineteen years
+old) is described as having been strikingly unlike that of the
+typical American as known in Germany. "His keen and very blue eyes,
+his pink and white skin, reddish mustache and imperial and jet black
+hair, brushed straight up in the prevalent German fashion, caused him
+to be known as 'the handsome American.'" Teaching at that time must
+have been a sore trial to him. He was, as he continued to be
+throughout his life, painfully shy; yet he seems, strangely enough,
+to have had, even then, the knack for imparting instruction, for
+quickening the interest and stimulating the enthusiasm of those who
+came under his guidance, which in later years made him so remarkable
+a teacher.
+
+In 1881 MacDowell applied for the vacant position of head piano
+teacher at the Conservatory in the neighbouring town of Darmstadt,
+and was engaged. He found it an arduous and not too profitable post.
+He has described it as "a dreary town, where the pupils studied music
+with true German placidity." They procured all their music from a
+circulating library, where the choice of novelties was limited to
+late editions of the classics and a good deal of sheer trash, poor
+dance music and the like. His work, which was unmitigated drudgery,
+consumed forty hours a week. For a time he took up his quarters in
+Darmstadt; but he missed the attractions of Frankfort; so throughout
+his term he travelled on the railroad twice daily between the two
+towns. In addition to his regular work at the Conservatory, he
+undertook private lessons, going by train once a week to the
+Erbach-Fuerstenau castle at Erbach-Fuerstenau, a wearisome three-hour
+journey. The castle was a mediaeval _Schloss_, with a drawbridge and
+moat. There his pupils were little counts and countesses,
+discouragingly dull and sleepy children who spoke only German and
+Latin, and who had the smallest interest in music. MacDowell gave
+them lessons in harmony as well as piano-playing, and one day, in the
+middle of an elaborately simplified exposition of some rudimentary
+point, he heard a gentle noise, looked around from the piano, and
+discovered his noble young pupils with their heads on their arms,
+fast asleep. MacDowell could never remember their different titles,
+and ended by addressing them simply as "mademoiselle" and "monsieur,"
+to the annoyance of the stern and ceremonious old chatelaine, the
+Baroness of Rodenberg.
+
+The twelve hours a week which he spent in railway travelling were
+not, though, wholly unprofitable, for he was able to compose on the
+train the greater part of his second "Modern Suite" for piano (op.
+14). This was the second of his compositions which he considered
+worthy of preservation, its predecessor being the "First Modern
+Suite," written the year before in Frankfort. Much other music had
+already found its way upon paper, had been tried in the unsparing
+fire of his criticism, which was even then vigorous and searching,
+and had been marked for destruction--a symphony, among other efforts.
+His reading at this time was of engrossing interest to him. He was
+absorbed in the German poets; Goethe and Heine, whom he was now able
+to read with ease in the original German, he knew by heart--a
+devotion which was to find expression a few years later in his
+"Idyls" and "Poems" (op. 28 and 31). He had begun also to read the
+English poets. He devoured Byron and Shelley; and in Tennyson's
+"Idyls of the King" he found the spark which kindled his especial
+love for mediaeval lore and poetry. Yet while he was enamored of the
+imaginative records of the Middle Ages, he had little interest, oddly
+enough, in their tangible remains. He liked, for example, to summon a
+vision of the valley of the Rhone, with its slow-moving human streams
+flowing between Italy and the North, and with Sion still looking down
+from its heights, where the bishops had been lords rather than
+priests. But this was for him a purely imaginative enchantment. He
+cared little about exploring the actual and visible memorials of the
+past: to confront them as crumbling ruins gave him no pleasure, and,
+as he used to say, he "hated the smells." It was this instinct which,
+in his visits to the cathedrals, prompted him to stand as far back as
+possible while the Mass was being said. To see in the dim distance
+the white, pontifical figures moving gravely through the ritual, to
+hear the low tones, enthralled and stirred him; but he shrank from
+entering the sacristy, with its loud-voiced priests describing
+perfunctorily the relics: that was a disillusionment not to be borne
+with.
+
+[Illustration: A SKETCH OF LISZT BY MACDOWELL DRAWN IN 1883]
+
+Having found that his labours at Darmstadt were telling upon his
+health, MacDowell resigned his position there and returned to
+Frankfort. Here he divided his time between his private teaching and
+his composition. He was ambitious also to secure some profitable
+concert engagements as a pianist. He had made occasional appearances
+at orchestral concerts in Wiesbaden, Frankfort, Darmstadt, but these
+had yielded him no return save an increase of reputation.
+
+At Raff's instigation he visited Liszt at Weimar in the spring of
+1882, armed with his first piano concerto (op. 15). This work he had
+just composed under amusing circumstances. One day while he was
+sitting aimlessly before his piano there came a knock at his door,
+and in walked, to his startled confusion, his master, Raff, of whom
+MacDowell stood in unmitigated awe. "The honor," he relates, "simply
+overwhelmed me. He looked rather quizzically around at my untidy
+room, and said something about the English translation of his
+_Welt-Ende_ oratorio (I found out after, alas, that he had wanted me
+to copy it in his score for him; but with his inexplicable shyness he
+only hinted at it, and I on my side was too utterly and idiotically
+overpowered to catch his meaning); then he abruptly asked me what I
+had been writing. I, scarcely realising what I was saying, stammered
+out that I had a concerto. He walked out on the landing and turned
+back, telling me to bring it to him the next Sunday. In desperation,
+not having the remotest idea how I was to accomplish such a task, I
+worked like a beaver, evolving the music from some ideas upon which I
+had planned at some time to base a concerto. Sunday came, and I had
+only the first movement composed. I wrote him a note making some
+wretched excuse, and he put it off until the Sunday after. Something
+happened then, and he put it off two days more; by that time I had
+the concerto ready." Except for three lines of passage work in the
+first part, the concerto remains to-day precisely as MacDowell
+finished it then.
+
+In the event, the visit to Liszt, which he had dreaded, was a
+gratifying surprise. That beneficent but formidable personage
+received him with kindly courtesy, and had Eugen D'Albert, who was
+present, play the orchestral part of the concerto which MacDowell had
+brought with him in manuscript, arranged for two pianos. Liszt
+listened attentively as the two young musicians played it
+through,--not too effectively,--and when they had finished he
+commended it in warm terms. "You must bestir yourself," he warned
+D'Albert, "if you do not wish to be outdone by our young American";
+and he praised the boldness and originality of certain passages in
+the music, especially their harmonic treatment.
+
+What was at that time even more cheering to MacDowell, who had not
+yet come to regard himself as paramountly a composer, was Liszt's
+praise of his piano playing. He returned to Frankfort greatly
+encouraged, and he was still further elated to receive soon after a
+letter from Liszt in which, referring to the first "Modern Suite,"
+which MacDowell had sent to him, the Abbe wrote:
+
+    "... Since the foundation of the General Society of German
+    Musicians, the definitive making up of the programs is entrusted
+    to me, and I shall be very glad to recommend the execution of
+    your work.
+
+    "Will you be good enough to give to your master, my old friend,
+    J. Raff, the assurance of my highest esteem and admiration.
+
+    "F. LISZT.
+
+    "Budapest. April 13, 1882."
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM LISZT TO MACDOWELL
+(SEE PAGE 18)]
+
+The nineteenth annual convention of the _Allgemeiner Deutscher
+Musik-Verein_ was held that year at Zuerich, from the 9th to the 12th
+of July; and at the fifth concert of the series, on July 11, MacDowell
+played his first piano suite. Both the music and his performance of it
+were praised. A contemporaneous account speaks of the composer as "an
+earnest and modest musician, free from all mannerisms," who "carried
+his modesty so far that he played with his notes before him, though he
+cannot have felt any particular necessity for having them there." He
+"was recalled enthusiastically, and with many bravos, and may be proud
+of the success he has achieved." Until then, as MacDowell confessed,
+with engaging candour, to Mr. Henry T. Finck, he "had never waked up
+to the idea" that his music could be worth actual study or memorising.
+"I would not have changed a note in one of them for untold gold, and
+_inside_ I had the greatest love for them; but the idea that any one
+else might take them seriously had never occurred to me." A year
+later, upon Liszt's recommendation, the suite and its successor, the
+"Second Modern Suite," op. 14, were published at Leipzig by the famous
+house of Breitkopf and Haertel. "Your two pianoforte suites," wrote
+Liszt from Budapest, in February of that year, "are admirable. I
+accept the dedication of your concerto with sincere pleasure and
+thanks." The suites were the first of MacDowell's works to appear in
+print.[1]
+
+[1] The "Two Old Songs," which bear an earlier opus number,--9,--were
+composed at a much later period--a fact which is betrayed by their
+style.
+
+The death of Raff on June 25, 1882, brought to MacDowell his first
+profound sorrow. There was a deep attachment between pupil and master,
+and MacDowell felt in Raff's death the loss of a sincere friend, and,
+as he later came to appreciate, a powerful ally. The influential part
+which Raff bore in turning MacDowell's aims definitely and permanently
+toward creative rather than pianistic activity could scarcely be
+overestimated. When he first went to Paris, and during the later years
+in Germany, there had been little serious thought on his part, or on
+the part of his family, concerning his composition; his evident talent
+for piano-playing had persistently overshadowed his creative gifts,
+and had made it seem that his inevitable career was that of a
+virtuoso. As he wrote in after years: "I had acquired from early
+boyhood the idea that it was expected of me to become a pianist, and
+every moment spent in 'scribbling' seemed to be stolen from the more
+legitimate work of piano practice." It was Raff--Raff, who said to him
+once: "Your music will be played when mine is forgotten"--who opened
+his eyes.
+
+The two following years,--from the summer of 1882 till the summer of
+1884--were increasingly given over to composition, though MacDowell
+continued his private teaching and made a few appearances in concert.
+He continued to try his hand at orchestral writing, and in this
+pursuit he was greatly favoured by the willingness of the conductors
+of the _Cur-Orchesters_ at Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, and elsewhere, to
+"try over" in the rehearsal hour his experiments. His requests for
+such a trial reading of his scores were seldom refused, and the
+practical training in instrumentation which was afforded by the
+experience he always regarded as invaluable. Much that he tested in
+this manner was condemned as a result of the illuminating, if
+chastening, revelations thus brought about; and almost all of his
+orchestral writing which he afterward thought fit to publish received
+the benefit of such practical tests.
+
+The music which dates from this period comprises the three songs of
+opus 11 ("Mein Liebchen,"[2] "Du liebst mich nicht," "Oben, wo
+die Sterne gluehen"); the two songs of op. 12 ("Nachtlied" and "Das
+Rosenband"); the Prelude and Fugue (op. 13); the second piano suite
+(op. 14)--begun in the days of his Darmstadt professorship; the
+"Serenade" (op. 16); the two "Fantasiestuecke" of op. 17:
+"Erzaehlung" and the much-played "Hexentanz"; the "Barcarolle"
+and "Humoreske" of op. 18; and the "Wald-Idyllen" (op. 19):
+"Waldesstille," "Spiel der Nymphen," "Traeumerei," "Dryadentanz."
+
+[2] I give the German titles under which these compositions were
+originally published.
+
+In June, 1884, MacDowell returned to America, and on July 21, at
+Waterford, Connecticut, he was married to his former pupil, Miss
+Marian Nevins--a union, which, for perfection of sympathy and
+closeness of comradeship, was, during the quarter of a century for
+which it was to endure, nothing less than ideal. A few days later
+MacDowell and his bride sailed from New York for Europe, innocent of
+any very definite plans for the immediate future. They visited Exeter
+and Bath, and then went to London, where they found lodgings at No. 5,
+Woburn Place. There MacDowell's interest in the outer world was
+divided between the British Museum, where he found a particular
+fascination in the Egyptian and Syrian antiquities, and the
+Shakespearian performances of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. He was
+captivated by their performance of "Much Ado About Nothing," and made
+a sketch for a symphonic poem which was to be called "Beatrice and
+Benedick"--a plan which he finally abandoned. Most of the material
+which was to form the symphonic poem went ultimately to the making of
+the scherzo of the second piano concerto, composed during the
+following year.
+
+Returning to Frankfort, MacDowell and his wife lived for a short time
+in a pension in the Praunheimer Strasse, keeping very much to
+themselves in two small rooms. Upon their return from a brief
+excursion to Paris, they found less restricted quarters in the Hotel
+du Nord. In September of this year MacDowell learned of an
+advantageous position that had been vacated at the Wuerzburg
+Conservatory, and, assisted by letters from Frau Raff, Marmontel (his
+former instructor at the Paris Conservatory), and the violinist
+Sauret, he sought the place. But again, as at Frankfort three years
+before, his youth was in his disfavour, and he was courteously
+rejected.
+
+[Illustration: A LETTER FROM LISZT TO MACDOWELL ACCEPTING THE
+DEDICATION OF THE FIRST PIANO CONCERTO (SEE PAGE 19)]
+
+The following winter was given over largely to composition. The
+two-part symphonic poem, "Hamlet and Ophelia," his first production of
+important significance, was composed at this time. The "Drei
+Poesien" (op. 20) and "Mondbilder" (op. 21), both written for
+four-hand performance, also date from the winter of 1884-85, and the
+second piano concerto was begun. The "Moon Pictures" of op. 21 ("The
+Hindoo Maiden," "Stork's Story," "In Tyrol," "The Swan," "Visit of the
+Bear"), after Hans Christian Andersen, were at first intended to form
+a miniature orchestral suite; but an opportunity arose to have them
+printed as piano duets, and the orchestral sketches were destroyed--a
+regrettable outcome, as it seems.
+
+His pupils, he found, were scattered, and he gave himself up without
+restraint to the pleasures of creative writing. These were days of
+quiet and deep happiness. He read much, often aloud in the
+evening--fairy-tales, of which he was devotedly fond, legendary lore
+of different countries, mediaeval romances, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson,
+Benvenuto Cellini's Memoirs, Victor Hugo, Heine; and also Mark Twain.
+Later, in the spring, the days were devoted partly to composition and
+partly to long walks with his wife in the beautiful Frankfort woods,
+where was suggested to MacDowell the particular mood that found
+embodiment, many years later, in one of the last things that he wrote:
+"From a German Forest," in the collection of "Fireside Tales."
+
+The following summer (1885), the death of a friend of his earlier
+Frankfort days, Lindsay Deas, a Scotchman, left vacant in Edinburgh
+the post of examiner for the Royal Academy of Music, and Deas's family
+presented MacDowell's name as a candidate. A trip to London was
+undertaken for the purpose of securing the place, if possible--since
+composition alone could not be depended upon for a livelihood; but
+again his youth, as well as his nationality and his "modern
+tendencies," militated against him. He was obliged to admit that he
+had been a protege of "that dreadful man Liszt," as the potentate of
+Weimar was characterised by Lady Macfarren, an all-powerful factor in
+the control of the institution; and that proving finally his
+abandonment to a nefarious modernity, he was again rejected.
+
+Upon their return to Germany the MacDowells moved from Frankfort to
+Wiesbaden, where they spent the winter of 1885-86, living in a small
+pension. The first concerto (op. 15) had recently been published by
+Breitkopf and Haertel. The same year (1885) was marked by the
+completion of the second concerto in D-minor, begun at Frankfort in
+the previous winter, and the publication by Breitkopf and Haertel of
+the full score of "Hamlet and Ophelia,"[3] with a dedication to Henry
+Irving and Ellen Terry, from whose performances in London MacDowell
+had caught the suggestion for the music. In the summer of 1886
+MacDowell and his wife again yielded to their passion for travelling
+and went to London to buy furniture, for they had wearied of living in
+pensions and hotels and had determined to set up housekeeping. When
+they returned they hired a little flat in the Jahnstrasse and
+installed themselves therewith just enough furniture to give them
+countenance. Here Mrs. MacDowell suffered an illness which threatened
+for a time to bring a tragic termination to their happiness, and
+through which the hope of a child was lost to them.
+
+[3] The published score of this opus bears the title (in German):
+"Hamlet; Ophelia: Two Poems for Grand Orchestra." But MacDowell
+afterward changed his mind concerning this designation, and preferred
+to entitle the work: "First Symphonic Poem (a. 'Hamlet'; b. 'Ophelia')."
+This alteration is written in MacDowell's handwriting in his copy of
+the printed score. When "Lancelot and Elaine" was published three
+years later it bore the sub-title: "Second Symphonic Poem."
+
+One afternoon in the spring of 1887 MacDowell and his friend Templeton
+Strong, a brilliant American composer who had recently moved from his
+home in Leipzig to Wiesbaden, were tramping through the country when
+they came upon a dilapidated cottage on the edge of the woods, in the
+Grubweg. It had been built by a rich German, not as a habitation, but
+as a kind of elaborate summer house. The situation was enticing. The
+little building stood on the side of the Neroberg, overlooking the
+town on one side, with the Rhine and the Main beyond, and on the other
+side the woods. The two Americans were captivated by it, and nothing
+would do but that MacDowell should purchase it for a home. There was
+some question of its practicability by his cooler-headed wife; but
+eventually the cottage was bought, with half an acre of ground, and
+the MacDowells ensconced themselves. There was a small garden, in
+which MacDowell delighted to dig; the woods were within a stone's
+throw; and he and Strong, who were inseparable friends, walked
+together and disputed amicably concerning principles and methods of
+music-making, and the need for patriotism, in which Strong was
+conceived to be deficient.
+
+This was a time of rich productiveness for MacDowell; and the life
+that he and his wife were able to live was of an ideal serenity and
+detachment. He was now devoting his entire energy to composition. He
+put forth during these years at Wiesbaden the four pieces of op. 24
+("Humoresque," "March," "Cradle Song," "Czardas"); the symphonic poem
+"Lancelot and Elaine" (op. 25); the six songs, "From An Old Garden,"
+to words by Margaret Deland (op. 26); the three songs for male chorus
+of op. 27 ("In the Starry Sky Above Us," "Springtime," "The
+Fisherboy"); the "Idyls" and "Poems" for piano (op. 28 and op. 31),
+after Goethe and Heine; the symphonic poem "Lamia" (op. 29); the two
+"Fragments" for orchestra after the "Song of Roland": "The Saracens"
+and "The Lovely Alda" (op. 30); the "Four Little Poems" for
+piano--"The Eagle," "The Brook," "Moonshine," "Winter" (op. 32); the
+three songs of op. 33 ("Prayer," "Cradle Hymn," "Idyl") and the two of
+op. 34 ("Menie," "My Jean"); and the "Romance" for 'cello and
+orchestra. He had, moreover, the satisfaction of knowing that his work
+was being received, both in Europe and in his own country, with
+interest and respect. His reputation had begun unmistakably to spread.
+"Hamlet and Ophelia" had been performed at Darmstadt, Wiesbaden,
+Baden-Baden, Sondershausen, Frankfort. On March 8, 1884, his former
+teacher, Teresa Carreno, had played his second piano suite at a
+recital in New York; in March of the following year two movements from
+the first suite were played at an "American Concert" given at Princes'
+Hall, London; on March 30, 1885, at one of Mr. Frank Van der Stucken's
+"Novelty Concerts" in New York, Miss Adele Margulies played the second
+and third movements from the first piano concerto. In the same year
+Mme. Carreno played on tour in America three movements from the second
+suite, and in the following September she played at the Worcester
+Festival of that year the "Hexentanz" of op. 17. On November 4,
+1886, the "Ophelia" section of op. 22 was performed at the first of
+Mr. Van der Stucken's "Symphonic Concerts" at Chickering Hall, New
+York. Mr. H.E. Krehbiel, reviewing the work in the _Tribune_, praised
+the orchestration as "brilliant" ("though the models studied are
+rather more obvious than we like"), the melodic invention as
+"beautiful" and as having a poetical mood and characteristic outline.
+He considered that the music deserved repetition during the course of
+the season, and pronounced it "a finer work in every respect than the
+majority of the novelties which have come to us this season with
+French and English labels." Mr. Henry T. Finck, writing in the
+_Evening Post_, characterised the work as "an exquisitely conceived
+tone-poem, charmingly orchestrated and full of striking harmonic
+progressions." A year after the performance of the "Ophelia" in New
+York Mr. Van der Stucken produced its companion piece, "Hamlet." In
+April, 1888, at the first of a course of "pianoforte-concerto
+concerts" given by Mr. B.J. Lang at Chickering Hall, Boston,
+MacDowell's first concerto was played by Mr. B.L. Whelpley. "The
+effect upon all present," wrote Mr. W.F. Apthorp in the _Transcript_,
+"was simply electric." The concerto "was a surprise, if ever there was
+one. We can hardly," he declared, "recall a composition so full of
+astonishing and unprecedented effects [it will be recalled that this
+concerto was composed in 1882, when MacDowell was nineteen years old].
+The work was evidently written at white heat; its brilliancy and
+vigour are astounding. The impression it made upon us, in other
+respects, is as yet rather undigested... But its fire and forcibleness
+are unmistakable." These opinions are of interest, for they testify to
+the prompt and ungrudging recognition which was accorded to
+MacDowell's work, from the first, by responsible critics in his own
+country.
+
+He might well have felt some pride in the sum of his achievements at
+this time. He had not completed his twenty-seventh year; yet he had
+published a concerto and two orchestral works of important
+dimensions--"Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine"; most of
+the music that he had so far written had been publicly performed, and
+almost invariably praised with warmth; and he was becoming known in
+Europe and at home. His material affairs, however, were far from being
+in a satisfactory or promising condition; for there was little more
+than a precarious income to be counted upon from his compositions; and
+he had given up teaching. Musicians from America began coming to the
+little Wiesbaden retreat to visit the composer and his wife, and he
+was repeatedly urged to return to America and assume his share in the
+development of the musical art of his country. It was finally decided
+that, all things considered, conditions would be more favorable in the
+United States; and in September, 1888, the MacDowells sold their
+Wiesbaden cottage, not without many pangs, and sailed for their own
+shores.
+
+[Illustration: MACDOWELL AND TEMPLETON STRONG
+From a photograph taken at Wiesbaden in 1888]
+
+They settled in Boston, as being less huge and tumultuous than New
+York, and took lodgings in Mount Vernon Street. In later years they
+lived successively at 13 West Cedar Street and at 38 Chestnut Street.
+Though all of his more important music was as yet unwritten, MacDowell
+found himself already established in the view of the musical public as
+a composer abundantly worthy of honour at the hands of his countrymen.
+He made his first public appearance in America, in the double capacity
+of pianist and composer, at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering
+Hall, Boston, on November 19, 1888, playing the Prelude, Intermezzo,
+and Presto from his first piano suite, and, with Kneisel and his
+associates, the piano part in Goldmark's B-flat Quintet. He was
+cordially received, and Mr. Apthorp, writing in the _Transcript_ of
+his piano playing, praised his technique as "ample and brilliant," and
+as being especially admirable "in the higher phases of playing"; "he
+plays," wrote this critic, "with admirable truth of sentiment and
+musical understanding." Of the early and immature suite he could not
+well write with much enthusiasm, though he found in it "life and
+brightness."
+
+In the following spring MacDowell made a more auspicious appearance,
+and one which more justly disclosed his abilities as a composer,
+when, on March 5, he played his second concerto, for the first time
+in public, at an orchestral concert in Chickering Hall, New York,
+under the direction of Mr. Theodore Thomas. His success was then
+immediate and emphatic. Mr. Krehbiel, in the _Tribune_, praised the
+concerto as "a splendid composition, so full of poetry, so full of
+vigor, as to tempt the assertion that it must be placed at the head
+of all works of its kind produced by either a native or adopted
+citizen of America"; and he confessed to having "derived keener
+pleasure from the work of the young American than from the
+experienced and famous Russian"--Tchaikovsky, whose Fifth Symphony
+was performed then for the first time in New York. "Several
+enthusiastic and unquestionably sincere recalls," concluded the
+writer, "were the tokens of gratitude and delight with which his
+townspeople rewarded him." A month later MacDowell played the same
+concerto in Boston, at a Symphony concert, under Mr. Gericke; his
+performance of it evoked "rapt attention," and "the very heartiest of
+plaudits, in which both orchestra and audience joined."
+
+In the summer of that year (1889) MacDowell and his wife went abroad.
+He had been invited to take part in an "American Concert" at the Paris
+Exposition, and on July 12, under Mr. Van der Stucken's direction, he
+played his second concerto.[4] After a short stay on the continent, he
+returned with his wife to America.
+
+[4] The rest of the programme, it may be interesting to note,
+contained Arthur Foote's overture, "In the Mountains," Van der
+Stucken's suite, "The Tempest," Chadwick's "Melpomene" overture,
+Paine's "Oedipus Tyrannus" prelude, a romance and polonaise for violin
+and orchestra by Henry Holden Huss, and songs by Margaret Ruthven
+Lang, Dudley Buck, Chadwick, Foote, Van der Stucken. The concert ended
+with an "_ouverture festivale sur l'Hymne Americaine_, 'The Star
+Spangled Banner,'" by Dudley Buck.
+
+MacDowell found in Boston a considerable field for his activity as
+pianist and teacher. He took many private pupils, and he made, during
+the eight years that he remained there, many public appearances in
+concert. In composition, these years were the most fruitful of his
+life. He wrote during this period the Concert Study for piano (op.
+36); the set of pieces after Victor Hugo's "Les Orientales" (op.
+37)--"Clair de lune," "Dans le Hamac," "Danse Andalouse"; the
+"Marionettes" (op. 38); the "Twelve Studies" of op. 39; the "Six Love
+Songs" (op. 40); the two songs for male chorus (op. 41)--"Cradle Song"
+and "Dance of the Gnomes"; the orchestral suite in A-minor (op. 42)
+and its supplement, "In October" (op. 42-A);[5] the "Two Northern
+Songs" and "Barcarolle" (op. 43 and op. 44) for mixed voices; the
+"Sonata Tragica" (op. 45); the 12 "Virtuoso Studies" of op. 46; the
+"Eight Songs" (op. 47); the second ("Indian") suite for orchestra; the
+"Air" and "Rigaudon" (op. 49) for piano; the "Sonata Eroica" (op. 50);
+and the "Woodland Sketches" (op. 51). This output did not contain his
+most mature and characteristic works--those were to come later, during
+the last six years of his creative activity; yet the product was in
+many ways a notable one, and some of it--the two sonatas, the "Indian"
+suite, the songs of op. 47, the "Woodland Sketches"--was, if not
+consistently of his very best, markedly fine and characteristic in
+quality. This decade (from 1887 to 1897) saw also the publication of
+all his work contained between his op. 22 ("Hamlet and Ophelia") and
+op. 51 (the "Woodland Sketches") with the exception of the symphonic
+poem "Lamia," which was not published until after his death.
+
+[5] This episode formed part of the suite in its original form, but
+was not printed until several years after the publication of the rest
+of the music. The earlier portion, comprising four parts ("In a
+Haunted Forest," "Summer Idyll," "The Shepherdess' Song," "Forest
+Spirits"), was published in 1891, the supplement in 1893.
+
+Meanwhile his prestige grew steadily. Each new work that he put forth
+met with a remarkable measure of success, both among the general
+public and at the hands of many not over-complacent critical
+appraisers. On January 10, 1890, his "Lancelot and Elaine" was played
+at a Boston Symphony concert under Mr. Nikisch. In September, 1891,
+his orchestral suite in A-minor (op. 42) was performed for the first
+time at the Worcester Festival, and a month later it was played in
+Boston at a Symphony concert under Mr. Nikisch. In November of the
+same year the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, under Bernhard Listemann,
+performed for the first time, at the Tremont Theatre, his "Roland"
+pieces, "The Saracens" and "The Lovely Alda." On the following
+day--November 6, 1891--he gave his first piano recital, playing, in
+addition to pieces by Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Templeton Strong, P.
+Geisler, Alabieff, and Liszt, his own "Witches' Dance," "Shadow Dance"
+(op. 39), "The Eagle," the Etude in F-sharp (op. 36), the Prelude from
+the first suite, and the fourth of the "Idyls" after Goethe. He
+followed this with a second recital in January, 1892, at which he
+played, among other things, the "Winter," "Moonshine," and "The
+Brook," from the "Four Little Poems" (op. 32). Discussing the first of
+these recitals, Mr. Philip Hale (in the _Boston Post_) wrote these
+words, which have a larger application than their reference to
+MacDowell: "No doubt, as a composer, he has studied and mastered form
+and knows its value; but he prefers suggestions and hints and dream
+pictures and sleep-chasings to all attempts to be original in an
+approved and conventional fashion.... They [his compositions] are
+interesting, and more than that: they are extremely characteristic in
+harmonic colouring. Their size has nothing to do with their merits. A
+few lines by Gautier stuffed with prismatic words and yet as vague as
+mist-wreaths may in artistic worth surpass whole cantos of more famous
+poets; and Mr. MacDowell has Gautier's sense of colour and knowledge
+of the power of suggestion." His performance "was worthy of the
+warmest praise ... seeing gorgeous or delicate colours and hearing the
+voices of orchestral instruments, it is no wonder that Mr. MacDowell
+is a pianist of rare fascination." On January 28, 1893, the "Hamlet
+and Ophelia" was played, for the first time in Boston, by the Symphony
+Orchestra under Mr. Nikisch; but a more important event was the first
+performance[6] two months later of the "Sonata Tragica," which
+MacDowell played at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering Hall.
+Concerning the sonata Mr. Apthorp wrote: "One feels genius in it
+throughout--and we are perfectly aware that _genius_ is not a term to
+be used lightly. The composer," he added, "played it superbly,
+magnificently." MacDowell achieved one of the conspicuous triumphs of
+his career on December 14, 1894, when he played his second concerto
+with the Philharmonic Society of New York, under the direction of
+Anton Seidl. He won on this occasion, recorded Mr. Finck in the
+_Evening Post_, "a success, both as pianist and composer, such as no
+American musician has ever won before a metropolitan concert audience.
+A Philharmonic audience can be cold when it does not like a piece or a
+player; but Mr. MacDowell ... had an ovation such as is accorded only
+to a popular prima donna at the opera. Again and again he had to get
+up and bow after every movement of his concerto; again and again was
+he recalled at the close ... For once a prophet has had great honour
+in his own country ... He played with that splendid kind of virtuosity
+which makes one forget the technique." Concerning the concerto, Mr.
+W.J. Henderson wrote (in the _Times_) that it was difficult to speak
+of it "in terms of judicial calmness, for it is made of the stuff that
+calls for enthusiasm. There need be no hesitation," he continued, "in
+saying that Mr. MacDowell in this work fairly claims the position of
+an American master. We may have no distinctive school of music, but
+here is one young man who has placed himself on a level with the men
+owned by the world. This D-minor concerto is a strong, wholesome,
+beautiful work of art, vital with imagination, and made with masterly
+skill." And Mr. James Huneker observed that "it easily ranks with any
+modern work in this form. Dramatic in feeling, moulded largely, and
+its themes musically eloquent, it sounds a model of its kind--the kind
+which Johannes Brahms gave the world over thirty years ago in his
+D-minor concerto." In March of the following year MacDowell gave two
+piano recitals in the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall, New York,
+playing, beside a number of his smaller pieces, his "Tragica" sonata,
+which made, if anything, an even profounder impression than it had
+made in Boston two years before. Probably the most signal of the
+honours that came to him at this time was paid him when the Boston
+Symphony Orchestra placed both his "Indian" suite and his first
+concerto on the programme of its New York concert on January 23, 1896,
+at the Metropolitan Opera House.
+
+[6] A single movement of the "Sonata Tragica," the third, was played
+by MacDowell in Boston on March 18, 1892, at the last of the three
+recitals which he gave in that season at Chickering Hall.
+
+In the spring of 1896 it was determined to found a department of music
+at Columbia University, New York. This was made possible by a fund of
+$150,000 given to the trustees by Mrs. Elizabeth Mary Ludow, with the
+proviso that the income was to be applied in such ways as should "tend
+more effectually to elevate the standard of musical instruction in the
+United States, and to afford the most favourable opportunity for
+acquiring musical instruction of the highest order." In May of that
+year the professorship was offered to MacDowell, the committee who had
+the appointment in charge announcing the consensus of their opinion to
+be that he was "the greatest musical genius America has produced."
+MacDowell, though he valued greatly the honour of his selection,
+considered anxiously the advisability of accepting the post. He now
+had more pupils than he could take, and his pecuniary circumstances
+would not be improved by the change, save that a settled income would
+be assured to him. This was of course a tempting prospect; on the
+other hand, the task of organizing _de novo_ a new department in a
+large university, and the curtailed freedom which the position would
+necessitate, made him hesitate. But the assurance of an income free
+from precariousness finally decided him in favour of acceptance; and
+in the following autumn he moved from Boston to New York, and began
+his duties at Columbia.
+
+That he undertook his labours there, from the start, in no casual or
+perfunctory spirit, is made clear by the bare record of his activity.
+For the first two years of his incumbency he had no assistant, carrying
+all the work of his department on his own shoulders. He devoted from
+eight to ten hours a week to lectures and class-work; and this
+represented but a small proportion of the time and labour expended in
+establishing the new department. The aim of the instruction was to be
+twofold. "First, to teach music scientifically and technically, with a
+view to training musicians who shall be competent to teach and to
+compose. Second, to treat music historically and aesthetically as an
+element of liberal culture." This plan involved five courses of study,
+and a brief description of them will indicate the scope of the task
+undertaken by MacDowell.
+
+There was to be, first, a "general musical course," consisting of
+lectures and private reading, with illustrations. This course, while
+"outlining the purely technical side of music," aimed at giving "a
+general idea of music from its historical and aesthetic side," and it
+treated of "the beginnings of music, the Greek modes and their
+evolution, systems of notation, the Troubadours and Minnesingers,
+counterpoint and fugue, beginnings of opera, the clavecinists,
+beginnings of programme music, harmony, beginnings of the modern
+orchestra, evolution of forms, the symphony and opera up to
+Beethoven." A second course (this was not begun until the following
+year) treated "of the development of forms, the song, romanticism,
+instrumental development, and the composers for pianoforte,
+revolutionary influences, the virtuoso, modern orchestration and
+symphonic forms, the music-drama, impressionism versus absolute music,
+color _versus_ form, the relationship of music to the other arts,
+musical criticism." A third course treated of "general theory,
+dictation, harmony, comprising chords and their mutual significance,
+altered chords, suspensions, modulation, imitation, analysis, and the
+commencement of composition in the smaller forms." A fourth course
+comprised, in the first term, counterpoint, canon, choral figuration,
+and fugue; in the second term, "free counterpoint, canon and fugue,
+analysis, commencement of composition in the larger forms." The fifth
+course treated of "free composition, analysis, instrumentation,
+symphonic forms," and the study of "all the orchestral and other
+instruments, considered collectively and individually," together with
+demonstrations of their "technique, possibilities, and limitations."
+
+At the end of the second year an assistant was appointed--a gentleman
+who had been a student in the department. To him were entrusted the
+classes in rudimentary harmony, dictation, and chord-analysis: and to
+this extent he relieved MacDowell until the latter had his sabbatical
+vacation in 1902-03; he then took over the classes in strict
+counterpoint; but all the more advanced courses were discontinued
+until MacDowell's return. Even with an assistant, however, MacDowell
+found his labours very far from being light. In his third year
+(1898-99) he still gave five courses of two hours a week each, with
+the exception of a single one-hour course. For these no less than
+eighty-six students were registered; and in the following year,
+fifty-two students were registered in one of the courses. In 1901-02
+he gave six courses: a general course in musical culture, for which he
+had thirty-seven students; an advanced course in musical culture, for
+which he had fourteen students; a course in counterpoint, twelve
+students; in orchestration, twelve students; in practical composition,
+thirteen students; in free compositions, two students. This continued
+to be, in general, his work until he resigned in 1904. To these
+labours he added the appalling drudgery of correcting examination
+books and exercises--a task which he performed with unflagging
+patience and invariable thoroughness. Some of his friends remember
+seeing him at this particular labour, and they recall "the weary,
+tired, though interested face; the patient trying-over and
+annotating." In addition to his regular duties, he devoted every
+Sunday morning to receiving students in the more advanced courses who
+were invited to come to him for help in their composition and piano
+work. He was, as his friend Hamlin Garland has said, "temperate in all
+things but work--in that he was hopelessly prodigal."
+
+These facts are worth stating in detail; for it has been said that
+MacDowell had no drudgery to perform at Columbia; that he had few
+students, and that the burden of the teaching work was borne by his
+assistant. The impression has gone abroad that he had little didactic
+capacity, that he was disinclined toward and disqualified for
+methodical work. It cannot, of course, be said that his inclinations
+tended irresistibly toward pedagogy, or that he loved routine. Yet
+that he had uncommon gifts as a teacher, that he was singularly
+methodical in his manner of work, are facts that are beyond question.
+His students have testified to the strikingly suggestive and
+illuminating manner in which his instruction was imparted. His
+lectures, which he wrote out in full, are remarkable for the amount of
+sheer "brain-stuff" that was expended upon them. They are erudite,
+accurate, and scholarly; they are original in thought, they are lucid
+and stimulating in their presentation and interpretation of fact, and
+they are often admirable in expression. They would reflect uncommon
+credit upon a writer who had given his life to the critical,
+historical, and philosophical study of music; as the work of a man who
+had been primarily absorbed in making music, rather than in discussing
+it, they are extraordinary.
+
+As conveying an idea of MacDowell's methods in the class-room I cannot
+do better than quote from a vivid account of him in this aspect
+written by one of his pupils, Miss J.S. Watson:
+
+"A crowd of noisy, expectant students sat in the lecture room
+nervously eyeing the door and the clock by turns. The final
+examination in course I of the Department of Music was in progress in
+the back room, the door of which opened at intervals as one pupil came
+out and another went in. The examination was oral and private, and
+when the door closed behind me Professor MacDowell, who was standing
+at the open window, turned with a smile and motioned me toward a
+chair. In a pedagogic sense it was not a regular examination. There
+was something beautifully human in the way the professor turned the
+traditional stiff and starched catechism into a delightfully informal
+chat, in which the faburden, the Netherland School, early notation,
+the great clavichord players, suites and sonatas, formed the main
+topics. The questions were put in such an easy, charming way that I
+forgot to be frightened; forgot everything but the man who walked
+rapidly about the room with his hands in his pockets and his head
+tipped slightly to one side; who talked animatedly and looked intently
+at the floor; but the explanations and suggestions were meant for me.
+When I tripped upon the beginning of notation for instruments, he
+looked up quickly and said, 'Better look that up again; that's
+important.'
+
+"At the lectures Professor MacDowell's aim had been to emphasise those
+things that had served to mark the bright spots in the growth and
+advancement of music as an intelligible language. How well I recall my
+impression on the occasion of my first visit to the lectures, and
+afterwards! There was no evidence of an aesthetic side to the equipment
+of the lecture room. At the end it was vast and glaringly white, and
+except for an upright piano and a few chairs placed near the
+lecturer's table the room was empty. Ten or twelve undergraduates,
+youths of eighteen or twenty, and twenty or more special students and
+auditors, chiefly women, were gathered here. The first lectures,
+treating of the archaic beginnings of music, might have easily fallen
+into a business-like recital of dates, but Professor MacDowell never
+sank into the passionless routine of lecture giving. His were not the
+pedantic discourses students link most often to university chairs.
+They were beautifully illuminating talks, delivered with so much
+freedom and such a rush of enthusiasm that one felt that the hour
+never held all that wanted to be said, and the abundant knowledge, in
+its longing to get out, kept spilling over into the to-morrows.
+
+"His ideas were not tied up in a manuscript, nor doled out from notes.
+They came untrammelled from a wonderfully versatile mind, and were
+illustrated with countless musical quotations and interlined with a
+wealth of literary and historical references. There was no regular
+textbook; some students carried a Rockstro or a Hunt, but the majority
+depended upon the references made during the lectures. These were
+numerous, and gave a broad view of this speculative period in musical
+history.
+
+"Music was brought from behind the centuries and spread before us like
+a huge map. Whatever meaning lay hidden under the musical theories of
+the ancients was explained in a clear and conscientious way. Short
+decisive sentences swept into every obscure corner, and from all sides
+we saw reflected Professor MacDowell's resolute spirit and sincerity
+of purpose....
+
+"To illustrate [a point in connection with a discussion of popular
+music], Professor MacDowell went to the piano to play 'A Hot Time in
+the Old Town To-night.' After playing a few measures, he turned
+abruptly toward the class, saying: 'Why, that isn't it! What is it I
+am playing?' Someone answered 'Annie Rooney.' Facing us with a droll
+smile, he asked if there was anyone present who could play 'A Hot
+Time.' A dozen boys rushed forward and the one who gained the chair
+dashed it off with the abandon of a four weeks' old freshman ...
+
+"The lectures on musical form were distinguished by many brilliant
+demonstrations of MacDowell's genius. The ease and rapidity with which
+he flashed his thoughts upon the blackboard were both inspiring and
+bewildering to the student who must grope his way through notes before
+he can reach an idea. If any were unwise enough to stop even for a
+moment to catch these spontaneous thoughts as they flew along the
+staff, they were very apt upon looking up to see them vanishing like
+phantoms in a cloud of white chalk. At the same time he made
+sarabandes, gavottes, minuets, chaconnes, passepieds, gigues,
+polonaises and rondos dance across the piano in quick succession; and
+his comments were as spirited as his playing.
+
+"Professor MacDowell's criticisms were clear and forceful, and filled
+with many surprising and humorous touches. Of Bach he said, 'Bach
+spoke in close, scientific, contrapuntal language. He was as emotional
+and romantic as Chopin, Wagner or Tchaikovsky; his emotion was
+expressed in the language of his time. Young women who say they adore
+Bach play him like a sum in mathematics. They find a grim pleasure in
+it, like biting on a sore tooth.'
+
+"He never approached the piano like a conqueror. He had a nervous way
+of saying that he didn't know whether things would go, because he had
+had no time to practise. After an apologetic little preamble, he would
+sit down and play these rococo bits of trailing sound with fingers
+dipped in lightning, fingers that flashed over the keys in perfect
+evenness and with perfect sureness.
+
+"The closing lectures were in reality delightfully informal concerts
+for which the class began to assemble as early as 8.30 in the morning.
+By 9.30 every student would be in his chair, which he had dragged as
+near to the piano as the early suburbanite would let him. Someone at
+the window would say, 'Here he comes!' and, entering the room with a
+huge bundle of music under one arm and his hat in his hand, MacDowell
+would deposit them on the piano and turn to us with his gracious
+smile. Then, instead of sitting down, he would continue to walk up and
+down the room, his thoughts following, apparently, the pace set by his
+energetic steps. He had an abundant word supply and his short, terse
+sentences were easy to follow."
+
+This is not the picture of a man who was unqualified for his task, or
+indifferent, rebellious, or inept in its performance; it is the
+picture of a man of vital and electric temperament, with almost a
+genius--certainly with an extraordinary gift--for teaching. His ideals
+were lofty; he dreamed of a relationship between university
+instruction and a liberal public culture which was not to be realised
+in his time. He was anything but complacent; had he been less
+intolerant in his hatred of unintelligent and indolent thought on the
+subjects that were near his heart, his way would have been made far
+easier.
+
+The results of his labours at the university, he finally came to feel,
+did not warrant the expenditure of the vitality and time that he was
+devoting to them. He was, in a sense, an anachronism in the position
+in which he found himself. Both in his ideals and in his plans for
+bringing about their fulfilment he had reached beyond his day. The
+field was not yet ripe for his best efforts. It became clear to him
+that he could not make his point of view operative in what he
+conceived as the need for a reformation of conditions affecting his
+work; and on January 18, 1904, after long and anxious deliberation and
+discussion with his wife, he tendered his resignation as head of the
+department. His attitude in the matter was grievously misunderstood
+and misrepresented at the time, to his poignant distress and
+harassment. The iron entered deeply into his soul: it was the
+forerunner of tragedy.
+
+When he took up his work at Columbia his activity as a concert pianist
+had, of course, to be virtually suspended. With the exception of two
+short tours of a few weeks' each, he gave up his public appearances
+altogether until the year of his sabbatical vacation (1902-03). In
+December, 1902, he went on an extensive concert tour, which took him
+as far west as San Francisco and occupied all of that winter. The
+following spring and summer were spent Abroad, in England and on the
+Continent. In London he appeared in concert, playing his second
+concerto with the Philharmonic Society on May 14. He returned to
+America in October, and resumed his work at Columbia.
+
+Meanwhile his composition had continued uninterruptedly. Indeed, the
+eight years during which he held his Columbia professorship were, in a
+creative sense, the most important of his life; for to this period
+belong the "Sea Pieces" (op. 55), the two superb sonatas, the "Norse"
+(op. 57) and the "Keltic" (op. 59), and the best of his songs--the
+four of op. 56 ("Long Ago," "The Swan Bent Low to the Lily," "A Maid
+Sings Light," "As the Gloaming Shadows Creep"), and the three of op.
+58 ("Constancy," "Sunrise," "Merry Maiden Spring"): a product which
+contains the finest flower of his inspiration, the quintessence of
+his art.[7] He wrote also during these years the three songs of op.
+60 ("Tyrant Love," "Fair Springtide," "To the Golden Rod"); the
+"Fireside Tales" (op. 61); the "New England Idyls" (op. 62); numerous
+part-songs, transcriptions, arrangements; and, finally, the greater
+part of a suite for string orchestra which he never finished to his
+satisfaction: in fact, nearly one quarter of the bulk of his entire
+work was composed during these eight years. During this period,
+moreover, was published all of the music hitherto unprinted which he
+cared to preserve.
+
+[7] The only one of his works of equal calibre which does not,
+strictly speaking, belong to this period is the set of "Woodland
+Sketches"; these were composed during the last part of his stay in
+Boston, and were published in the year (1896) of his removal to New
+York.
+
+He had bought in 1896 a piece of property near the town of Peterboro,
+in southern New Hampshire, consisting of a small farmhouse, some
+out-buildings, fifteen acres of arable land, and about fifty acres of
+forest. The buildings he consolidated and made over into a rambling
+and comfortable dwelling-house; and in this rural "asyl" (as Wagner
+would have called it), surrounded by the woods and hills that he
+loved, he spent his summers from then until the end of his life. There
+most of his later music was written, in a small log cabin which he
+built, in the heart of the woods, for use as a workshop. Thus his
+summers were devoted to composition, and his winters to the arduous
+though absorbing labours of his professorship; in addition, he taught
+in private a few classes for which he made time in that portion of the
+day which was not taken up by his sessions at the university. During
+his first two winters in New York he also served as conductor of the
+Mendelssohn Glee Club, and he was for a time president of the
+Manuscript Society, an association of American composers. Altogether,
+it was a scheme of living which permitted him virtually no opportunity
+for the rest and idleness which he imperatively needed.
+
+In New York the MacDowells' home was, during the first year, a house
+in 88th Street, near Riverside Drive. Later they lived at the Majestic
+Hotel; but during most of the Columbia years--from 1898 till
+1902--they occupied an apartment at 96th Street and Central Park West.
+After their return from the sabbatical vacation abroad they lived for
+a year at the Westminster Hotel in Irving Place, and for a year in an
+apartment house on upper Seventh Avenue, near Central Park. When that
+was sold and torn down they returned to the Westminster; and there
+MacDowell's last days were spent.
+
+After he left Columbia in 1904, he continued his private piano classes
+(at some of which he gave free tuition to poor students in whose
+talent he had confidence). He should have rested--should have ceased
+both his teaching and his composing; for he was in a threatening
+condition. Had he spent a year in a sanitarium, or had he stopped all
+work completely and taken even a brief vacation, he might have averted
+the collapse which was to come. In the spring of 1905 he began to
+manifest alarming signs of nervous exhaustion. A summer in Peterboro
+brought no improvement. That autumn his ailment was seen to be far
+more deeply seated than had been supposed. There were indications of
+an obscure brain lesion, baffling but sinister. Then began a very
+gradual, progressive, and infinitely pathetic decline--the slow
+beginning of the end. He suffered little pain, and until the last
+months he preserved in an astonishing degree his physical well-being.
+It was clear almost from the start that he was beyond the aid of
+medical science, even the boldest and most expert. A disintegration of
+the brain-tissues had begun--an affection to which specialists
+hesitated to give a precise name, but which they recognized as
+incurable. His mind became as that of a little child. He sat quietly,
+day after day, in a chair by a window, smiling patiently from time to
+time at those about him, turning the pages of a book of fairy tales
+that seemed to give him a definite pleasure, and greeting with a
+fugitive gleam of recognition certain of his more intimate friends.
+Toward the last his physical condition became burdensome, and he sank
+rapidly. At nine o'clock on the evening of January 23, 1908, in the
+beginning of his forty-seventh year, he died at the Westminster Hotel,
+New York, in the presence of the heroic woman who for almost a quarter
+of a century had been his devoted companion, counsellor, helpmate, and
+friend. After such simple services as would have pleased him, held at
+St. George's Episcopal Church, on January 25, his body was taken to
+Peterboro; and on the following day, a Sunday, he was buried in the
+sight of many of his neighbours, who had followed in procession, on
+foot, the passage of the body through the snow-covered lane from the
+village. His grave is on an open hill-top, commanding one of the
+spacious and beautiful views that he had loved. On a bronze tablet are
+these lines of his own, which he had devised as a motto for his "From
+a Log Cabin," the last music that he wrote:
+
+  "A house of dreams untold,
+  It looks out over the whispering tree-tops
+  And faces the setting sun."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PERSONAL TRAITS AND VIEWS
+
+
+In his personal intercourse with the world, MacDowell, like so many
+sensitive and gifted men, had the misfortune to give very often a
+wholly false account of himself. In reality a man of singularly
+lovable personality, and to his intimates a winning and delightful
+companion, he lacked utterly the social gift, that capacity for ready
+and tactful address which, even for men of gifts, is not without its
+uses. It was a deficiency (if a deficiency it is) which undoubtedly
+cost him much in a material sense. Had he possessed this serviceable
+and lubricant quality it would often have helpfully smoothed his path.
+For those who could penetrate behind the embarrassed and painful
+reticence that was for him both an impediment and an unconscious
+shield, he gave lavishly of the gifts of temperament and spirit which
+were his; even that lack of ready address, of social adaptability and
+adjustment, which it is possible to deplore in him, was, for those who
+knew him and valued him, a not uncertain element of charm: for it was
+akin to the shyness, the absence of assertiveness, the entirely
+genuine modesty, which were of his dominant traits. Yet in his contact
+with the outer world this incurable shyness sometimes, as I have said,
+led him into giving a grotesquely untrue impression of himself: he was
+at times _gauche_, blunt, awkwardly infelicitous in speech or silence,
+when he would have wished, as he knew perfectly how, to be
+considerate, gentle, sympathetic, responsive. On the other hand, his
+shyness and reticence were seemingly contradicted by a downright
+bluntness, a deliberate frankness in matters of opinion in which his
+convictions were involved; for his views were most positively held and
+his convictions were often passionate in intensity, and he declared
+them, upon occasion, with an utter absence of diplomacy, compromise,
+or equivocation; with a superb but sometimes calamitous disregard of
+his own interests.
+
+[Illustration: MACDOWELL IN 1892]
+
+Confident and positive to a fault in his adherence to and expression
+of his principles, he was as morbidly dubious concerning his own
+performances as he was uneasy under praise. He was tortured by doubts
+of the value of each new work that he completed, after the flush and
+ardour generated in its actual expression had passed; and he listened
+to open praise of it in evident discomfort. I have a memory of him on
+a certain occasion in a private house following a recital at which he
+had played, almost for the first time, his then newly finished
+"Keltic" Sonata. Standing in the center of a crowded room, surrounded
+by enthusiastically effusive strangers who were voluble--and not
+overpenetrating--in their expressions of appreciation, he presented a
+picture of unhappiness, of mingled helplessness and discomfort, which
+was almost pathetic in its genuineness of woe. I was standing near
+him, and during a momentary lull in the amiable siege of which he was
+the distressed object, he whispered tragically to me: "Can't we get
+out of this?--Do you know the way to the back door?" I said I did, and
+led him through an inconspicuous doorway into a comparatively deserted
+corridor behind the staircase. I procured for him, through the
+strategic employment of a passing servant, something to eat, and we
+staid in concealment there until the function had come to an end, and
+his wife had begun to search for him. He was quite happy, consuming
+his salad and beer behind the stairs and telling me in detail his
+conception of certain of the figures of Celtic mythology which he had
+had in mind while composing his sonata.
+
+To visitors at his house in Peterboro, he said one morning, on leaving
+them, "I am going to the cabin to write some of my rotten melodies!"
+He was sincerely distrustful concerning the worth of any composition
+which he had finished; especially so, of course, concerning his more
+youthful performances. He once sent a frantic telegram to Teresa
+Carreno, upon learning from an announcement that she was to play his
+early Concert Etude (op. 36) for the first time: "Don't put that
+dreadful thing on your programme"; and for certain of his more popular
+and hackneyed pieces, as the "Hexentanz" and the much-mauled and
+over-sentimental song, "Thy Beaming Eyes," he had a detestation that
+was amusing in its virulence. He regretted at times that his earlier
+orchestral works--"Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine"--had
+been published; and he was invariably tormented by questionings and
+misgivings after he had committed even his ripest work to his
+publisher. Only the assurances of his wise and devoted wife at times
+prevented him from recalling a completed work. Yet he was always
+touched, delighted, and genuinely cheered by what he felt to be
+sincere and thoughtful praise. To a writer who had published an
+admiring article concerning some of his later music he wrote:
+
+    "MY DEAR MR.----:
+
+    "Your article was forwarded to me after all. I wish to thank you
+    for the warm-hearted and sympathetic enthusiasm which prompted
+    your writing it. While my outgivings have always been sincere, I
+    feel only too often their inadequacy to express my ideals; thus
+    what you speak of as accomplishment I fear is often but attempt.
+    Certainly your sympathy for my aims is most welcome and precious
+    to me, and I thank you again most heartily."
+
+Those who knew the man only through his music have thought of him as
+wholly a dreamer and a recluse, a poet brooding in detachment, and
+unfriendly to the pedestrian and homely things of the world. Nothing
+could be further from the truth. He was overflowingly human, notably
+full-blooded. On his "farm" (as he called it) at Peterboro he lived,
+when he was not composing, a robust and vigorous outdoor life. He was
+an ardent sportsman, and he spent much of his time in the woods and
+fields, fishing, riding, walking, hunting. He had a special relish for
+gardening and for photography, and he liked to undertake laborious
+jobs in carpentry, at which he was quite deft. That his feeling for
+the things of the natural world was acutely sensitive and coloured by
+imagination and emotion is abundantly evidenced in his music. He was
+fond of taking long, leisurely drives and rides through the rich and
+varied hill country about Peterboro, and many of the impressions that
+were then garnered and stored have found issue in some of his most
+intimate and affecting music--as in the "Woodland Sketches" and "New
+England Idyls." He had an odd, naive tenderness for growing things and
+for the creatures of the woods: it distressed him to have his wife
+water some of the flowers in the garden without watering them all; and
+though an excellent shot, he never brought down game without a
+pang--it used to be said at Peterboro that for this reason he only
+"pretended to hunt," despite his expertness as a marksman.
+
+In his intellectual interests and equipment he presented a striking
+contrast to the brainlessness of the average musician. His tastes were
+singularly varied and catholic. An omnivorous reader of poetry, an
+inquisitive delver in the byways of mediaeval literature, an authority
+in mythological detail, he was at the same time keenly interested in
+contemporary affairs. He read, and discussed with eagerness and
+acumen, scientific, economic, and historical deliverances; and he
+enjoyed books of travel, biographies, dramatic literature. Mark Twain
+he adored, and delighted to quote, and almost to the end of his life
+he read with inexhaustible pleasure Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle
+Remus." In the later years of his activity he fell captive to the new
+and unaccustomed music of Fiona Macleod's exquisite prose and verse;
+he wanted to dedicate his "New England Idyls" to the author of
+"Pharais" and "From the Hills of Dream," and wrote for her permission;
+but the identity of the mysterious author was then jealously guarded,
+and his letter must have gone astray; for it was never answered.
+
+His erudition was extraordinary. He exemplified in a marked degree the
+truth that the typical modern music-maker touches hands with the whole
+body of culture and the humanities in a sense which would have been
+simply incredible to Mozart or Schubert. He was, intellectually, one
+of the most fully and brilliantly equipped composers in the history of
+musical art. He had read widely and curiously in many literatures, and
+the knowledge which he had acquired he applied to the elucidation of
+aesthetic and philosophical problems touching the theory and practice
+of music. He had meditated deeply concerning the art of which he was
+always a tireless student--had come to conclusions concerning its
+actual and assumed records, its tendencies, its potentialities. He was
+a vigorous and original critic, and he had shrewd, cogent, and
+clear-cut reasons for the particular views at which he had arrived;
+whether one could always agree with them or not, they invariably
+commanded respect. Yet his erudition was seldom displayed. One came
+upon it unexpectedly in conversation with him, through the accident of
+some reference or the discussion of some disputed point of fact.
+
+In his appearance MacDowell suggested a fusion of Scandinavian and
+American types. His eyes, of a light and brilliant blue, were perhaps
+his most salient feature. They betrayed his inextinguishable humour.
+When he was amused--and he was seldom, in conversation, grave for
+long--they lit up with an extraordinary animation; he had an
+unconscious trick of blinking them rapidly once or twice, with the
+effect of a fugitive twinkle, which was oddly infectious. His laugh,
+too, was communicative; he did not often laugh aloud; his enjoyment
+found vent in a low, rich chuckle, which, with the lighting up of his
+eyes, was wholly and immediately irresistible. The large head, the
+strong, rather boyish face, with its singular mobility and often
+sweetness of expression, the bright, vital eyes, set wide apart, the
+abundant (though not long), dark hair tinged with grey, the white
+skin, the sensitive mouth, rather large and full-lipped, the strong
+jaws, the sturdy and athletic build,--he was somewhat above medium
+height, with broad shoulders, powerful arms, and large, muscular,
+finely shaped hands,--his general air of physical soundness and
+vigour: all these combined to form an outer personality that was
+strongly attractive. His movements were quick and decisive. To
+strangers, even when he felt at ease, his manner was diffident, yet of
+an indescribable, almost childlike, simplicity and charm. His voice in
+speaking was low-pitched and subdued, like his laugh; in conversation,
+when he was entirely himself, he could be brilliantly effective and
+witty, and his mirth-loving propensities were irrepressible.
+
+His sense of humour, which was of true Celtic richness, was fluent and
+inexhaustible. To an admirer who had affirmed in print that certain
+imaginative felicities in some of the verse which he wrote for his
+songs recalled at moments the phrasing of Whitman and Shakespeare, he
+wrote:
+
+    "I will confide in you that if, in the next world, I should happen
+    upon the wraiths of Shakespeare, Whitman, and Co., I would light
+    out without delay. Good heavens! I blush at the thought of it! A
+    header through a cloud would be the only thing.--Seriously, I was
+    deeply touched by your praise and wish I were more worthy."
+
+His pupil and friend, Mr. W.H. Humiston, recalls that, in going over
+MacDowell's sketchbooks and manuscripts after his death, he found that
+many of the manuscripts had been rewritten several times: "I would
+find a movement begun and continued for half a page, then it would be
+broken off suddenly, and a remark like this written at the end:--'Hand
+organ to the rescue!'"
+
+I told him once that I had first heard his "To a Wild Rose" played by
+a high-school girl, on a high-school piano, at a high-school
+graduation festivity. "Well," he remarked, with his sudden
+illumination, "I suppose she pulled it up by the roots!" Some one sent
+him at about this time, relates Mr. Humiston, a programme of an organ
+recital which contained this same "Wild Rose" piece. "He was not
+pleased with the idea, having in mind the expressionless organ of a
+dozen years ago when only a small portion of most organs was enclosed
+in a swell-box. Doubtless thinking also of a style of organ
+performance which plays Schumann's _Traeumerei_ on the great organ
+diapasons, he said it made him think of a hippopotamus wearing a
+clover leaf in his mouth."
+
+A member of one of his classes at Columbia, finding some unoccupied
+space on the page of his book after finishing his exercise, filled up
+the space with rests, at the end of which he placed a double bar. When
+his book was returned the page was covered with corrections--all
+except these bars of rests, which were enclosed in a red line and
+marked: "This is the only correct passage in the exercise."
+
+He once observed in a lecture that "Bach differed in almost everything
+from Handel, except that he was born the same year and was killed by
+the same doctor."
+
+He was often sarcastic; but his was a sarcasm without sting or
+rancour. Bitterness, indeed, was one of the few normal attributes
+which he did not possess. Mr. Humiston tells of lunching with him
+unexpectedly at a restaurant one day, just after his resignation from
+Columbia had been accepted. "We sat over our coffee and cigars until
+nearly four o'clock, and among other things he talked of that [the
+Columbia matter]. There was not a word of bitterness or reproach
+toward anyone, but rather a deep feeling of disappointment that his
+plans and ideals for the training and welfare of young artists should
+have been so completely defeated."
+
+In his methods of work he was, like most composers of first-rate
+quality, at the mercy of his inspiration. He never composed at the
+piano, in the ordinary meaning of the phrase. That is to say, he never
+sat down to the piano with the idea that he wanted to compose a song
+or a piano piece. But sometime, when he might be improvising, as he
+was fond of doing when alone, a theme, an idea, might come to him, and
+almost before he knew it he had sketched something in a rudimentary
+form. He had a fancy that the technique of composition suffered as
+much as that of the piano if it was allowed to go for weeks and months
+without exercise. The constant work and excitement that his winters in
+Boston and New York involved, made it necessary for him to let days
+and weeks slip by with no creative work accomplished. Yet he always
+tried to write each day a few bars of music. Often in this way he
+evolved a theme for which he afterward found a use. In looking over a
+sketch-book in the summer he would run across something he liked, and
+the idea would expand into a matured work.
+
+His sketch-books are full of all kinds of random and fugitive
+material--half-finished fugues, canons, piano pieces, songs, single
+themes. Undoubtedly this habit of work had its value when he came to
+the leisurely months of summer; for he did not then have to go through
+a period of technical "warming up." There were many days when he did
+not write a note, but he always intended to, and usually did. When he
+was absorbed in a particular composition he kept at it, almost night
+and day, save for the hours he always tried to spend in the open air,
+and two hours in the evening when, no matter how late it might be, he
+sat quietly with his wife, reading or talking, smoking, and, in
+earlier days, enjoying a glass of beer and some food. His love of
+reading was a godsend to him when the waters were more than usually
+troubled and his brain was in a whirl.
+
+In the actual work of composition he was elaborately meticulous--not
+often to the extent of changing an original plan, but in minor
+details; he never ceased working on a score until the music was out of
+his hands, or entirely put aside. Sometimes he tried over a few
+measures on the piano as many as fifty times, changing the value or
+significance of a note; as a result, his piano writing is almost
+always "pianistic." In one respect he was sometimes careless: in the
+noting of the expression marks. By the time he arrived at that duty he
+was usually tired out. For this reason, much in his printed music is
+marked differently from the way he actually played it in concert. He
+never, in performance, changed a note, save in a few of the earlier
+pieces; but in details of expression he often departed widely from the
+printed directions.
+
+He was always profoundly absorbed when at work, though not to the
+extent of being able to compose amid noise or disturbance. He needed
+to isolate himself as much as possible; although, when it could not be
+avoided, he contrived to work effectively under obstructive
+conditions; the Largo of the "Sonata Tragica," for example, was
+written in Boston when he was harassed by drudgery and care. During
+the earlier days at Peterboro he composed in a music room which was
+joined to the main body of the house by a covered passage; in this way
+he could hear nothing of the household workings, and was unaware of
+the chance caller. No one was ever allowed to intrude upon him, save
+his wife. Yet certain outside noises were still apparent; so the log
+cabin in the woods was built. There he used to go nearly every
+morning, coming home when he felt disposed, and usually going to the
+golf grounds for a game before dinner, which he always had at night.
+He kept a piano in the music room as well as at the log cabin; so if
+he felt like working in the evening he could do so; and when he was
+especially engrossed he often worked into the small hours. His
+unselfishness made it easy for his wife, when she deemed a change and
+rest essential, to make the excuse that _she_ needed it. After a
+preliminary protest he would usually give in, and they would leave
+Peterboro for a few days' excursion.
+
+He knew discouragement in an extreme form. Many weeks, even months,
+had to pass before his discontent over the last child of his
+imagination would become normal. Particularly was this so with the
+larger works; though each one was started in a fever of inspiration, a
+longing to reduce to actual form the impossible. He was always
+disheartened when a work was finished, but he was too sane in his
+judgment not to have moments when he could estimate fairly the quality
+of what he had written. But those were rare moments; as a rule, it was
+in his future music that he was always going to do his "really good
+work," and he longed ardently for leisure and freedom from care, so
+that, as he once bitterly said, he would not have to press into a
+small piano piece material enough to make a movement of a symphony.
+
+His preferences in the matter of his own music were not very definite.
+In 1903, when he had finished all that he was to write, he expressed a
+preference for the "Dirge" from the "Indian" suite above anything that
+he had composed. "Of all my music," he confessed at this time, "the
+'Dirge' in the 'Indian' suite pleases me most. It affects me deeply
+and did when I was writing it. In it an Indian woman laments the death
+of her son; but to me, as I wrote it, it seemed to express a
+world-sorrow rather than a particularised grief." His estimate of the
+value of the music has, naturally, no extraordinary importance; but my
+conviction is that, in this instance, his judgment was correct. As to
+the sonatas, he cared most for the "Keltic"; after that, for the
+"Eroica," as a whole; though I doubt whether there was anything in the
+two that he cared for quite as he did for the Largo in the "Tragica"
+and certain parts of the "Norse." He felt concerning the "Keltic" that
+there was hardly a bar in it that he wanted changed, that he had
+scarcely ever written any thing so rounded, so complete, in which the
+joining was so invisible. He played it _con amore_, and it grew to be
+part of himself as no other of his works ever did. Technically, it was
+never hard for him, whereas he found the "Eroica" exhausting,
+physically and mentally.
+
+Of the smaller works he preferred the "Sea Pieces," as a whole, above
+all the others; yet there were single things in each of the other sets
+for which he cared perhaps as much. Of the "Sea Pieces" those he liked
+best were: "To the Sea," "From the Depths," "In Mid-Ocean"; of the
+"Fireside Tales": the "Haunted House," "Salamander," "'Brer Rabbit";
+and he had a tender feeling for "In a German Forest," which always
+seemed to bring back the Frankfort days to his memory. Of the "New
+England Idyls," his favorites were: "In Deep Woods," "Mid-Winter,"
+"From a Log Cabin."
+
+In his composition he was growing away from piano work,--he felt that
+the future must mean larger, probably orchestral, forms, for him, and
+his dream of an ultimate leisure was a dream for which his friends can
+be thankful. He did not end with despair at his heart that the
+distracting work, the yearly drudgery, were to go on forever.
+
+His preferences in music were governed by the independence which
+characterised his intellectual judgments. Of the moderns, Wagner was
+his god; for Liszt he had an unbounded admiration, though he detected
+the showman, the mere juggler, in him; Tchaikovsky stirred
+him mightily; Brahms did not as a rule give him pleasure, though
+certain of that master's more fertile moments compelled his
+appreciation. Grieg he delighted in. To him he dedicated both his
+"Norse" and "Keltic" sonatas. In response to his request for
+permission to inscribe the first of these to his eminent contemporary,
+he received from Grieg the following delectable letter--one of the
+Norwegian's very few attempts at English composition (I quote it
+verbatim; the spelling is Grieg's):--
+
+    COPENHAGEN, 26/10/99.
+    Hotel King of Denmark.
+
+    MY DEAR SIR!
+
+    Will you remit me in bad English to express my best thanks for
+    your kind letter and for the sympathi you feel for my music. Of
+    course it will be a great honor and pleasure for me to accept your
+    dedication.
+
+    Some years ago I thought it possible to shake hands with you in
+    your own country. But unfortunately my delicat health does not
+    seem to agree. At all events, if we are not to meet, I am glad to
+    read in the papers of your artistical success in Amerika.
+
+    With my best wishes,
+
+    I am, dear Sir,
+
+    Yours very truly,
+
+    EDVARD GRIEG.
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM GRIEG TO MACDOWELL,
+ACCEPTING THE DEDICATION OF THE "NORSE" SONATA. ONE OF GRIEG'S RARE
+ATTEMPTS AT ENGLISH COMPOSITION (SEE PAGE 73)]
+
+I may quote also, in this place, because of its unusual interest, a
+letter written (in German) by Grieg to Mrs. MacDowell when he learned
+of her husband's collapse:--
+
+    CHRISTIANIA,
+    December 14, 1905.
+
+    DEAR MADAM:
+
+    The news of MacDowell's serious illness has deeply affected me.
+    Permit me therefore to express to you my own and my wife's
+    sincerest sympathy for you. I am a great admirer of MacDowell's
+    Muse, and would regard it as a severe blow if his best creative
+    period should be so hastily broken off. From all that I hear of
+    your husband, his qualities as a man are as remarkable as his
+    qualities as an artist. He is a complete Personality, with an
+    unusually sympathetic and sensitive nervous system. Such a
+    temperament gives one the capacity not only for moods of the
+    highest transport, but for an unspeakable sorrow tenfold more
+    profound. This is the unsolvable riddle. An artist so ideally
+    endowed [_ein so ideal angelegter Kuenstler_] as MacDowell must ask
+    himself: Why have I received from nature this delicately strung
+    lyre, if I were better off without it? So unmerciful is Life that
+    every artist must ask himself this question. The only consolation
+    is: Work--yes, even the severest labours. ... _But_: the artist is
+    an optimist. Otherwise he would be no artist. He believes and
+    hopes in the triumph of the good and the beautiful. He trusts in
+    his lucky star till his last breath. And you, the wife of a highly
+    gifted artist, will not and must not lose hope! In similar cases,
+    happily, one often witnesses a seemingly inexplicable recovery. If
+    it can give MacDowell a moment's cheer, say to him that he has in
+    distant Norway a warm and understanding friend who feels for him,
+    and wishes from his heart that for him, as for you, better times
+    may soon come.
+
+    With best greeting to you both,
+
+    Your respectful
+
+    EDVARD GRIEG.
+
+MacDowell's feeling in regard to Strauss, whom he considered to have
+developed what he called the "suggestive" (delineative) power of music
+at the expense of its finer potentialities, is indicated in a lecture
+which he prepared on the subject of "Suggestion in Music." "'Thus
+Spake Zarathustra,'" he wrote, "may be considered the apotheosis of
+this power of suggestion in tonal colour, and in it I believe we can
+see the tendency I allude to [the tendency "to elevate what should be
+a means of adding power and intensity to musical speech, to the
+importance of musical speech itself"]. It stuns by its glorious
+magnificence of tonal texture. The suggestion, at the beginning, of
+the rising sun, is a mighty example of the overwhelming power of
+tone-colour. The upward sweep of the music to the highest regions of
+light has something splendrous about it; and yet I remember once
+hearing in London a song sung in the street at night that seemed to me
+to contain a truer germ of music."--From which it will be seen that
+there were limits to the aesthetic sympathy of even so liberal and
+divining an appreciator as MacDowell.
+
+The modern Frenchmen he knew scarcely at all. Some of d'Indy's earlier
+music he had heard and admired: but that he would have cared for such
+a score as Debussy's "La Mer" I very much doubt. I remember his
+amusement over what he called the "queerness" of a sonata by the
+Belgian Lekeu for violin and piano, which he had read or heard. It is
+likely that he would have found little to attract him in the more
+characteristic music of d'Indy, Debussy, and Ravel; his instincts and
+temperament led him into a wholly different region of expression. He
+was a prophet of modernity; but it was a modernity that he alone
+exemplifies: it has no exact parallel.
+
+Concerning the classics he had his own views. Of Bach he wrote that he
+believed him to have accomplished his work as "one of the world's
+mightiest tone-poets not by means of the contrapuntal methods of his
+day, but in spite of them. The laws of canon and fugue are based upon
+as prosaic a foundation as those of the Rondo and Sonata Form, and I
+find it impossible to imagine their ever having been a spur, an
+incentive, to poetic musical speech."
+
+Of Mozart he wrote: "It is impossible to forget the fact that in his
+piano works he was first and foremost a piano virtuoso, a child
+prodigy: of whom filigree work (we cannot call this Orientalism, for
+it was more or less of German pattern, traced from the _fioriture_ of
+the Italian opera singer) was expected by the public for which his
+sonatas were written.... We need freshness and sincerity in forming
+our judgments of art.... If we read on one page of some history (every
+history of music has such a page) that Mozart's sonatas are sublime;
+that they far transcend anything written for the harpsichord or
+clavichord by Haydn or his contemporaries, we are apt to echo the
+saying ... But let us look the thing straight in the face: Mozart's
+sonatas are compositions entirely unworthy of the author of 'The Magic
+Flute' and 'Don Giovanni,' or of any composer with pretensions to more
+than mediocre talent. They are written in a style of flashy
+harpsichord virtuosity such as Liszt in his most despised moments
+never descended to. Yet I am well aware that this statement would be
+dismissed as either absurd or heretical, according to the point of
+view of the particular objector."
+
+Of Mendelssohn he said: "Mendelssohn professed to be an 'absolutist'
+in music. As a matter of fact, he stands on the same ground that Liszt
+and Berlioz did; for almost everything he wrote, even to the smallest
+piano piece, he furnished with an explanatory title.... Formalist
+though he was, his work often exhibits eccentricities of form--as, for
+instance, in the Scotch Symphony, where, in the so-called 'exposition'
+of the first movement, he throws in an extra little theme that laps
+over his frame with a jaunty disregard of the rules that is
+delightful.... His technic of piano writing was perfect; compared with
+Beethoven's it was a revelation. He never committed the fault of mere
+virtuoso writing, which is remarkable when we consider how strong a
+temptation there must have been to do so. In his piano music can be
+found the germs of most of the pianistic innovations that are usually
+identified with other composers--for instance, the manner of
+enveloping the melody with runs, the discovery of which has been
+ascribed to Thalberg, but which we find in Mendelssohn's first
+Prelude, written in 1833. The interlocking passages which have become
+so prevalent in modern music we find in his compositions dating from
+1835."
+
+Of Schumann he said happily: "His music is not avowed programme-music;
+neither is it, as was much of Schubert's, pure delight in beautiful
+sound. It did not break through formalism by sheer violence of
+emotion, as did Beethoven's: it represents the rhapsodical revery of
+an inspired poet to whom no imaginative vagary seems strange or alien,
+and who has the faculty of relating his visions, never attempting to
+give them coherence, and unaware of their character until perhaps
+when, awakened from his dream, he naively wonders what they may have
+meant--you remember that he added titles to his music after it was
+composed. He put his dreams in music and guessed their meaning
+afterward."
+
+Of Liszt and Chopin: "To all of this new, strange music [the piano
+music of the Romantics] Liszt and Chopin added the wonderful tracery
+of Orientalism. The difference between these two is, that with Chopin
+this tracery developed poetic thought as with a thin gauze; whereas
+with Liszt [in his piano music] the embellishment itself made the
+starting-point for almost a new art in tonal combination, the effects
+of which one sees on every hand to-day. To realise its influence one
+need only compare the easy mastery of the arabesque displayed in the
+simplest piano piece of to-day with the awkward and gargoyle-like
+figuration of Beethoven and his predecessors. We may justly attribute
+this to Liszt rather than to Chopin, whose nocturne embellishments are
+but first cousins to those of the Englishman, John Field."
+
+Of Wagner: "His music-dramas, shorn of the fetters of the actual
+spoken word, emancipated from the materialism of acting, painting, and
+furniture, must be considered the greatest achievement in our art."
+
+Concerning Form in music, he observed: "If by the word 'form' our
+purists meant the most poignant expression of poetic thought in music,
+if they meant by this term the art of arranging musical sounds so that
+they constituted the most telling presentation of a musical idea, I
+should have nothing to say. But as it is, the word in almost its
+invariable use by theorists stands for what are called 'stoutly-built
+periods,' 'subsidiary themes' and the like, a happy combination of
+which in certain prescribed keys is supposed to constitute good form.
+Such a principle, inherited from the necessities and fashions of the
+dance, and changing from time to time, is surely not worthy of the
+strange worship it has received. In their eagerness to press this
+great revolutionist [Beethoven] into their own ranks in the fight of
+narrow theory against expansion and progress, the most amusing
+mistakes are constantly occurring. For example, the first movement of
+this sonata [the so-called "Moonlight"]--which, as we know, is a poem
+of profound sorrow and the most poignant resignation alternating with
+despair--has, by some strange torturing, been cited as being in strict
+sonata-form by one theorist (Harding: Novello's primer), is dubbed a
+free fantasy by another (Matthews), and is described as being in
+song-form by another: all of which is somewhat weakened by the dictum
+of still another theorist that the music is absolutely formless! A
+form of so doubtful an identity can surely lay small claim to any
+serious intellectual value.... In our modern days we too often,
+Procrustes-like, make our ideas to fit the forms. We put our guest,
+the poetic thought, that comes to us like a homing bird from out of
+the mystery of the blue sky--we put this confiding stranger
+straightway into that iron bed: the 'sonata-form'--or perhaps even the
+'third-rondo form,' for we have quite an assortment; and should the
+idea survive, and grow, and become too large for the bed, and if we
+have grown to love it too much to cut off its feet and thus _make_ it
+fit (as did that old robber of Attica), why then we run the risk of
+having some wiseacre say, as is said of Chopin: 'Yes--but he is weak
+in sonata-form'! ... Form should be nothing more than a synonym for
+_coherence_. No idea, whether great or small, can find utterance
+without form; but that form will be inherent in the idea, and there
+will be as many forms as there are adequately expressed ideas in the
+world."
+
+Concerning programme-music he wrote at length. "In my opinion," he
+says in one of his lectures, "the battle over what music can express
+and what it cannot express has been carried on wrong lines. We are
+always referred back to language as actually expressing an idea, when,
+as a matter of fact, language expresses nothing but that which its
+vital parallel means of expression, gesture and facial expression,
+permit it to express. Words mean nothing whatsoever in themselves; the
+same words in different languages mean wholly different things; for
+written words are mere symbols, and no more express things or ideas
+than any marks on paper would. Yet language is forever striving to
+emulate music by actually expressing something, besides merely
+symbolising it, and thus we have in poetry the coining of
+onomatopoetic words--words that will bring the things they stand for
+more vividly before our eyes and minds. Now music may express all that
+words can express and much more, for it is the natural means of
+expression for all animals, mankind included. If musical sounds were
+accepted as symbols for things we would have another speech. It seems
+strange to say that by means of music one could say the most
+commonplace thing, as, for instance: 'I am going to take a walk'; yet
+this is precisely what the Chinese have been doing for centuries. For
+such things, however, our word-symbols do perfectly well, and such a
+symbolising of musical sounds must detract, I think, from the high
+mission of music: which, as I conceive, is neither to be an agent for
+expressing material things; nor to utter pretty sounds to amuse the
+ear; nor a sensuous excitant to fire the blood, or a sedative to lull
+the senses: it is a _language_, but a language of the intangible, a
+kind of soul-language. It appeals directly to the _Seelenzustaende_ it
+springs from, for it is the natural expression of it, rather than,
+like words, a translation of it into set stereotyped symbols which may
+or may not be accepted for what they were intended to denote by the
+writer"--a _credo_ which sums up in fairly complete form his theory of
+music-making, whatever validity it may have as a philosophical
+generalisation.
+
+In regard to the sadly vexed question of musical nationalism,
+especially in its relation to America, his position was definite and
+positive. His views on this subject may well be quoted somewhat in
+detail, since they have not always been justly represented or fully
+understood. In the following excerpt, from a lecture on "Folk-Music,"
+he pays his respects to Dvorak's "New World" symphony, and touches
+upon his own attitude toward the case as exemplified in his "Indian"
+suite:
+
+"A man is generally something different from the clothes he wears or
+the business he is occupied with; but when we do see a man identified
+with his clothes we think but little of him. And so it is with music.
+So-called Russian, Bohemian, or any other purely national music has no
+place in art, for its characteristics may be duplicated by anyone who
+takes the fancy to do so. On the other hand, the vital element of
+music--personality--stands alone. We have seen the Viennese Strauss
+family adopting the cross rhythms of the Spanish--or, to be more
+accurate, the Moorish or Arab--school of art. Moszkowski the Pole
+writes Spanish dances. Cowen in England writes a Scandinavian
+Symphony. Grieg the Norwegian writes Arabian music; and, to cap the
+climax, we have here in America been offered a pattern for an
+'American' national musical costume by the Bohemian Dvorak--though
+what the Negro melodies have to do with Americanism in art still
+remains a mystery. Music that can be made by 'recipe' is not music,
+but 'tailoring.' To be sure, this tailoring may serve to cover a
+beautiful thought; but--why cover it? and, worst of all, why cover it
+(if covered it must be: if the trademark of nationality is
+indispensable, which I deny)--why cover it with the badge of whilom
+slavery rather than with the stern but at least manly and free
+rudeness of the North American Indian? If what is called local tone
+colour is necessary to music (which it most emphatically is not), why
+not adopt some of the Hindoo _Ragas_ and modes--each one of which (and
+the modes alone number over seventy-two) will give an individual tonal
+character to the music written according to its rules? But the means
+of 'creating' a national music to which I have alluded are childish.
+No: before a people can find a musical writer to echo its genius it
+must first possess men who truly represent it--that is to say, men
+who, being part of the people, love the country for itself: men who
+put into their music what the nation has put into its life; and in the
+case of America it needs above all, both on the part of the public and
+on the part of the writer, absolute freedom from the restraint that an
+almost unlimited deference to European thought and prejudice has
+imposed upon us. Masquerading in the so-called nationalism of Negro
+clothes cut in Bohemia will not help us. What we must arrive at is the
+youthful optimistic vitality and the undaunted tenacity of spirit that
+characterizes the American man. This is what I hope to see echoed in
+American music."
+
+Of MacDowell as a pianist, Mr. Henry T. Finck, who had known him in
+this capacity almost from the beginning of his career in America, has
+written for me his impressions, and I shall quote them, rather than
+any of my own; since I had comparatively few opportunities to hear him
+display, at his best, the full measure of his ability:
+
+"As he never felt quite sure," writes Mr. Finck, "that what he was
+composing was worth while, so, in the matter of playing in public, he
+was so self-distrustful that when he came on the stage and sat down on
+the piano stool he hung his head and looked a good deal like a
+school-boy detected in the act of doing something he ought not to do.
+
+"Often though I was with him--sometimes a week at a time in
+Peterboro--I never could persuade him to play for me. I once asked
+Paderewski to play for me his new set of songs, and he promptly did
+so. But MacDowell always was 'out of practice,' or had some other
+excuse, generally a witticism or bit of sarcasm at his own expense. I
+am sorry now that I did not urge him with more persistence, for he
+might have yielded in the end, and I would have got a more _intime_
+idea of his playing; for after all a musical tete-a-tete like that is
+preferable to any public hearing. I never heard Grieg play at a
+concert, but I am sure that the hour I sat near him in his Bergen
+home, while he played and his wife sang, gave me a better appreciation
+of his skill as an interpreter than I could have got in a public hall
+with an audience to distract his attention. One afternoon I called on
+Saint-Saens at his hotel after one of his concerts in New York.
+Talking about it, he sat down at the piano, ran over his _Valse
+Canariote_, and said: 'That's the way I _ought_ to have played it!'
+
+"MacDowell was quite right in saying that he was out of practice; he
+generally was, his duties as professor allowing him little time for
+technical exercising; but once every few years he set to work and got
+his fingers into a condition which enabled them to follow his
+intentions; and those intentions, it is needless to say, were always
+honourable! He never played any of those show pieces which help along
+a pianist, but confined himself to the best he could find.
+
+"Usually the first half of a recital was devoted to the classical and
+romantic masters, the second to his own compositions. Beethoven,
+Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Grieg, were likely to be represented, and he
+also did missionary work for Templeton Strong and other Americans. His
+interpretation of the music of other composers was both objective and
+subjective; there was no distortion or exaggeration, yet one could not
+mistake the fact that it was MacDowell who was playing it.
+
+"The expression, 'he played like a composer,' is often used to hint
+that the technic was not that of a virtuoso. In this sense MacDowell
+did not play like a composer; his technical skill was equal to
+everything he played, though never obtrusive. In another sense he did
+play 'like a composer,' especially when interpreting his own pieces;
+that is, he played with an insight, a subtlety of expression, which
+only a creative performer has at his command. I doubt if Chopin
+himself could have rendered one of his pieces with more ravishing
+delicacy than MacDowell showed in playing his 'To a Wild Rose.' I
+doubt if Liszt could have shown a more overwhelming dramatic power
+than MacDowell did in playing his 'Keltic' sonata. In this combination
+of feminine tenderness with masculine strength he was, as in his
+creative gift, a man of genius. After one of his concerts I wrote in
+the glow of enthusiasm that I would rather hear him than any pianist
+in the field excepting Paderewski; that utterance I never saw reason
+to modify."
+
+For an interesting and closely observed description of MacDowell's
+technical peculiarities as a piano player I am indebted to his friend
+and pupil, Mr. T.P. Currier, who had followed MacDowell's career as a
+pianist from the time of his first public appearance in Boston:
+
+"[His finger velocity] was at that time [in 1888] the most striking
+characteristic of his playing," says Mr. Currier. "For him, too, it
+was a mere bagatelle. He took to prestissimo like a duck to water. He
+could, in fact, play fast more easily than he could slowly. One of his
+ever-present fears was that in performance his fingers would run away
+with him. And many hours were spent in endeavours to control such an
+embarrassing tendency. This extraordinary velocity, acquired in the
+Paris Conservatory, and from his friend and teacher, Carl Heymann, of
+Frankfort, invariably set his listeners agape, and was always one of
+the chief sensations at his concerts.
+
+"But for this finger speeding and for his other technical acquirements
+as well, MacDowell cared little, except as they furthered his one
+absorbing aim. He was heart and soul a composer, and to be able to
+play his own music as he heard it in his inner ear was his single spur
+to practice. From the time of his complete immersion in composition,
+his ideas of pianistic effects, of tone colour, gradually led him
+farther and farther away from conventional pianism. Scales and
+arpeggios, as commonly rendered, had no longer interest or charm for
+him. He cared for finger passages only when they could be made to
+suggest what he wanted them to suggest in his own colour-scheme. With
+his peculiar touch and facility at command, he rejoiced in turning
+such passages into streams and swirls of tone, marked with strong
+accents and coloured with vivid, dynamic contrasts.
+
+"That his passage playing rarely sounded clean and pure--like that of
+a Rosenthal--was due not only to his musical predilections, but to his
+hand formation as well. His hand was broad and rather thick-set, and
+tremendously muscular. It would not bend back at the knuckles; and the
+fingers also had no well-defined knuckle movement. It appears,
+therefore, that he could not, if he would, have succeeded on more
+conventional technical lines. Gradually he developed great strength
+and intense activity in the middle joints, which enabled him to play
+with a very close, often overlapping, touch, and to maintain extremely
+rapid tempi in legato or staccato with perfect ease and little
+fatigue. With this combination of velocity and close touch, it was a
+slight matter to produce those pianistic effects which were especially
+dear to him.
+
+"MacDowell's finger development has been thus dwelt upon, because it
+was, as has been said, the feature of his technic which immediately
+surprised and captivated his hearers. Less noticeable was his wrist
+and octave work. But his chord playing, though also relatively
+unattractive, was even in those early days almost as uncommon in its
+way as was his velocity. And in this field of technic, during his
+later years, when in composition his mind turned almost wholly to this
+mode of expression, he reached a plane of tonal effect which, for
+variety, from vague, shadowy, mysterious _ppp_, to virile, orchestral
+_ffff_, has never been surpassed by any pianist who has visited these
+shores in recent years. His tone in chord playing, it is true, was
+often harsh, and this fault also appeared in his melodic delivery. But
+in both cases any unmusical effect was so greatly overbalanced by many
+rare and beautiful qualities of tone production, that it was easily
+forgiven and forgotten.
+
+"Wonderful tone blending in finger passages; a peculiarly crisp, yet
+veiled staccato; chord playing extraordinary in variety,--tender,
+mysterious, sinister, heroic; a curiously unconventional yet effective
+melodic delivery; playing replete with power, vitality, and dramatic
+significance, always forcing upon the ear the phrase, never the
+tickling of mere notes; a really marvellous command and use of both
+pedals,--these were the characteristics of MacDowell's pianistic art
+as he displayed it in the exposition of his own works. Unquestionably
+he was a born pianist. If it had not been for his genius for
+composition, he would, without doubt, have been known as a brilliant
+and forceful interpreter of the greatest piano literature. But his
+compositional bent turned him completely away from mere piano playing.
+He was a composer-pianist, and as such he ever desired to be
+regarded."
+
+[Illustration: THE HOUSE AT PETERBORO, NEW HAMPSHIRE, WHERE MACDOWELL
+SPENT HIS SUMMERS]
+
+As a pianist, as in all other matters touching his own capacities, he
+was often tortured by doubts concerning the effect of his
+performances. "I shall never forget," recalls his wife, "the first
+time he played it [the "Eroica" sonata] in Boston. We all thought he
+did it wonderfully. But when I went around to the green-room door to
+find him, fearing something might be wrong, as he had not come to me,
+he had gone. When I got home, accompanied by two friends, there he was
+almost in a corner, white, and as if he were guilty of some crime, and
+he said as we came in: 'I can play better than that. But I was so
+tired!' We almost wept with the pity of the unnecessary suffering,
+which was yet so real and intense. In a short time he was more
+himself, and naively admitted that he had played three movements well,
+but had been a 'd---- fool in one.' I grew to be very used to this as
+the years went on, for he could not help emphasising to himself what
+he did badly, and ignoring the good."
+
+He left few uncompleted works. There are among his manuscripts three
+movements of a symphony, two movements of a suite for string
+orchestra, a suite for violin and piano, some songs and piano pieces,
+and a large number of sketches. He had schemes for a music-drama on an
+Arthurian subject, and sketched a single act of it. He had planned
+this work upon novel lines: there was to be comparatively little
+singing, and much emphasis was to be laid upon the orchestral
+commentary; the action was to be carried on by a combination of
+pantomime and tableaux, and the scenic element was to be
+conspicuous--a suggestion which he got in part from E.A. Abbey's Holy
+Grail frescoes in the Boston Public Library. But he had determined to
+write his own text: and the prospective labour of this, made more
+formidable by his restricted leisure, finally discouraged him, and he
+abandoned the project. Five years before his death he destroyed the
+sketches that he had made; only a few fragments remain.
+
+A rare and admirable man!--a man who would have been a remarkable
+personality if he had not written a note of music. His faults--and he
+was far from being a paragon--were never petty or contemptible: they
+were truly the defects of his qualities--of his honesty, his courage,
+his passionate and often reckless zeal in the promotion of what he
+believed to be sound and fine in art and in life. Mr. Philip Hale,
+whose long friendship with MacDowell gives him the right to speak with
+peculiar authority, and whose habit is that of sobriety in speech, has
+written of him in words whose justice and felicity cannot be bettered:
+"A man of blameless life, he was never pharasaical; he was
+compassionate toward the slips and failings of poor humanity. He was a
+true patriot, proud and hopeful of his country and of its artistic
+future, but he could not brook the thought of patriotism used as a
+cloak to cover mediocrity in art.... He was one who worked steadily
+and courageously in the face of discouragement; who never courted by
+trickery or device the favour of the public; who never fawned upon
+those who might help him; who in his art kept himself pure and
+unspotted."
+
+  "O that so many pitchers of rough clay
+  Should prosper and the porcelain break in two!"
+
+
+
+
+THE MUSIC-MAKER
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HIS ART AND ITS METHODS
+
+
+Among those music-makers of to-day who are both pre-eminent and
+representative the note of sincere romance is infrequently sounded.
+The fact must be obvious to the most casual observer of musical art in
+its contemporary development. The significant work of the most
+considerable musicians of our time--of Strauss, Debussy, Loeffler,
+d'Indy--has few essentially romantic characteristics. It is necessary
+to distinguish between that fatuous Romanticism of which Mr. Ernest
+Newman has given an unequalled definition: the Romanticism which
+expended itself in the fabrication of a pasteboard world of "gloomy
+forests, enchanted castles, impossible maidens, and the obsolete
+profession of magic," and that other and imperishable Spirit of
+Romance whose infrequent embodiment in modern music I have remarked.
+_That_ is a romance in no wise divorced from reality--is, in fact, but
+reality diviningly perceived; if it uses the old Romanticistic
+properties, it uses them not because of any inherent validity which
+they possess, but because they may at times be made to serve as
+symbols. It deals in a truth that is no less authentic because it is
+conveyed in terms of a beauty that may often be in the last degree
+incalculable and aerial.
+
+It is to its persistent embodiment of this valid spirit of romance
+that MacDowell's work owes its final and particular distinction. I
+know of no composer who has displayed a like sensitiveness to the
+finer stuff of romance. He has chosen more than occasionally to
+employ, in the accomplishment of his purposes, what seems at first to
+be precisely the magical apparatus so necessary to the older
+Romanticism. Dryads and elves are his intimate companions, and he
+dwells at times under fairy boughs and in enchanted woods; but for
+him, as for the poets of the Celtic tradition, these things are but
+the manifest images of an interior passion and delight. Seen in the
+transfiguring mirror of his music, the moods and events of the natural
+world, and of the drama that plays incessantly in the hearts of men,
+are vivified into shapes and designs of irresistible beauty and
+appeal. He is of those quickened ministers of beauty who attest for us
+the reality of that changeless and timeless loveliness which the
+visible world of the senses and the invisible world of the imagination
+are ceaselessly revealing to the simple of heart, the dream-filled,
+and the unwise.
+
+MacDowell presents throughout the entire body of his work the
+noteworthy spectacle of a radical without extravagance, a musician at
+once in accord with, and detached from, the dominant artistic
+movement of his day. The observation is more a definition than an
+encomium. He is a radical in that, to his sense, music is nothing if
+not articulate. Wagner's luminous phrase, "the fertilisation of music
+by poetry," would have implied for him no mere aesthetic abstraction,
+but an intimate and ever-present ideal. He was a musician, yet he
+looked out upon the visible world and inward upon the world of the
+emotions through the transforming eyes of the poet. He would have
+none of a formal and merely decorative beauty--a beauty serving no
+expressional need of the heart or the imagination. In this ultimate
+sense he is to be regarded as a realist--a realist with the
+romantic's vision, the romantic's preoccupation; and yet he is as
+alien to the frequently unleavened literalism of Richard Strauss as
+he is to the academic ideal. Though he conceives the prime mission of
+music to be interpretive, he insists no less emphatically that, in
+its function as an expressional instrument, it shall concern itself
+with essences and impressions, and not at all with transcriptions.
+His standpoint is, in the last analysis, that of the poet rather than
+of the typical musician: the standpoint of the poet intent mainly
+upon a vivid embodiment of the quintessence of personal vision and
+emotion, who has elected to utter that truth and that emotion in
+terms of musical beauty. One is, indeed, almost tempted to say that
+he is paramountly a poet, to whom the supplementary gift of musical
+speech has been extravagantly vouchsafed.
+
+He is a realist, as I have said--applying the term in that larger
+sense which denotes the transmutation of life into visible or audible
+form, and which implicates Beethoven as well as Wagner, Schumann as
+well as Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Debussy as well as Strauss: all those
+in whom the desire for intelligible utterance coexists with, or
+supersedes, the impulse toward perfected design. But if MacDowell's
+method of transmutation is not the method of Strauss, neither is it
+the method of Schumann, or of Debussy. He occupies a middle ground
+between the undaunted literalism of the Munich tone-poet and the
+sentimental posturings into which the romanticism of Schumann so
+frequently declined. It is impossible to conceive him attempting the
+musical exposition of such themes as kindled the imagination of
+Strauss when he wrought out his "Heldenleben," "Zarathustra," and
+"Till Eulenspiegel"; nor has he any appreciable affinity with the
+prismatic subtleties of the younger French school: so that there is
+little in the accent of his musical speech to remind one of the
+representative voices of modernity.
+
+Though he has avoided shackling his music to a detailed programme, he
+has never very seriously espoused the sophistical compromise which
+concedes the legitimacy of programme-music provided it speaks as
+potently to one who does not know the subject-matter as to one who
+does. The bulk of his music no more discloses its full measure of
+beauty and eloquence to one who is in ignorance of its poetic basis
+than would Wagner's "Faust" overture, Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and
+Juliet," or Debussy's "L'Apres-midi d'un Faune." Its appeal is
+conditioned upon an understanding of the basis of drama and emotional
+crisis upon which the musician has built; and in much of his music he
+has frankly recognized this fact, and has printed at the beginning of
+such works as the "Idyls" and "Poems" after Goethe and Heine, the
+"Norse" and "Keltic" sonatas, the "Sea Pieces," and the "New England
+Idyls," the fragment of verse or legend or meditation which has served
+as the particular stimulus of his inspiration; while in other works
+he has contented himself with the suggestion of a mood or subject
+embodied in his title, as, for example, in his "Woodland
+Sketches,"--"To a Wild Rose," "Will o' the Wisp," "At an Old Trysting
+Place," "In Autumn," "From an Indian Lodge," "To a Water-Lily," "A
+Deserted Farm." That he has been tempted, however, in the direction of
+the compromise to which I have alluded, is evident from the fact that
+although his symphonic poem "Lancelot and Elaine" is built upon the
+frame of an extremely definite sequence of events,--such as Lancelot's
+downfall in the tournament, his return to the court, Guinevere's
+casting away of the trophies, the approach of the barge bearing
+Elaine's body, and Lancelot's reverie by the river bank,--he gives in
+the published score no hint whatever of the particular phases of that
+moving chronicle of passion and tragedy which he has so faithfully
+striven to represent. "I would never have insisted," he wrote in 1899,
+"that this symphonic poem need mean 'Lancelot and Elaine' to everyone.
+It did to me, however, and in the hope that my artistic enjoyment
+might be shared by others, I added the title to my music."
+
+But if MacDowell displayed at times the usual inconsistency of the
+modern tone-poet in his attitude toward the whole subject of
+programme-music,[8] the tendency was neither a persistent nor
+determined one; and he was, as I have noted, even less disposed toward
+the frankly literal methods of which Strauss and his followers are
+such invincible exponents. His nearest approach to such diverting
+expedients as the bleating sheep and the exhilarating wind-machine of
+"Don Quixote" is in the denotement of the line:
+
+  "And like a thunderbolt he falls"
+
+in his graphic paraphrase of Tennyson's poem, "The Eagle"--an
+indulgence which the most exigent champion of programmatic reserve
+would probably condone. In the main, MacDowell's predilection for what
+he chose to call "suggestive" music finds expression in such continent
+symbolism as he employs in those elastically wrought tone-poems, brief
+or vigorously sustained, in which he sets forth a poetic concept with
+memorable vividness--in such things as his terse though astonishingly
+eloquent apostrophe "To a Wandering Iceberg," and his "In Mid-Ocean,"
+from the "Sea Pieces"; in "To a Water-lily," from the "Woodland
+Sketches"; in the "Winter" and "In Deep Woods" from the "New England
+Idyls"; in the "Marionettes" ("Soubrette," "Lover," "Witch," "Clown,"
+"Villain," "Sweetheart"); in the Raff-like orchestral suite, op. 42
+("In a Haunted Forest," "Summer Idyll," "The Shepherdess' Song,"
+"Forest Spirits"), and in the later and far more important "Indian"
+suite for orchestra ("Legend," "Love Song," "In War-time," "Dirge,"
+"Village Festival").
+
+[8] That MacDowell came later to realise the disadvantages, no less
+than the inconsistency, of writing programme-music based upon a
+detailed and definite programme and then withholding the programme, is
+indicated by this passage from a lecture on Beethoven which he
+delivered at Columbia: "If it [Beethoven's music] is absolute music,
+according to the accepted meaning of the term, either it must be
+beautiful music in itself,--that is, composed of beautiful sounds,--or
+its excuse for _not_ being beautiful must rest upon its power of
+expressing emotions and ideas that demand other than merely beautiful
+tones for their utterance. Music, for instance, that would give us the
+emotion--if I may call it that--of a series of exploding bombshells
+could hardly be called 'absolute music'; yet that is exactly what the
+opening of the last movement of the so-called 'Moonlight' Sonata meant
+to Miss Thackeray, who speaks of it in her story, 'Beauty and the
+Beast.'... If this is abstract music, it is bad. We know, however,
+that Beethoven had some poetic idea in his mind as he wrote this; but
+as he never gave the clew to the world, the music has been swallowed
+as 'absolute music' by the modern formalists"--a comment which would
+apply almost word for word, with a change of names and titles, to a
+certain tumultuous and "unbeautiful" passage in MacDowell's "Lancelot
+and Elaine." This passage is intended to express the rage and jealousy
+of Guinevere; but MacDowell has given no indication of this fact in
+his score, and only occasionally does the information find its way
+into the programme-books. Yet in his own copy of the score he wrote a
+complete and detailed key to the significance of the music at every
+point. Such are the ways of the musical realist!
+
+He was, in an extraordinarily complete sense, a celebrant of the
+natural world. His imagination was enslaved by the miraculous pageant
+of the visible earth, and he sought tirelessly to transfix some moment
+of its wonder or its splendour or its terror in permanent images of
+tone. The melancholy beauty of the autumn woods, the loveliness of
+quiet waters under fading skies, the sapphire and emerald glories, or
+the ominous chantings, of the sea, the benign and mysterious majesty
+of summer stars, the lyric sweetness of a meadow: these things urged
+him to musical transcripts, notations of loving tenderness and
+sincerity. His music is redolent of the breath and odour of woodland
+places, of lanes and moors and gardens; or it is saturated with salt
+spray; or it communicates the incommunicable in its voicing of that
+indefinable and evanescent sense of association which is evoked by
+certain aspects, certain phases, of the outer world--that sudden
+emotion of things past and irrecoverable which may cling about a field
+at sunset, or a quiet street at dusk, or a sudden intimation of spring
+in the scent of lilacs.
+
+But although such themes as he loved to dwell upon in his celebration
+of the magic of the natural world were very precious to his
+imagination, the human spectacle held for him, from the first, an
+emotion scarcely less swift and abundant. His scope is comprehensive:
+he can voice the archest gaiety, a naive and charming humour, as in
+the "Marionettes" and in the songs "From an Old Garden"; there is
+passion in the symphonic poems and in many of the songs; while in the
+sonatas and in the "Indian" suite the tragic note is struck with
+impressive and indubitable authority.
+
+Of the specifically musical traits in which MacDowell exhibits the
+tendencies and preferences which underlie his art, one must begin by
+saying that his distinguishing quality--that which puts so
+unmistakable a stamp upon his work--eludes precise definition. His
+tone is unmistakable. Its chief possession is a certain clarity and
+directness which is apparent no less in moments of great stress and
+complexity of emotion than in passages of simpler and slighter
+content. His style has little of the torrential rhetoric, the
+unbridled gusto and exuberance of Strauss, though it owns something of
+his forthright quality; nor has it any of Debussy's withdrawals. One
+thinks, as a discerning commentator has observed, of the "broad
+Shakespearian daylight" of Fitzgerald's fine phrase as being not
+inapplicable to the atmosphere of MacDowell's writing. He has few
+reservations, and he shows small liking for recondite effects of
+harmonic colour, for the wavering melodic line--which is far from
+implying that he is ever merely obvious or banal: that he never is.
+His clarity, his directness, find issue in an order of expression at
+once lucid and distinguished, at once spontaneous and expressive. It
+is difficult to recall, in any example of his maturer work, a single
+passage that is not touched with a measure of beauty and character. He
+had, of course, his period of crude experimentation, his days of
+discipleship. In his earlier writing there is not a little that is
+unworthy of him: much in which one seeks vainly for that note of
+distinction and personality which sounds so constantly throughout the
+finer body of his work. But in that considerable portion of his output
+which is genuinely representative--say from his opus 45 onward--he
+sustains his art upon a noteworthy level of fineness and strength.
+
+The range of his expressional gamut is striking. One is at a loss to
+say whether he is happier in emotional moments of weighty
+significance,--as in many pages of the sonatas and some of the "Sea
+Pieces,"--or in such cameo-like performances as the "Woodland
+Sketches," certain of the "Marionettes,"[9] and the exquisite song
+group, "From an Old Garden," in which he attains an order of delicate
+eloquence difficult to associate with the mind which shaped the heroic
+ardours of the "Norse" and "Keltic" sonatas. His capacity for forceful
+utterance is remarkable. Only in certain pages of Strauss is there
+anything in contemporary music which compares, for superb virility,
+dynamic power, and sweep of line, with the opening of the "Keltic"
+sonata. He has, moreover, a remarkable gift for compact expression.
+Time and again he astonishes by his ability to charge a composition of
+the briefest span with an emotional or dramatic content of large and
+far-reaching significance. His "To the Sea,"[10] for example, is but
+thirty-one bars long; yet within this limited frame he has confined a
+tone-picture which for breadth of conception and concentrated
+splendour of effect is paralleled in the contemporary literature of
+the piano only by himself. Consider, also, the "Epilogue" in the
+revised version of the "Marionettes." The piece comprises only a score
+of measures; yet within it the thought of the composer traverses a
+world of philosophical meditation: here is reflected the mood of one
+who looks with grave tenderness across the tragi-comedy of human life,
+in which, he would say to us, we are no less the playthings of a
+controlling destiny than are the figures of his puppet microcosm.
+
+[9] The revised version, published in 1901, is referred to. The
+original edition, which appeared in 1888, is decidedly inferior.
+
+[10] From the "Sea Pieces," for piano.
+
+[Illustration: THE PIAZZA AND GARDEN WALK AT PETERBORO]
+
+This scope and amplitude of expression are realised through a method
+at once plastic and unlaboured; his art has spontaneity--the deceptive
+spontaneity of the expert craftsman. It is not, in its elements, a
+strikingly novel style. His harmony, _per se_, is not unusual, if one
+sets it beside the surprising combinations evolved by such innovators
+as d'Indy, Debussy, and Strauss. It is in the novel disposition of
+familiar material--in what Mr. Apthorp has happily called his "free,
+instinctive application of the old in a new way"--that MacDowell's
+emphatic individuality consists. Whether it is a more signal
+achievement to create a new speech through the readjustment of
+established locutions than to evolve it from fresh and unworked
+elements, is open to debate. Be that as it may, however, MacDowell's
+achievement is of the former order.
+
+His harmonic method is ingenious and pliable. An over-insistence upon
+certain formulas--eloquent enough in themselves--has been charged
+against it, and the accusation is not without foundation. MacDowell is
+exceedingly fond, for instance, of suspensions in the chord of the
+diminished seventh. There is scarcely a page throughout his later work
+in which one does not encounter this effect in but slightly varied
+form. Yet there is a continual richness in his harmonic texture. I can
+think of no other composer, save Wagner, whose chord-progressions are
+so full and opulent in colour. His tonal web is always densely
+woven--he avoids "thinness" as he avoids the banal phrase and the
+futile decoration. In addition to the plangency of his chord
+combinations, as such, his polyphonic skill is responsible for much of
+the solidity of his fabric. His pages, particularly in the more recent
+works, are studded with examples of felicitous and dexterous
+counterpoint--poetically significant, and of the most elastic and
+untrammelled contrivance. Even in passages of a merely episodic
+character, one is struck with the vitality and importance of his inner
+voices. Dissonance--in the sense in which we understand dissonance
+to-day--plays a comparatively unimportant part in his technical
+method. The climax of the second of the "Sea Pieces"--"From a
+Wandering Iceberg"--marks about as extreme a point of harmonic
+conflict as he ever touches. Nor has he been profoundly affected by
+the passion for unbridled chromaticism engendered in modern music by
+the procedures of Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner. Even in the earlier of
+the orchestral works, "Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and
+Elaine"--both written in Germany in the days when the genius of Wagner
+was an ambient and inescapable flame--the writing is comparatively
+free from chromatic effects. On the other hand, he is far less
+audaciously diatonic than Richard Strauss. His style is, in fact, a
+subtle blend of opposing tendencies.
+
+That his songs constitute almost a third of the entire bulk of his
+work is not without significance; for his melodic gift is, probably,
+the most notable possession of his art. His insistence upon the value
+and importance of the _melos_ was, indeed, one of his cardinal tenets;
+and he is, in his practice,--whether writing for the voice, for piano,
+or for orchestra,--inveterately and frankly melodic: melodic with a
+suppleness, a breadth, a freshness and spontaneity which are anything
+but common in the typical music of our day. It is a curious experience
+to turn from the music of such typical moderns as Loeffler and
+Debussy, with its elusive melodic contours, its continual avoidance of
+definite patterns, its passion for the esoteric and its horror of
+direct communication, to the music of such a writer as MacDowell. For
+he has accomplished the difficult and perilous feat of writing frankly
+without obviousness, simply without triteness. His melodic outlines
+are firm, clean-cut, apprehendable; but they are seldom commonplace in
+design. His thematic substance at its best--in, say, the greater part
+of the sonatas, the "Sea Pieces," the "Woodland Sketches," the "Four
+Songs" of op. 56--has saliency, character, and often great beauty; and
+even when it is not at its best--as in much of his writing up to his
+opus 45--it has a spirit and colour that lift it securely above
+mediocrity.
+
+It must have already become evident to anyone who has followed this
+essay at an exposition of MacDowell's art that his view of the
+traditional musical forms is a liberal one. Which is briefly to say
+that, although his application to his art of the fundamental
+principles of musical design is deliberate and satisfying, he shares
+the typical modern distaste for the classic forms. His four sonatas,
+his two piano concertos, and his two "modern suites" for piano are his
+only important adventures in the traditional instrumental moulds. The
+catalogue of his works is innocent of any symphony, overture, string
+quartet, or cantata. The major portion of his work is as elastic and
+emancipated in form as it is unconfined in spirit. He preferred to
+shape his inspiration upon the mould of a definite poetic concept,
+rather than upon a constructive formula which was, for him, artificial
+and anomalous. Even in his sonatas the classic prescription is altered
+or abrogated at will in accordance with the requirements of the
+underlying poetic idea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+EARLY EXPERIMENTS
+
+
+MacDowell's impulse toward significant expression was not slow in
+declaring itself. The first "modern suite" (op. 10), the earliest of
+his listed works, which at first glance seems to be merely a group of
+contrasted movements of innocently traditional aspect, with the
+expected Praeludium, Presto, Intermezzo, Fugue, etc., contains,
+nevertheless, the germ of the programmatic principle; for at the head
+of the third movement (Andantino and Allegretto) one comes upon a
+motto from Virgil--"Per amica silentia lunae," and the Rhapsodic is
+introduced with the
+
+  "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate"
+
+of Dante. The Praeludium of the second piano suite, op. 14, is also
+annotated, having been suggested by lines from Byron's "Manfred."
+In the "Zwei Fantasiestuecke", op. 17--"Erzaehlung" and "Hexentanz"--but
+more particularly in the "Wald-Idyllen" of op. 19--"Waldesstille,"
+"Spiel der Nymphen," "Traeumerei," and "Driadentanz,"--a definite
+poetic concept is implied. Here the formative influence of Raff is
+evident. The works which follow--"Drei Poesien" ("Nachts am Meere,"
+"Erzaehlung aus der Ritterzeit," "Ballade"), and the "Mondbilder,"
+after Hans Christian Andersen--are of a similar kind. The romanticism
+which pervades them is not of a very finely distilled quality: they are
+not, that is to say, the product of a clarified and wholly personal
+vision--of the vision which prompted the issue of such things as the
+"Woodland Sketches," the "Sea Pieces," and the "New England Idyls." In
+these earlier works one feels that the romantic view has been assumed
+somewhat vicariously--one can imagine the favourite pupil of Raff
+producing a group of "Wald-Idyllen" quite as a matter of course, and
+without interior conviction. Nor is the style marked by individuality,
+except in occasional passages. There are traces of his peculiar
+quality in the first suite,--in the 6/8 passage of the Rhapsodie, for
+example,--in portions of the first piano concerto (the _a piacere_
+passage toward the close of the first movement is particularly
+characteristic), in the _Erzaehlung_, and in No. 3 (_Traeumerei_) of the
+_Wald-Idyllen_; but the prevailing note of his style at this time was,
+quite naturally, strongly Teutonic: one encounters in it the trail of
+Liszt, of Schumann, of Raff, of Wagner.
+
+Not until one reaches the "Hamlet and Ophelia" is it apparent that he
+is beginning to find himself. This work was written before he had
+completed his twenty-fourth year; yet the music is curiously ripe in
+feeling and accomplishment. There is breadth and steadiness of view in
+the conception, passion and sensitiveness in its embodiment: It is
+mellower, of a deeper and finer beauty, than anything he had
+previously done, though nowhere has it the inspiration of his later
+works.
+
+The second piano concerto (op. 23), completed a year later, is fairly
+within the class of that order of music which it has been generally
+agreed to describe as "absolute." It is innocent of any programme,
+save for the fact that some of the ideas prompted by "Much Ado About
+Nothing," which were to form a "Beatrice and Benedick" symphonic poem,
+were, as I have related in a previous chapter, incorporated in the
+scherzo. Together with its companion work, the first piano concerto;
+the "Romanza" for 'cello and orchestra; the concert study, op. 36, and
+such conventional _morceaux_ as the early "Serenata" and "Barcarolle"
+(of which, it should be noted, there are extremely few among his
+productions), it represents the very limited body of his writing which
+does not, in some degree, propose and enforce a definite poetic
+concept. Not elsewhere in his earlier work has MacDowell marshalled
+the materials of his art with so confident an artistry as he exhibits
+in this concerto. In substance the work is not extraordinary. The
+manner derives something from Grieg, more from Liszt, and there is
+comparatively little disclosure of personality. But the manipulation
+is, throughout, the work of a music-wright of brilliant executive
+capacity. In fundamental logic, in cohesion, flexibility, and symmetry
+of organism, it is a brilliantly successful accomplishment. As in all
+of MacDowell's writing, its allegiance is to the basic principles of
+structure and design, rather than to a traditional and arbitrary
+formula.
+
+The succeeding opus (24), comprising the "Humoreske," "March," "Cradle
+Song," and "Czardas," is unimportant. Of the four pieces the gracious
+"Cradle Song" is of the most worth. The group as a whole belongs to
+that inconsiderable portion of his output which one cannot accept as
+of serious artistic consequence. With the "Lancelot and Elaine" (op.
+25), however, one comes upon a work of the grade of the "Hamlet and
+Ophelia" music. MacDowell had a peculiar affinity for the spirit of
+the Arthurian tales, and he was happy in whatever musical
+transmutation of them he attempted. This tone-poem is, as he avows,
+"after Tennyson." The work follows consistently the larger action of
+the poem, and musical equivalents are sought and found for such
+crucial incidents as the meeting with Elaine, the tournament,
+Lancelot's downfall, his return to the court and the interview with
+Guinevere, the apparition of the funeral barge, and the soliloquy of
+Lancelot by the river bank. The work is dramatically conceived. There
+are passages of impressive tenderness,--as in the incident of the
+approaching barge; of climactic force,--as in the passage portraying
+the casting away of the trophies; and there are admirable details of
+workmanship. The scoring is full and adroit, though not very
+elaborate. As always with him, the instrumental texture is richly
+woven, although his utilisation of the possibilities of the orchestra
+is far from exhaustive. One misses, for example, the colouring of
+available harp effects, for which he appeared to have a distaste,
+since the instrument is not required in any of his orchestral works.
+That he was not satisfied with the scoring of the work is known. He
+remarked to Mr. Philip Hale that it was "too full of horns"; and in
+his own copy of the score, which I possess, he has made in pencil
+numerous changes in the instrumentation, much to its improvement; he
+has, for instance, in accord with his expressed feeling, reduced the
+prominence of the horns, allotting their parts, in certain important
+instances, to the wood-wind, trombones, or trumpets.
+
+The "Six Idyls after Goethe," for piano (op. 28), are noteworthy as
+foreshadowing the candid impressionism which was to have its finest
+issue in the "Woodland Sketches," "Sea Pieces," and "New England
+Idyls." The Goethe paraphrases, although they have only a tithe of the
+graphic nearness and felicity of the later pieces, are yet fairly
+successful in their attempt to find a musical correspondence for
+certain definitely stated concepts and ideas--a partial fulfilment of
+the method implied in the earlier "Wald-Idyllen." He presents
+himself here as one who has yielded his imagination to an intimate
+contemplation of the natural world, and who already has, in some
+degree, the faculty of uttering whatever revelation of its loveliness
+or majesty has been vouchsafed. At once, in studying these pieces, one
+observes a wide departure in method and accomplishment from the style
+of the "Wald-Idyllen." In those, it seemed, the poet had somehow
+failed to compose "with his eye on the object": the vision lacked
+steadiness, lacked penetration--or it may be that the vision was
+present, but not the power of notation. In the Goethe paraphrases, on
+the other hand, we are given, in a measure, the sense of the thing
+perceived; I say "in a measure," for his power of acute and
+sympathetic observation and of eloquent transmutation had not yet come
+to its highest pitch. Of the six "Idyls," three--"In the Woods,"
+"Siesta," and "To the Moonlight"--are memorable, though uneven; and of
+these the third, after Goethe's "An den Mond," adumbrates faintly
+MacDowell's riper manner. The "Silver Clouds," "Flute Idyl,"[11] and
+"Blue Bell" are decidedly less characteristic.
+
+[11] The poems which suggested this and the preceding piece were used
+again by MacDowell in two of the most admirable of the "Eight Songs,"
+op. 47.
+
+His third orchestral work, the symphonic poem "Lamia," is based upon
+the fantastic (and what Mr. Howells would call unconscionably
+"romanticistic") poem of Keats. Begun during his last year in
+Wiesbaden (1888), and completed the following winter in Boston, it
+stands, in the order of MacDowell's orchestral pieces, between
+"Lancelot and Elaine" and the two "fragments" after the "Song of
+Roland." On a fly-leaf of the score MacDowell has written this
+glossary of the story as told by Keats:
+
+    "Lamia, an enchantress in the form of a serpent, loves Lycius, a
+    young Corinthian. In order to win him she prays to Hermes, who
+    answers her appeal by transforming her into a lovely maiden.
+    Lycius meets her in the wood, is smitten with love for her, and
+    goes with her to her enchanted palace, where the wedding is
+    celebrated with great splendour. But suddenly Apollonius appears;
+    he reveals the magic. Lamia again assumes the form of a serpent,
+    the enchanted palace vanishes, and Lycius is found lifeless."
+
+Now this is obviously just the sort of thing to stir the musical
+imagination of a young composer nourished on Liszt, Raff, and Wagner;
+and MacDowell (he was then in his twenty-seventh year) composed his
+tone-poem with evident gusto. Yet it is the weakest of his orchestral
+works--the weakest and the least characteristic. There is much Liszt
+in the score, and a good deal of Wagner. Only occasionally--as in the
+_pianissimo_ passage for flutes, clarinets, and divided strings,
+following the first outburst of the full orchestra--does his own
+individuality emerge with any positiveness. MacDowell withheld the
+score from publication, at the time of its composition, because of his
+uncertainty as to its effect. He had not had an opportunity to secure
+a reading of it by one of the _Cur-Orchester_ which had accommodatingly
+tried over his preceding scores at their rehearsals; and such a thing
+was of course out of the question in America. Not only was he
+reluctant to put it forth without such a test, but he lacked the funds
+to pay for its publication. He came to realise in later years, of
+course, that the music was immature and far from characteristic,
+though he still had a genuine affection for it. In a talk which I had
+with him a year before his collapse, he gave me the impression that he
+considered it at least as good a piece of work as its predecessors,
+"Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine," though he made sport,
+in his characteristic way, of its occasional juvenility and its
+Wagneristic allegiances. He intended ultimately to revise and publish
+the score, and he allowed it to remain on the list of his works. After
+his death it was concluded that it would be wise to print the music,
+for several reasons. These were, first, because of the fear lest,
+if it were allowed to remain in manuscript, it might at some future
+time suffer from well-meant attempts at revision; and, secondly,
+because of the chance that it might be put forward, after the death
+of those who knew its history, in a way which would seem to make
+unwarranted pretensions for it, or would give rise to doubts as to its
+authenticity. In a word, it was felt that its immediate publication
+would obviate any possible misconception at some future time as to its
+true relation to MacDowell's artistic evolution. It was, therefore,
+published in October, 1908, twenty years after its composition, with a
+dedication to Mr. Henry T. Finck.
+
+In "Die Sarazenen" and "Die Schoene Alda," two "fragments" for
+orchestra after the "Song of Roland," numbered op. 30, a graver note
+is sounded. These "fragments," originally intended to form part of a
+"Roland" symphony, were published in 1891 in their present form, the
+plan for a symphony having been definitely abandoned. "Die
+Sarazenen" is a transcription of the scene in which Ganelon, the
+traitor in Charlemagne's camp through whose perfidy Roland met his
+death, swears to commit his crime. It is a forceful conception,
+barbaric in colour and rhythm, and picturesquely scored. The second
+fragment, "Die Schoene Alda," is, however, a more memorable work,
+depicting the loveliness and the grieving of Alda, Roland's betrothed.
+In spite of its strong Wagnerian leanings, the music bears the impress
+of MacDowell's own style, and it has moments of rare loveliness. Both
+pieces are programmatic in bent, and, with excellent wisdom, MacDowell
+has quoted upon the fly-leaf of the score those portions of the "Song
+of Roland" from which the conception of the music sprang.
+
+Like the "Idyls" after Goethe, the "Six Poems" after Heine (op. 31),
+for piano, are devoted to the embodiment of a poetic subject,--with
+the difference that instead of the landscape impressionism of the
+Goethe studies we have a persistent impulse toward psychological
+suggestion. Each of the poems which he has selected for illustration
+has a burden of human emotion which the music reflects with varying
+success. The style is more individualised than in the Goethe pieces,
+and the invention is, on the whole, of a superior order. The "Scotch
+Poem" (No. 2) is the most successful of the set; the
+
+  "... schoene, kranke Frau,
+  Zartdurchsichtig und marmorblass,"
+
+and her desolate lamenting, are sharply projected, though scarcely
+with the power that he would have brought to bear upon the endeavour a
+decade later. Less effective, but more characteristic, is "The
+Shepherd Boy" (No. 5). This is almost, at moments, MacDowell in the
+happiest phase of his lighter vein. The transition from F minor to
+major, after the _fermata_ on the second page, is as typical as it is
+delectable; and the fifteen bars that follow are of a markedly
+personal tinge. "From Long Ago" and "From a Fisherman's Hut" are less
+good, and "The Post Wagon" and "Monologue" are disappointing--the
+latter especially so, because the exquisite poem which he has chosen
+to enforce, the matchless lyric beginning "Der Tod, das ist die kuehle
+Nacht," should, it seems, have offered an inspiring incentive.
+
+In the "Four Little Poems" of op. 32 one encounters a piece which it
+is possible to admire without qualification: I mean the music
+conceived as an illustration to Tennyson's poem, "The Eagle." The
+three other numbers of this opus, "The Brook," "Moonshine," and
+"Winter," one can praise only in measured terms--although "Winter,"
+which attempts a representation of the "widow bird" and frozen
+landscape of Shelley's lyric, has some measures that dwell
+persistently in the memory: but "The Eagle" is a superb achievement.
+Its deliberate purpose is to realise in tone the imagery and
+atmosphere of Tennyson's lines--an object which it accomplishes with
+triumphant completeness. As a feat of sheer tone-painting one recalls
+few things, of a similar scope and purpose, that surpass it in
+fitness, concision, and felicity. It displays a power of imaginative
+transmutation hitherto undisclosed in MacDowell's writing. Here are
+precisely the severe and lonely mood of the opening lines of the poem,
+the sense of inaccessible and wind-swept spaces, which Tennyson has so
+magnificently and so succinctly conveyed. Here, too, are the far-off,
+"wrinkled sea," and the final cataclysmic and sudden descent: yet,
+despite the literalism of the close, there is no yielding of artistic
+sobriety in the result, for the music has an unassailable dignity. It
+remains, even to-day, one of MacDowell's most characteristic and
+admirable performances.
+
+Of the "Romance" for 'cello and orchestra (op. 35), the Concert Study
+(op. 36), and "Les Orientales" (op. 37),--three _morceaux_ for
+piano, after Victor Hugo,--there is no need to speak in detail.
+"Perfunctory" is the word which one must use to describe the creative
+impulse of which they are the ungrateful legacy--an impulse less
+spontaneous, there is reason to believe, than utilitarian. Perhaps
+they may most justly be characterised as almost the only instances in
+which MacDowell gave heed to the possibility of a reward not primarily
+and exclusively artistic. They are sentimental and unleavened, and
+they are far from worthy of his gifts, though they are not without a
+certain rather inexpensive charm.
+
+[Illustration: A WINTER VIEW OF THE PETERBORO HOUSE]
+
+The "Marionettes" of op. 38 are in a wholly different case. Published
+first in 1888, the year of MacDowell's return to America, they were
+afterward extensively revised, and now appear under a radically
+different guise. In its present form, the group comprises six _genre_
+studies--"Soubrette," "Lover," "Witch," "Clown," "Villain,"
+"Sweetheart"--besides two additions: a "Prologue" and "Epilogue." Here
+MacDowell is in one of his happiest moods. It was a fortunate and
+charming conceit which prompted the plan of the series, with its
+half-playful, half-ironic, yet lurkingly poetic suggestions; for in
+spite of the mood of bantering gaiety which placed the pieces in such
+mocking juxtaposition, there is, throughout, an undertone of grave and
+meditative tenderness which it is one of the peculiar properties of
+MacDowell's art to communicate and enforce. This is continually
+apparent in "The Lover" and "Sweetheart," fugitively so in the
+"Prologue," and, in an irresistible degree, in the exceedingly poetic
+and deeply felt "Epilogue"--one of the most typical and beautiful of
+MacDowell's smaller works. The music of these pieces is, as with other
+of his earlier works that he has since revised, confusing to the
+observer who attempts to place it among his productions in the order
+suggested by its opus number. For although in the list of his
+published works the "Marionettes" follow immediately on the heels of
+the Concert Study and "Les Orientales" the form in which they are
+now most generally known represents the much later period of the
+"Keltic" sonata--a fact which will, however, be sufficiently evident
+to anyone who studies the two versions carefully enough to perceive
+the difference between more or less experimental craftsmanship and
+ripe and heedful artistry. The observer will notice in these pieces,
+incidentally, the abandonment of the traditional Italian terms of
+expression and the substitution of English words and phrases, which
+are used freely and with adroitness to indicate every shade of the
+composer's meaning. In place of the stereotyped terms of the
+music-maker's familiarly limited vocabulary, we have such a system of
+direct and elastic expression as Schumann adopted. Thus one finds, in
+the "Prologue," such unmistakable and illuminating directions as:
+"with sturdy good humour," "pleadingly," "mockingly"; in the
+"Soubrette"--"poutingly"; in the "Lover"--in the "Villain"--"with
+sinister emphasis," "sardonically." This method, which MacDowell has
+followed consistently in all his later works, has obvious advantages;
+and it becomes in his hands a picturesque and stimulating means for
+the conveyance of his intentions. Its defect, equally obvious, is that
+it is not, like the conventional Italian terminology, universally
+intelligible.
+
+The "Twelve Studies" of op. 39 are less original in conception and of
+less artistic moment than the "Marionettes." Their titles--among which
+are a "Hunting Song," a "Romance," a "Dance of the Gnomes," and others
+of like connotation--suggest, in a measure, that imperfectly realised
+romanticism which I have before endeavoured to separate from the
+intimate spirit of sincere romance which MacDowell has so often
+succeeded in embodying. The same thing is true, though in a less
+degree, of the suite for orchestra (op. 42). It is more Raff-like--not
+in effect but in conception--than anything he has done. There are four
+movements: "In a Haunted Forest," "Summer Idyl," "The Shepherdess'
+Song," and "Forest Spirits," together with a supplement, "In October,"
+forming part of the original suite, but not published until several
+years later. The work, as a whole, has atmosphere, freshness,
+buoyancy, and it is scored with exquisite skill and charm; but somehow
+it does not seem either as poetic or as distinguished as one imagines
+it might have been made. It is carried through with delightful high
+spirits, and with an expert order of craftsmanship; but it lacks
+persuasion--lacks, to put it baldly, inspiration.
+
+Passing over a sheaf of piano pieces, the "Twelve Virtuoso Studies" of
+op. 46 (of which the "Novelette" and "Improvisation" are most
+noteworthy), we come to a stage of MacDowell's development in which,
+for the first time, he presents himself as an assured and confident
+master of musical impressionism and the possessor of a matured and
+fully individualised style.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A MATURED IMPRESSIONIST
+
+
+With the completion and production of his "Indian" suite for orchestra
+(op. 48) MacDowell came, in a measure, into his own. Mr. Philip Hale,
+writing apropos of a performance of the suite at a concert of the
+Boston Symphony Orchestra[12] in December, 1897, did not hesitate to
+describe the work as "one of the noblest compositions of modern
+times." Elsewhere he wrote concerning it: "The thoughts are the
+musical thoughts of high imagination; the expression is that of the
+sure and serene master. There are here no echoes of Raff, or Wagner,
+or Brahms, men that have each influenced mightily the musical thought
+of to-day. There is the voice of one composer: a virile, tender voice
+that does not stammer, does not break, does not wax hysterical: the
+voice of a composer that not only must pour out that which has
+accumulated within him, but knows all the resources of musical
+oratory--in a word, the voice of MacDowell."
+
+[12] The suite is dedicated to this Orchestra and its former
+conductor, Mr. Emil Paur.
+
+MacDowell has derived the greater part of the thematic substance of
+the suite, as he acknowledges in a prefatory note, from melodies of
+the North American Indians, with the exception of a few subsidiary
+themes of his own invention. "If separate titles for the different
+movements are desired," he says in his note, "they should be arranged
+as follows: I. 'Legend'; II. 'Love Song'; III. 'In War-time'; IV.
+'Dirge'; V. Village Festival'"--a concession in which again one traces
+a hint of the inexplicable and amusing reluctance of the musical
+impressionist to acknowledge without reservation the programmatic
+basis of his work. In the case of the "Indian" suite, however, the
+intention is clear enough, even without the proffered titles; for the
+several movements are unmistakably based upon firmly held concepts of
+a definite dramatic and emotional significance. As supplemental aids
+to the discovery of his poetic purposes, the phrases of direction
+which he has placed at the beginning of each movement are indicative,
+taken in connection with the titles which he sanctions. The first
+movement, "Legend," is headed: _Not fast. With much dignity and
+character_; the second movement, "Love Song," is to be played _Not
+fast. Tenderly_; the third movement, "In War-time," is marked: _With
+rough vigour, almost savagely_; the fourth, "Dirge": _Dirge-like,
+mournfully_; the fifth, "Village Festival": _Swift and light_.
+
+Here, certainly, is food for the imagination, the frankest of
+invitations to the impressionable listener. There is no reason to
+believe that the music is built throughout upon such a detailed and
+specific plan as underlies, for example, the "Lancelot and Elaine";
+the notable fact is that MacDowell has attained in this work to a
+power and weight of utterance, an eloquence of communication, a
+ripeness of style, and a security and strength of workmanship, which
+he had not hitherto brought to the fulfilment of an avowedly
+impressionistic scheme.[13] He has exposed the particular emotions and
+the essential character of his subject with deep sympathy and
+extraordinary imaginative force--at times with profoundly impressive
+effect, as in the first movement, "Legend," and the third, "In
+War-Time"; and in the overwhelmingly poignant "Dirge" he has achieved
+the most profoundly affecting threnody in music since the
+"Goetterdaemmerung" _Trauermarsch_. I am inclined to rank this movement,
+with the sonatas and one or two of the "Woodland Sketches" and "Sea
+Pieces," as the choicest emanation of MacDowell's genius; and of these
+it is, I think, the most inspired and the most deeply felt. The
+extreme pathos of the opening section, with the wailing phrase in the
+muted strings under the reiterated G of the flutes (an inverted
+organ-point of sixteen _adagio_ measures); the indescribable effect of
+the muted horn heard from behind the scenes, over an accompaniment of
+divided violas and 'cellos _con sordini_; the heart-shaking sadness
+and beauty of the succeeding passage for all the muted strings; the
+mysterious and solemn close: these are outstanding moments in a
+masterpiece of the first rank: a page which would honour any
+music-maker, living or dead.
+
+[13] The "Tragica" sonata, op. 45, which antedates the suite by
+several years, and of which I shall write in another chapter, has a
+considerably less definite content.
+
+In the suite as a whole he has caught and embodied the fundamental
+spirit of his theme: these are the sorrows and laments and rejoicings,
+not of our own day and people, but of the vanished life of an
+elemental and dying race; here is the solitude of dark forests, of
+illimitable and lonely prairies, and the sombreness and wildness of
+one knows not what grim tragedies and romances and festivities enacted
+in the shadow of a fading past.
+
+Into the discussion of the relation between such works as the "Indian"
+suite and the establishment of a possible "American" school of music I
+shall not intrude. To those of us who believe that such a "school,"
+whether desirable or not, can never be created through conscious
+effort, and who are entirely willing to permit time and circumstance
+to bring about its establishment, the subject is as wearisome as it is
+unprofitable. The logic of the belief that it is possible to achieve a
+representative nationalism in music by the ingenuous process of
+adopting the idiom of an alien though neighbouring race is not
+immediately apparent; and although MacDowell in this suite has
+admittedly derived his basic material from the North American
+aborigines, he never, so far as I am aware, claimed that his
+impressive and noble score constitutes, for that reason, a
+representatively national utterance. He perceived, doubtless, that
+territorial propinquity is quite a different thing from racial
+affinity; and that a musical art derived from either Indian or
+Ethiopian sources can be "American" only in a partial and quite
+unimportant sense. He recognised, and he affirmed the belief, that
+racial elements are transitory and mutable, and that provinciality in
+art, even when it is called patriotism, makes for a probable oblivion.
+
+I have already dwelt upon MacDowell's preoccupation with the pageant
+of the natural world. If one is tempted, at times, to praise in him
+the celebrant of the "mystery and the majesty of earth" somewhat at
+the expense of the musical humanist, it is because he has in an
+uncommon degree the intimate visualising faculty of the essential
+Celt. "In all my work," he avowed a few years before his death, "there
+is the Celtic influence. I love its colour and meaning. The
+development in music of that influence is, I believe, a new field."
+That it was a note which he was pre-eminently qualified to strike and
+sustain is beyond doubt: and, as he seems to have realised, he had the
+field to himself. He is, strangely enough, the first Celtic influence
+of genuine vitality and importance which has been exerted upon
+creative music--a singular but incontestable fact. As it is exerted by
+him it has an exquisite authenticity. Again and again one is aware
+that the "sheer, inimitable Celtic note," which we have long known how
+to recognise in another art, is being sounded in the music of this
+composer who has in his heart and brain so much of "the wisdom of old
+romance." With him one realises that "natural magic" is, as Mr. Yeats
+has somewhere said, "but the ancient worship of Nature and that
+troubled ecstasy before her, that certainty of all beautiful places
+being haunted, which is brought into men's minds." We have observed
+the operation of this impulse in such comparatively immature
+productions as the "Wald-Idyllen" and the "Idyls" after Goethe, in
+the "Four Little Poems" of op. 32, and in the first orchestral suite;
+but it is in the much later "Woodland Sketches" and "Sea Pieces," for
+piano, that the tendency comes to its finest issue.
+
+Music, of course--from Frohberger and Haydn to Mendelssohn, Wagner,
+Raff, and Debussy--abounds in examples of natural imagery. In claiming
+a certain excellence for his method one need scarcely imply that
+MacDowell has ever threatened the supremacy of such things as the
+"Rheingold" prelude or the "Walkuere" fire music. It is as much by
+reason of his choice of subjects as because of the peculiar vividness
+and felicity of his expression, that he occupies so single a place
+among tone-poets of the external world. He has never attempted such
+vast frescoes as Wagner delighted to paint. Of his descriptive music
+by far the greater part is written for the piano; so that, at the
+start, a very definite limitation is imposed upon magnitude of plan.
+You cannot suggest on the piano, with any adequacy of effect, a
+mountain-side in flames, or the prismatic arch of a rainbow, or the
+towering architecture of cloud forms; so MacDowell has confined
+himself within the bounds of such canvases as he paints upon in his
+"Four Little Poems" ("The Eagle," "The Brook," "Moonshine," "Winter"),
+in his first orchestral suite, and in the inimitable "Woodland
+Sketches" and "Sea Pieces." Thus his themes are starlight, a
+water-lily, will o' the wisps, a deserted farm, a wild rose, the
+sea-spell, deep woods, an old garden. As a fair exemplification of his
+practice, consider, let me say, his "To a Water-lily," from the
+"Woodland Sketches." It is difficult to recall anything in objective
+tone-painting, for the piano or for the orchestra, conceived and
+executed quite in the manner of this remarkable piece of lyrical
+impressionism. Of all the composers who have essayed tonal
+transcriptions of the phases of the outer world, I know of none who
+has achieved such vividness and suggestiveness of effect with a
+similar condensation. The form is small; but these pieces are no more
+justly to be dismissed as mere "miniature work" than is Wordsworth's
+"Daffodils," which they parallel in delicacy of perception, intensity
+of vision, and perfection of accomplishment. The question of bulk,
+length, size, has quite as much pertinence in one case as in the
+other. In his work in this sort, MacDowell is often as one who, having
+fallen, through the ignominies of daily life, among the barren
+makeshifts of reality, "remembers the enchanted valleys." It is
+touched at times with the deep and wistful tenderness, the primaeval
+nostalgia, which is never very distant from the mood of his writing,
+and in which, again, one is tempted to trace the essential Celt. It is
+this close kinship with the secret presences of the natural world,
+this intimate responsiveness to elemental moods, this quick
+sensitiveness to the aroma and the magic of places, that sets him
+recognisably apart.
+
+If in the "Indian" suite MacDowell disclosed the full maturity of his
+powers of imaginative and structural design, it is in the "Woodland
+Sketches" (op. 51) that his speech, freed from such incumbrances as
+were imposed upon it by his deliberate adoption of an exotic idiom,
+assumes for the first time some of its most engaging and distinctive
+characteristics. Consider, for example, number eight of the group, "A
+Deserted Farm." Here is the quintessence of his style in one of its
+most frequent aspects. The manner has a curious simplicity, yet it
+would be difficult to say in what, precisely, the simplicity consists;
+it has striking individuality,--yet the particular trait in which it
+resides is not easily determined. The simplicity is certainly not of
+the harmonic plan, nor of the melodic outline, which are subtly yet
+frankly conceived; and the individuality does not lie in any
+eccentricity or determined novelty of effect. Both the flavour of
+simplicity and of personality are, one concludes, more a spiritual
+than an anatomical possession of the music. Its quality is as
+intangible and pervasive as that dim magic of "unremembering
+remembrance" that is awakened in some by the troubling tides of
+spring; it is apparently as unsought for as are the naive utterances
+of folk-song. It is his unfailing charm, and it is everywhere manifest
+in his later work: that spontaneity and _insouciance_, that utter
+absence of self-consciousness, which is in nothing so surprising as in
+its serene antithesis to what one has come to accept--too readily, it
+may be--as the dominant accent of musical modernity.
+
+These pieces have an inescapable fragrance, tenderness, and zest. "To
+a Wild Rose," "Will o' the Wisp," "In Autumn," "From Uncle Remus," and
+"By a Meadow Brook" are slight in poetic substance, though executed
+with charm and humour; but the five other pieces--"At an Old Trysting
+Place," "From an Indian Lodge," "To a Water-lily," "A Deserted Farm,"
+and "Told at Sunset"--are of a different calibre. With the exception
+of "To a Water-lily," whose quality is uncomplex and unconcealed,
+these tone-poems in little are a curious blend of what, lacking an
+apter name, one must call nature-poetry, and psychological suggestion;
+and they are remarkable for the manner in which they focus great
+richness of emotion into limited space. "At an Old Trysting Place,"
+"From an Indian Lodge," "A Deserted Farm," and "Told at Sunset," imply
+a consecutive dramatic purpose which is emphasised by their connection
+through a hint of thematic community. The element of drama, though, is
+not insisted upon--indeed, a large portion of the searching charm of
+these pieces lies in their tactful reticence.
+
+In the "Sea Pieces" of op. 55 a larger impulse is at work. The set
+comprises eight short pieces, few of them over two pages in length;
+yet they are modelled upon ample lines, and they have, in a
+conspicuous degree, that property to which I have alluded--the
+property of suggesting within a limited framework an emotional or
+dramatic content of large and far-reaching significance. I spoke in an
+earlier chapter, in this connection, of the first of these pieces, "To
+the Sea." I must repeat that this tone-poem seems to me one of the
+most entirely admirable things in the literature of the piano; and it
+is typical, in the main, of the volume. MacDowell is one of the
+comparatively few composers who have been thrall to the spell of the
+sea; none, I think, has felt that spell more irresistibly or has
+communicated it with more conquering an eloquence. This music is full
+of the glamour, the awe, the mystery, of the sea; of its sinister and
+terrible beauty, but also of its tonic charm, its secret allurement.
+Here is sea poetry to match with that of Whitman and Swinburne. The
+music is drenched in salt-spray, wind-swept, exhilarating. There are
+pages in it through which rings the thunderous laughter of the sea in
+its mood of cosmic and terrifying elation, and there are pages through
+which drift sun-painted mists--mists that both conceal and disclose
+enchanted vistas and apparitions. There is an exhilaration even in his
+titles (which he has supplemented with mottos): as "To the Sea," "From
+a Wandering Iceberg," "Starlight," "From the Depths," "In Mid-Ocean."
+I make no concealment of my unqualified admiration for these pieces:
+with the sonatas, the "Dirge" from the "Indian" suite, and certain of
+the "Woodland Sketches," they record, I think, his high-water mark. He
+has carried them through with superb gusto, with unwearying
+imaginative fervour. In "To the Sea," "From the Depths," and "In
+Mid-Ocean," it is the sea of Whitman's magnificent apostrophe that he
+celebrates--the sea of
+
+  "brooding scowl and murk,"
+
+of
+
+  "unloosed hurricanes,"
+
+speaking, imperiously,
+
+  "with husky-haughty lips";
+
+while elsewhere, as in the "Wandering Iceberg" and "Nautilus" studies,
+the pervading tone is of Swinburne's
+
+  "deep divine dark dayshine of the sea."
+
+"Starlight" is of a brooding and solemn tenderness. The "Song" and
+"A.D. MDCXX." (a memoir of the notorious galleon of the Pilgrims) are
+in a lighter vein. The tonal plangency, the epic quality, of these
+studies is extraordinary,--exposing a tendency toward an orchestral
+fulness and breadth of style that will offer a more pertinent theme
+for comment in a consideration of the sonatas. Their littleness is
+wholly a quantitative matter; their spiritual and imaginative
+substance is not only of rare quality, but of striking amplitude.
+
+We come now to the final volumes in the series of what one may as well
+call pianistic "nature-studies": the "Fireside Tales" (op. 61) and
+"New England Idyls" (op. 62), which, together with the songs of op.
+60, constitute the last of his published works (they were all issued
+in 1902). In these last piano pieces there is a new quality, an
+unaccustomed accent. One notes it on the first page of the opening
+number of the "Fireside Tales," "An Old Love Story," where the voice
+of the composer seems to have taken on an unfamiliar _timbre_. There
+is here a turn of phrase, a quality of sentiment, which are notably
+fresh and strange. There is in this, and in "By Smouldering Embers," a
+graver tenderness, a more pervasive sobriety, than he had revealed
+before. Read over the D-flat major section of "An Old Love Story."
+Throughout MacDowell's previous work one will find no passage quite
+like it in contour and emotion. It is quieter, more ripely poised,
+than anything in his earlier manner that I can recall. "Of Br'er
+Rabbit," "From a German Forest," "Of Salamanders," and "A Haunted
+House," are in his familiar vein; but again the new note is sounded in
+the concluding number of the book, "By Smouldering Embers."
+
+In the "New England Idyls," the point is still more evident. One
+passes over "From an Old Garden" and "Midsummer" as belonging
+fundamentally to the period of the "Woodland Sketches" and "Sea
+Pieces." But one halts at "Mid-Winter," No. 3 of the collection; with
+those fifteen bars in E-flat major in the middle section, one enters
+upon unfamiliar ground in the various and delectable region of
+MacDowell's fantasy. So in the succeeding piece, "With Sweet
+Lavender": he had not given us in any of his former writing a theme
+similar in quality to the one with which he begins the thirteenth bar.
+"In Deep Woods" is less unusual--is, in fact, strongly suggestive, in
+harmonic colour, of the shining sonorities of the "Wandering Iceberg"
+study in the "Sea Pieces." The "Indian Idyl," "To an Old White Pine,"
+and "From Puritan Days" are also contrived in the familiar idiom of
+the earlier volumes, though they are unfailingly resourceful in
+invention and imaginative vigour. In "From a Log Cabin," though, we
+come upon as surprising a thing as MacDowell's art had yielded us
+since the appearance of the "Woodland Sketches." I doubt if, in the
+entire body of his writing, one will find a lovelier, a more intimate
+utterance. It bears as a motto the words--strangely prophetic when he
+wrote them--which are now inscribed on the memorial tablet near his
+grave:--
+
+  "A house of dreams untold,
+  It looks out over the whispering tree-tops
+  And faces the setting sun."
+
+[Illustration: THE "HOUSE OF DREAMS UNTOLD"--THE LOG CABIN IN THE
+WOODS AT PETERBORO WHERE MACDOWELL COMPOSED, AND WHERE MOST OF HIS
+LATER MUSIC WAS WRITTEN]
+
+The music of this piece is suffused with a mood that is Schumann-like
+in its intense sincerity of impulse, yet with a passionate fulness and
+ardour not elsewhere to be paralleled. It is steeped in an atmosphere
+which is felt in no other of his works, is the issue of an inspiration
+more profoundly contemplative than any to which he had hitherto
+responded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SONATAS
+
+
+MacDowell never hesitated, as I have elsewhere said, to adapt--some
+would say "warp"--the sonata form to the needs of his poetic purposes.
+Moreover, he declared his convictions as to the considerations which
+should govern its employment. "If the composer's ideas do not
+imperatively demand treatment in that [the sonata] form," he has
+observed--"that is, if his first theme is not actually dependent upon
+his second and side themes for its poetic fulfilment--he has not
+composed a sonata movement, but a potpourri, which the form only
+aggravates." There can be little question of the success which has
+attended his application of this principle to his own performances in
+this field, nor of the skill and tact with which he has reshaped the
+form in accordance with his chosen poetic or dramatic scheme.
+
+His four sonatas belong undeniably, though with a variously strict
+allegiance, to the domain of programme-music. Neither the "Tragica,"
+the "Eroica," the "Norse," nor the "Keltic," makes its appeal
+exclusively to the tonal sense. If one looks to these works for the
+particular kind of gratification which he is accustomed to derive, for
+example, from a sonata by Brahms (to name the most extreme of
+contrasts), he will not find it. It is impossible fully to appreciate
+and enjoy the last page of the "Keltic," for instance, without some
+knowledge of the dramatic crisis upon which the musician has
+built--although its beauty and power, as sheer music, are immediately
+perceptible.
+
+With the exception of the "Tragica," the poetic substratum of the
+sonatas has been avowed with more or less particularity. In the
+"Tragica"--his first essay in the form--he has vouchsafed only the
+general indication of his purpose which is declared in the title of
+the work, though it is known that in composing the music MacDowell was
+moved by the memory of his grief over the death of his master Raff (it
+might stand even more appropriately as a commentary on the tragedy of
+his own life). The tragic note is sounded, with impressive authority
+and force, in the brief introduction, _largo maestoso_. The music,
+from the first, drives to the very heart of the subject: there is
+neither pose nor bombast in the presentation of the thought; and this
+attitude is maintained throughout--in the ingratiating loveliness of
+the second subject, in the fierce striving of the middle section, in
+the noble and sombre slow movement,--a _largo_ of profound pathos and
+dignity,--and in the dramatic and impassioned close (the scherzo is, I
+think, less good). Of this final _allegro_ an exposition has been
+vouchsafed. While in the preceding movements, it is said, he aimed at
+expressing tragic details, in the last he has tried to generalise. He
+wished "to heighten the darkness of tragedy by making it follow
+closely on the heels of triumph. Therefore, he attempted to make the
+last movement a steadily progressive triumph, which, at its close, is
+utterly broken and shattered, thinking that the most poignant tragedy
+is that of catastrophe in the hour of triumph.... In doing this he has
+tried to epitomise the whole work." The meaning of the _coda_ is thus
+made clear: a climax approached with the utmost pomp and brilliancy,
+and cut short by a _precipitato_ descent in octaves, _fff_, ending
+with a reminiscence of the portentous subject of the introduction. It
+is a profoundly moving conclusion to a noble work--a work which Mr.
+James Huneker has not extravagantly called "the most marked
+contribution to solo sonata literature since Brahms' F-minor piano
+sonata"; yet it is not so fine a work as any one of the three sonatas
+which MacDowell afterward wrote. The style evinces, for the first time
+in his piano music, the striking orchestral character of his
+thought--yet the writing is not, paradoxical as it may seem,
+unpianistic. The suggestion of orchestral relationships is contained
+in the massiveness of the harmonic texture, and in the cumulative
+effect of the climaxes and crescendi. He conveys an impression of
+extended tone-spaces, of a largeness, complexity, and solidity of
+structure, which are peculiar to his own music, and which presuppose a
+rather disdainful view of the limitations of mere strings and hammers;
+yet it is all playable: its demands are formidable, but not
+prohibitive.
+
+[Illustration (Score): FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF THE MS. OF THE
+"SONATA TRAGICA"]
+
+In 1895 MacDowell published his "Sonata Eroica" (op. 50), and those
+who had wondered how he could better his performance in the "Tragica"
+received a fresh demonstration of the extent of his gifts. For these
+sonatas of his constitute an ascending series, steadily progressive in
+excellence of substance and workmanship. They are, on the whole, I
+think it will be determined, his most significant and important
+contribution to musical art. The "Eroica" bears the motto, "Flos
+regum Arthuris," and as a further index to its content MacDowell has
+given this explanation: "While not exactly programme music,"[14] he
+says, "I had in mind the Arthurian legend when writing this work. The
+first movement typifies the coming of Arthur. The scherzo was
+suggested by a picture of Dore showing a knight in the woods
+surrounded by elves. The third movement was suggested by my idea of
+Guinevere. That following represents the passing of Arthur." MacDowell
+had intended to inscribe the scherzo: "After Dore"; but he finally
+thought better of this because, as he told Mr. N.J. Corey, "the
+superscription seemed to single it out too much from the other
+movements." Concerning this movement Mr. Corey writes: "The passage
+which it [the Dore picture] illustrates, may be found in [Tennyson's]
+_Guinevere_, in the story of the little novice, following a few lines
+after the well known 'Late, late, so late!' poem. I always had a
+little feeling," continues Mr. Corey, "that the sonata would have been
+stronger, from a programme standpoint, with this movement
+omitted--that it had perhaps been included largely as a concession to
+the traditions of sonata form. The fact that no scherzos were included
+in the two sonatas that followed, strengthened my opinion in regard to
+this. I questioned him in regard to it later when I saw him in New
+York, and he replied that it was a matter over which he had pondered
+considerably, and one which had influenced him in the composition of
+the last two sonatas, as the insertion of a scherzo in such a scheme
+did seem something like an interruption, or 'aside.'"
+
+[14] It must be confessed that this qualification is a little
+difficult to grasp. Is not the sonata dependent for its complete
+understanding upon a knowledge of its literary basis? MacDowell
+exhibits here the half-heartedness which I have elsewhere remarked
+in his attitude toward representative music.
+
+In this sonata MacDowell has been not only faithful to his text, he
+has illuminated it. Indeed, I think it would not be extravagant to say
+that he has given us here the noblest musical incarnation of the
+Arthurian legend which we have. It is singular, by the way, how
+frequently one is impelled to use the epithet "noble" in praising
+MacDowell's work; in reference to the "Sonata Eroica" it has an
+emphatic aptness, for nobility is the keynote of this music. If the
+work, as a whole, has not the dynamic power of the "Tragica," the
+weight and gravity of substance, it is both a lovelier and a more
+lovable work, and it is everywhere more significantly accented. He has
+written few things more luxuriantly beautiful than the "Guinevere"
+movement, nothing more elevated and ecstatic than the apotheosis which
+ends the work. The diction throughout is richer and more variously
+contrasted than in the earlier work, and his manipulation of the form
+is more elastic.
+
+Apparent as is the advance of the "Eroica" over its predecessor, the
+difference between these and the two later sonatas--the "Norse" and
+the "Keltic"--is even more marked. The first of these, the "Norse"
+sonata (op. 57) appeared five years after the publication of the
+"Eroica." In the interval he had put forth the "Woodland Sketches,"
+the "Sea Pieces," and the songs of op. 56 and op. 58; and he had,
+evidently, examined deeply into the resources and potentialities of
+his art. He had hitherto done nothing quite like these two later
+sonatas; they are based upon larger and more intricate plans than
+their predecessors, are more determined and confident in their
+expression of personality, riper in style and far freer in form: they
+are, in fact, MacDowell at his most salient and distinguished. He has
+placed these lines of his own on the first page of the score of the
+"Norse" (which is dedicated to Grieg):
+
+  "Night had fallen on a day of deeds.
+  The great rafters in the red-ribbed hall
+  Flashed crimson in the fitful flame
+  Of smouldering logs;
+  And from the stealthy shadows
+  That crept 'round Harald's throne
+  Rang out a Skald's strong voice
+  With tales of battles won:
+  Of Gudrun's love
+  And Sigurd, Siegmund's son."
+
+Here, evidently, is a subject after his own heart, presenting such
+opportunities as he is at his happiest in improving--and he has
+improved them magnificently. The spaciousness of the plan, the boldness
+of the drawing, the fulness and intensity of the colour scheme, engage
+one's attention at the start. He has indulged almost to its extreme
+limits his predilection for extended chord formations and for phrases
+of heroic span--as in, for example, almost the whole of the first
+movement. The pervading quality of the musical thought is of a
+resistless and passionate virility. It is steeped in the barbaric and
+splendid atmosphere of the sagas. There are pages of epical breadth and
+power, passages of elemental vigour and ferocity--passages, again, of
+an exquisite tenderness and poignancy. Of the three movements which the
+work comprises, the first makes the most lasting impression, although
+the second (the slow movement) has a haunting subject, which is
+recalled episodically in the final movement in a passage of
+unforgettable beauty and character.
+
+With the publication, in 1901, of the "Keltic" sonata (his fourth, op.
+59),[15] MacDowell achieved a conclusive demonstration of his capacity
+as a creative musician of unquestionable importance. Not before had he
+given so convincing an earnest of the larger aspect of his genius:
+neither in the three earlier sonatas, in the "Sea Pieces," nor in the
+"Indian" suite, had he attained an equal magnitude, an equal scope and
+significance. Nowhere else in his work are the distinguishing traits
+of his genius so strikingly disclosed--the breadth and reach of
+imagination, the magnetic vitality, the richness and fervour, the
+conquering poetic charm. Here you will find a beauty which is as "the
+beauty of the men that take up spears and die for a name," no less
+than "the beauty of the poets that take up harp and sorrow and the
+wandering road"--a harp shaken with a wild and piercing music, a
+sorrow that is not of to-day, but of a past when dreams were actual
+and imperishable, and men lived the tales of beauty and of wonder
+which now are but a discredited and fading memory.
+
+[15] Dedicated, like the "Norse," to Grieg.
+
+It was a fortunate, if not an inevitable, event, in view of his
+temperamental affiliations with the Celtic genius, that MacDowell
+should have been made aware of the suitability for musical treatment
+of the ancient heroic chronicles of the Gaels, and that he should
+have gone for his inspiration, in particular, to the legends
+comprised in the famous Cycle of the Red Branch: that wonderful group
+of epics which comprises, among other tales, the story of the
+matchless Deirdre,--whose loveliness was such, so say the
+chroniclers, that "not upon the ridge of earth was there a woman so
+beautiful,"--and the life and adventures and glorious death of the
+incomparable Cuchullin. These two kindred legends MacDowell has
+welded into a coherent and satisfying whole; and in a verse with
+which he prefixes the sonata, he gives this index to its poetic
+content:
+
+  "Who minds now Keltic tales of yore,
+    Dark Druid rhymes that thrall;
+  Deirdre's song, and wizard lore
+    Of great Cuchullin's fall."
+
+At the time of the publication of the sonata he wrote to me as
+follows concerning it:
+
+    "... Here is the sonata, which it is a pleasure to me to offer you
+    as a token of sympathy. I enclose also some lines [of his own
+    verse] anent Cuchullin, which, however, do not entirely fit the
+    music, and which I hope to use in another musical form. They may
+    serve, however, to aid the understanding of the _stimmung_ of
+    the sonata. Cuchullin's story is in touch with the Deirdre-Naesi
+    tale; and, as with my 3rd Sonata, the music is more a commentary
+    on the subject than an actual depiction of it."
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A PASSAGE FROM THE ORIGINAL MS. OF THE
+"KELTIC" SONATA]
+
+The "lines anent Cuchullin" I quote below. They do not, as he said,
+have a parallel in the sonata as a whole; but in the _coda_ of the
+last movement (of which I shall speak later) he has attempted a
+commentary on the scene which he here describes:
+
+  "Cuchullin fought and fought in vain,
+  'Gainst faery folk and Druid thrall:
+  And as the queenly sun swept down.
+  In royal robes, red gold besown,
+  With one last lingering glance
+  He sate himself in lonely state
+  Against a giant monolith,
+  To wait Death's wooing call.
+  None dared approach the silent shape
+  That froze to iron majesty,
+  Save the wan, mad daughters of old Night,
+  Blind, wandering maidens of the mist,
+  Whose creeping fingers, cold and white,
+  Oft by the sluggard dead are kissed.
+  And yet the monstrous Thing held sway,
+  No living soul dared say it nay;
+  When lo! upon its shoulder still,
+  Unconscious of its potent will,
+  There perched a preening birdling gray,
+  A'weary of the dying day;
+  And all the watchers knew the lore:
+  Cuchullin was no more."
+
+To Mr. Corey MacDowell wrote:
+
+    "... Even though you are not on intimate terms with Deirdre,
+    Cuchullin, etc., you will easily perceive from the music that
+    something extremely unpleasant is happening. Joking aside, I will
+    confess to a certain fascination the subject has for me. So much
+    so that my 'motto' [the original motto--the verses which I have
+    quoted above] spread beyond the music; therefore I am going to
+    make a different work of the former, and for the sonata I adopted
+    the modest quatrain that is printed in it.... Like the third,
+    this fourth sonata is more of a 'bardic' rhapsody on the subject
+    than an attempt at actual presentation of it, although I have
+    made use of all the suggestion of tone-painting in my power,--just
+    as the bard would have reinforced _his_ speech with gesture
+    and facial expression."
+
+He aimed to make his music, as he says, "more a commentary on the
+subject than an actual depiction of it"; but the case would be stated
+more truly, I think, if one were to say that he has penetrated to the
+heart of the entire body of legends, has imbued himself with their
+ultimate spirit and significance, and has bodied it forth in his music
+with splendid veracity and eloquence. He has attempted no mere musical
+recounting of those romances of the ancient Gaelic world at which he
+hints in his brief motto. It would be juster to say, rather, that he
+has recalled in his music the very life and presence of the Gaelic
+prime--that he has "unbound the Island harp." Above all, he has
+achieved that "heroic beauty" which, believes Mr. Yeats, has been
+fading out of the arts since "that decadence we call progress set
+voluptuous beauty in its place"--that heroic beauty which is of the
+very essence of the imaginative life of the primitive Celts, and which
+the Celtic "revival" in contemporary letters has so signally failed to
+revive. For it is, I repeat, the heroic Gaelic world that MacDowell
+has made to live again in his music: that miraculous world of
+stupendous passions and aspirations, of bards and heroes and great
+adventure--the world of Cuchullin the Unconquerable, and Laeg, and
+Queen Meave; of Naesi, and Deirdre the Beautiful, and Fergus, and
+Connla the Harper, and those kindred figures, lovely or greatly
+tragical, that are like no other figures in the world's mythologies.
+
+This sonata marks the consummation of his evolution toward the acme of
+powerful expression. It is cast in a mould essentially heroic; it has
+its moods of tenderness, of insistent sweetness, but these are
+incidental: the governing mood is signified in the tremendous exordium
+with which the work opens, and which is sustained, with few
+deviations, throughout the work. Deirdre he has realised exquisitely
+in his middle movement: that is her image, in all its fragrant
+loveliness. MacDowell has limned her musically in a manner worthy of
+comparison with the sumptuous pen-portrait of her in Standish
+O'Grady's "Cuculain": "a woman of wondrous beauty, bright gold her
+hair, eyes piercing and splendid, tongue full of sweet sounds, her
+countenance like the colour of snow blended with crimson."
+
+In the close of the last movement we are justified in seeing a
+translation of the sublime tradition of Cuchullin's death. This it is
+which furnished MacDowell with the theme that he celebrates in the
+lines of verse which I have quoted above. I believe that he was
+planning an orchestral setting of this scene; and that, had he lived,
+we should have had from him a symphonic poem, "Cuchullin."
+
+The manner of the hero's death is thus described by Standish O'Grady:
+"Cuculain sprang forth, but as he sprang, Lewy MacConroi pierced him
+through the bowels. Then fell the great hero of the Gael. Thereat the
+sun darkened, and the earth trembled ... when, with a crash, fell that
+pillar of heroism, and that flame of the warlike valour of Erin was
+extinguished.... Then Cuculain, raising his eyes, saw thence
+northwards from the lake a tall pillar-stone, the grave of a warrior
+slain there in some ancient war. With difficulty he reached it and he
+leaned awhile against the pillar, for his mind wandered, and he knew
+nothing for a space. After that he took off his brooch, and removing
+the torn bratta [girdle], he passed it round the top of the pillar,
+where there was an indentation in the stone, and passed the ends under
+his arms and around his breast, tying with languid hands a loose knot,
+which soon was made fast by the weight of the dying hero; thus they
+beheld him standing with the drawn sword in his hand, and the rays of
+the setting sun bright on his panic-striking helmet. So stood
+Cuculain, even in death-pangs, a terror to his enemies, for a deep
+spring of stern valour was opened in his soul, and the might of his
+unfathomable spirit sustained him. Thus perished Cuculain ..."
+
+Superb as this is, it is paralleled by MacDowell's tone-picture. That,
+for nobility of conception, for majestic solemnity and pathos, is a
+musical performance which measures up to the level of superlative
+achievements.
+
+If there is anything in the literature of the piano since the death of
+Beethoven which, for combined passion, dignity, breadth of style,
+weight of momentum, and irresistible plangency of emotion, is
+comparable to the four sonatas which have been considered here, I do
+not know of it. And I write these words with a perfectly definite
+consciousness of all that they may be held to imply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE SONGS
+
+
+Any one who should undertake casually to examine MacDowell's songs
+_seriatim_, beginning with his earliest listed work in this form--the
+"Two Old Songs," op. 9--would not improbably be struck by an apparent
+lack of continuity and logic in the initial stages of his artistic
+development. At first glance, MacDowell seems to have attained a
+phenomenal ripeness and individuality of expression in these songs,
+which head the catalogue of his published works; whereas the songs of
+the following opus (11-12) are conventional and unimportant. The
+explanation, which I have elsewhere intimated, is simple. The songs of
+op. 11 and 12, issued in 1883, were the first of his _Lieder_ to appear
+in print; the songs numbered op. 9, which would appear to antedate
+them in composition and publication, were not written until a decade
+later, when they were issued under an arbitrary opus number as a
+matter of expediency. Their proper place in MacDowell's musical
+history is, therefore, about synchronous with the mature and
+characteristic "Eight Songs" of op. 47. From the five songs now
+published in one volume as op. 11 and 12, the progress of MacDowell's
+art as a song writer is both steady and intelligible.
+
+He has not been especially prolific in this field, when one thinks of
+Grieg's one hundred and twenty songs, and of Brahms' one hundred and
+ninety-six; not to mention Schumann's two hundred and forty-eight, or
+Schubert's amazing six hundred and over. MacDowell has written
+forty-two songs for single voice and piano, together with a number of
+ingenious and effective pieces for men's voices and for mixed chorus.
+
+He has avowed his methods and principles as a song writer. In an
+interview published a few years before his death he declared his
+opinion to be that "song writing should follow declamation"--that the
+composer "should declaim the poems in sounds: the attention of the
+hearer should be fixed upon the central point of declamation. The
+accompaniment should be merely a background for the words. Harmony is
+a frightful den for the small composer to get into--it leads him into
+frightful nonsense. Too often the accompaniment of a song becomes a
+piano fantasie with no resemblance to the melody. Colour and harmony
+under such conditions mislead the composer; he uses it instead of the
+line which he at the moment is setting, and obscures the central
+point, the words, by richness of tissue and overdressing; and all
+modern music is labouring under that. He does not seem to pause to
+think that music was not made merely for pleasure, but to say things.
+
+"Language and music have nothing in common. In one way, that which is
+melodious in verse becomes doggerel in music, and meter is hardly of
+value. Sonnets in music become abominable. I have made many
+experiments for finding the affinity of language and music. The two
+things are diametrically opposed, unless music is free to distort
+syllables. A poem may be of only four words, and yet those four words
+may contain enough suggestion for four pages of music; but to found a
+song on those four words would be impossible. For this reason the
+paramount value of the poem is that of its suggestion in the field of
+instrumental music, where a single line may be elaborated upon....
+To me, in this respect, the poem holds its highest value of
+suggestion.... A short poem would take a lifetime to express; to do
+it in as many bars of music is impossible. The words clash with the
+music, they fail to carry the full suggestion of the poem ...
+
+"Many poems contain syllables ending with _e_ or other letters not
+good to sing. Some exceptionally beautiful poems possess this
+shortcoming, and, again, words that prove insurmountable obstacles. I
+have in mind one by Aldrich in which the word 'nostrils' occurs in the
+very first verse, and one cannot do anything with it. Much of the
+finest poetry--for instance, the wonderful writings of Whitman--proves
+unsuitable, yet it has been undertaken....
+
+"A song, if at all dramatic, should have climax, form, and plot, as
+does a play. Words to me seem so paramount and, as it were, apart in
+value from the musical setting, that, while I cannot recall the
+melodies of many of the songs that I have written, the words of them
+are so indelibly impressed upon my mind that they are very easy of
+recall.... Music and poetry cannot be accurately stated unless one has
+written both."
+
+It is clear that these are the views of a composer who placed
+veracious declamation of the poetic idea very much to the front in his
+conception of the art of the song-writer. They explain in part, also,
+the fact that MacDowell himself wrote the words of many of his songs,
+though, quite characteristically, he did not avow the fact in the
+printed music. The verses of all the songs of op. 56, save one, op.
+58, and op. 60 (the last three sets that he wrote), of the "Slumber
+Song" of op. 9, of "The Robin Sings in the Apple Tree," "Confidence,"
+and "The West Wind Croons in the Cedar Trees" (op. 47), and of some of
+the choruses, were of his authorship. He enjoyed what he called
+"stringing words together," and most of his verses were written
+off-hand, with a facility which betrayed the marked gift for verbal
+expression which is apparent in his often admirably stated lectures.
+But his especial reason for writing the words for his songs was his
+difficulty hi finding texts which quite suited him. Many poems which
+he would have liked to set were, as he explained in the words I have
+quoted, full of snags in the way of unsingable words. And though it
+used to make him uncomfortable to do so, he often felt compelled for
+this reason to refuse much otherwise excellent poetry that was sent to
+him with the request that he use it for music. Some of the verse that
+he wrote for use in his songs is of uncommon quality--imaginative,
+distinguished in diction, and, above all, perfectly suited to musical
+utterance. Of uncommon quality, too, are some of the brief verses
+which he used as mottos for certain of his later piano pieces--as for
+the "Sea Pieces" and "New England Idyls."
+
+That his songs, as a whole, are comparable in inherent artistic
+consequence with his sonatas, or with such things as the "Woodland
+Sketches," the "Sea Pieces," and the "New England Idyls," I do not
+believe, although I readily grant the beauty and fascination of many
+passages, and of certain pages in which he is incontestably at the
+height of his powers. Here, as in his writing for piano and for
+orchestra, one will find abundant evidence of his distinguishing
+traits--sensitiveness and fervour of imagination, a lovely and
+intimate sense of romance, whimsical and piquant humour, virility,
+passion, an unerring instinct for atmospheric suggestion. But there
+are times when, despite his avowed principles in the matter, he
+sacrifices truth of declamation to the presumed requirements of
+melodic design--when he seems to pay more heed to the unrelated effect
+of tonal contours than to the dramatic or emotional needs of his text.
+As an instance of his not infrequent indifference to justness of
+declamatory utterance, examine his setting of "in those brown eyes,"
+at the bottom of the last page of "Confidence" (op. 47), and of the
+word "without" in the fourth bar of "Tyrant Love" (op. 60). I dwell
+upon this point, not in any spirit of captiousness, I need scarcely
+say, but because it exemplifies a fairly persistent characteristic of
+MacDowell's style as a song writer.
+
+Of that other trait to which I have referred--his not exceptional
+preoccupation with a purely musical plan at the expense of dramatic
+and emotional congruity--the attentive observer will not want for
+examples in almost any of MacDowell's song-groups. As a single
+instance, I may allege the run in eighth-notes which encumbers the
+setting of the second syllable of the word "again," in the fourth bar
+of "Springtide" (op. 60). Such infelicities are difficult to account
+for in the work of a musician so exceedingly sensitive in matters of
+poetic fitness as he. It may be that his acute sense of dramatic and
+emotional values operated perfectly only when he was unhampered by the
+thought of the voice.
+
+I have dwelt upon this point because it should be noted in any candid
+study of his traits as a song writer. Yet it is not a defect which
+weighs heavily against him when one considers the musical quality of
+his songs as a whole. Not, as a whole, equal to his piano music, they
+are admirable and deeply individual; and the best of them are not
+surpassed in any body of modern song-writing.
+
+[Illustration: THE MUSIC-ROOM AT PETERSBORO]
+
+In almost all of his songs the voice is predominant over the piano
+part--although he is far, indeed, from writing mere accompaniments:
+the support which he gives the voice is consistently important, for he
+brings to bear upon it all his rich resources of harmonic expression.
+But though he makes the voice the paramount element, he uses it, in
+general, rather as a vehicle for the unconscious exposition of a
+determined lyricism than as an instrument of precise emotional
+utterance. When one thinks of how Hugo Wolf, for example, or Debussy,
+would have treated the phrase, "to wake again the bitter joy of love,"
+in "Fair Springtide," it will be felt, I think, that MacDowell's
+setting leaves something to be desired on the score of emotional
+verity, although the song, as a whole, is one of the loveliest and
+most spontaneous he has written. I do not mean to say that he does not
+often achieve an ideal correspondence between the significance of his
+text and the effect of his music; but when he does--as in, for
+instance, that superb tragedy in little, "The Sea,"[16] or in the
+still finer "Sunrise"[17]--one's impression is that it is the
+fortunate result of chance, rather than the outcome of deliberate
+artistic purpose. It is in songs of an untrammelled lyricism that his
+art finds its chief opportunity. In such he is both delightful and
+satisfying--in, for instance, the six flower songs, "From an Old
+Garden"; in "Confidence" and "In the Woods" (op. 47); in "The Swan
+Bent Low to the Lily," "A Maid Sings Light," and "Long Ago" (op. 56);
+and in the delectable "To the Golden Rod," from his last song group
+(op. 60). This is music of blithe and captivating allurement, of grave
+or riant tenderness, of compelling fascination; and in it, the word
+and the tone are ideally mated. Yet even in others of his songs in
+which they do not so invariably correspond, one must acknowledge
+gladly the beauty and freshness of the music itself: such music as he
+has given us in "Constancy" (op. 58), in "As the Gloaming Shadows
+Creep" (op. 56), in "Fair Springtide"--which represent his ripest
+utterances as a song writer. If he is not, in this particular form,
+quite at his happiest, he is among the foremost of those who have kept
+alive in the modern tradition the conception of the song as a medium
+of lyric utterance no less than of precise dramatic signification.
+
+[16] No. VII. of the "Eight Songs," op. 47.
+
+[17] Op. 58, No. II.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+SUMMARY
+
+
+To gain a true sense of MacDowell's place in American music it is
+necessary to remember that twenty-five years ago, when he sent from
+Germany, as the fruit of his apprenticeship there, the earliest
+outgivings of his talent, our native musical art was still little
+more than a pallid reproduction of European models. MacDowell did
+not at that time, of course, give positive evidence of the vitality
+and the rarity of his gifts; yet there was, even in his early
+music,--undeniably immature though it was, and modelled after easily
+recognised Teutonic masters,--a fresh and untrammelled impulse. A new
+note vibrated through it, a new and buoyant personality suffused it.
+Thenceforth music in America possessed an artistic figure of
+constantly increasing stature. MacDowell commanded, from the start,
+an original idiom, a manner of speech which has been recognised even
+by his detractors as entirely his own.
+
+His style is as pungent and unmistakable as Grieg's, and far less
+limited in its variety. Hearing certain melodic turns, certain
+harmonic formations, you recognise them at once as belonging to
+MacDowell, and to none other. This marked individuality of speech,
+apparent from the first, became constantly more salient and more
+vivid, and in the music which he gave forth at the height of his
+creative activity,--in, say, the "Sea Pieces" and the last two
+sonatas,--it is unmistakable and beyond dispute. This emphatically
+personal accent it was which, a score of years ago, set MacDowell in a
+place apart among native American music-makers. No one else was saying
+such charming and memorable things in so fresh and individual a way.
+We had then, as we have had since, composers who were entitled to
+respect by virtue of their expert and effective mastery of a familiar
+order of musical expression,--who spoke correctly a language acquired
+in the schools of Munich, Leipzig, and Berlin. But they had nothing to
+say that was both important and new. They had grace, they had
+dexterity, they had, in a measure, scholarship; but their art was
+obviously derivative, without originality of substance or a telling
+quality of style. It is not a needlessly harsh asseveration to say
+that, until MacDowell began to put forth his more individual works,
+our music had been palpably, almost frankly, dependent: an undisguised
+and naive transplantation, made rather feeble and anaemic in the
+process, of European growths. The result was admirable, in its way,
+praiseworthy, in its way--and wholly negligible.
+
+The music of MacDowell was, almost from the first, in a wholly
+different case. In its early phases it, too, was imitative,
+reflective. MacDowell returned to America, after a twelve years'
+apprenticeship to European influences, in 1888, bringing with him his
+symphonic poems, "Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine," his
+unfinished "Lamia," his two orchestral paraphrases of scenes from the
+Song of Roland, two concertos, and numerous songs and piano pieces.
+Not greatly important music, this, measured beside that which he
+afterward put forth; but possessing an individual profile, a savour, a
+tang, which gave it an immediately recognised distinction. A new voice
+spoke out of it, a fresh and confident, an eloquent and forceful,
+voice. It betrayed Germanic influences: of that there was no question;
+yet it was strikingly rich in personal accent. Gradually his art came
+to find, through various forms, a constantly finer and weightier
+expression. For orchestra he wrote the "Indian" suite--music of superb
+vigour, fantastically and deeply imaginative, wholly personal in
+quality; for the piano he wrote four sonatas of heroic and passionate
+content--indisputable masterworks--and various shorter pieces, free in
+form and poetic in inspiration; and he wrote many songs, some of them
+quite flawless in their loveliness and their emotional veracity.
+
+It will thus be seen why the potent and aromatic art of MacDowell
+impressed those who were able to feel its charm and estimate its
+value. It is mere justice to him, now that he has definitely passed
+beyond the reach of our praise, to say that he gave to the art of
+creative music in this country (I am thinking now only of music-makers
+of native birth) its single impressive and vital figure. His is the
+one name in our music which, for instance, one would venture to pair
+with that of Whitman in poetry.
+
+An abundance of pregnant, beautiful, and novel ideas was his chief
+possession, and he fashioned them into musical designs with great
+skill and unflagging art. That he did not undertake adventures in all
+of the forms of music, has been said. There is no symphony in the list
+of his published works, no large choral composition. Yet he was far
+from being a miniaturist,--he was, in fact, anything but that. His
+four sonatas for the piano are planned upon truly heroic lines; they
+are large in scope and of epical sweep and breadth; and his "Indian"
+suite is the most impressive orchestral work composed by an American.
+He wrote two piano concertos,--early works, not of his best
+inspiration,--a large number of poetically descriptive smaller works,
+and almost half a hundred songs of frequent loveliness and character.
+The three symphonic poems, "Hamlet and Ophelia," "Lancelot and
+Elaine," and "Lamia"; the two "fragments," "The Saracens," and "The
+Lovely Alda," and the first orchestral suite, op. 42--which he might
+have entitled "Sylvan"--complete the record of his output, save for
+some spirited but not very important part-songs for male voices. The
+list comprises sixty-two opus numbers and one hundred and eighty-six
+separate compositions,--not a remarkable accomplishment, in point of
+quantity, yet notable and rare in quality.
+
+He suggested, at his best, no one save himself. He was one of the most
+individual writers who ever made music--as individual as Chopin, or
+Debussy, or Brahms, or Grieg. His mannner of speech was utterly
+untrammelled, and wholly his own. Vitality--an abounding freshness, a
+perpetual youthfulness--was one of his prime traits; nobility--nobility
+of style and impulse--was another. The morning freshness, the welling
+spontaneity of his music, even in moments of exalted or passionate
+utterance, was continually surprising: it was music not unworthy of the
+golden ages of the world. Yet MacDowell was a Celt, and his music is
+deeply Celtic--mercurial, by turns dolorous and sportive, darkly
+tragical and exquisitely blithe, and overflowing with the unpredictable
+and inexplicable magic of the Celtic imagination. He is unfailingly
+noble--it is, in the end, the trait which most surely signalises him.
+"To every man," wrote Maeterlinck, "there come noble thoughts, thoughts
+that pass across his heart like great white birds." Such thoughts came
+often to MacDowell--they seem always to be hovering not far from the
+particular territory to which his inspiration has led him, even when he
+is most gayly inconsequent; and in his finest and largest utterances,
+in the sonatas, their majestic trend appears somehow to have suggested
+the sweeping and splendid flight of the musical idea. Not often subtle
+in impulse or recondite in mood, his art has nothing of the
+impalpability, the drifting, iridescent vapours of Debussy, nothing of
+the impenetrable backgrounds of Brahms. He would have smiled at the
+dictum of Emerson: "a beauty not explicable is dearer than a beauty of
+which we can see the end." He knew how to evoke a kind of beauty that
+was both aerial and enchanted; but it was a clarified and lucid beauty,
+even then: it was never dim or wavering. He would never, as I have
+said, have comprehended the art of such a writer as Debussy--he viewed
+the universe from a wholly different angle. Of the moderns, Wagner he
+worshipped, Tchaikovsky deeply moved him, Grieg he loved--Grieg, who
+was his artistic inferior in almost every respect. Yet none of these so
+seduced his imagination that his independence was overcome--he was
+always, throughout his maturity, himself; not arrogantly or
+insistently, but of necessity; he could not be otherwise.
+
+What are the distinguishing traits, after all, of MacDowell's music?
+The answer is not easily given. His music is characterised by great
+buoyancy and freshness, by an abounding vitality, by a constantly
+juxtaposed tenderness and strength, by a pervading nobility of tone
+and feeling. It is charged with emotion, yet it is not brooding or
+hectic, and it is seldom intricate or recondite in its psychology. It
+is music curiously free from the fevers of sex. And here I do not wish
+to be misunderstood. This music is anything but androgynous. It is
+always virile, often passionate, and, in its intensest moments, full
+of force and vigour. But the sexual impulse which underlies it is
+singularly fine, strong, and controlled. The strange and burdened
+winds, the subtle delirium, the disorder of sense, that stir at times
+in the music of Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, are not to be found
+here. In Wagner, in certain songs by Debussy, one often feels, as
+Pater felt in William Morris's "King Arthur's Tomb," the tyranny of a
+moon which is "not tender and far-off, but close down--the sorcerer's
+moon, large and feverish," and the presence of a colouring that is "as
+of scarlet lilies"; and there is the suggestion of poison, with "a
+sudden bewildered sickening of life and all things." In the music of
+MacDowell there is no hint of these matters; there is rather the
+infinitely touching emotion of those rare beings who are in their
+interior lives both passionate and shy: they know desire and sorrow,
+supreme ardour and enamoured tenderness; but they do not know either
+the languor or the dementia of eroticism; they are haunted and swept
+by beauty, but they are not sickened or oppressed by it. Nor is their
+passion mystical and detached. MacDowell in his music is full-blooded,
+but he is never febrile: in this (though certainly in nothing else) he
+is like Brahms. The passion by which he is swayed is never, in its
+expression, ambiguous or exotic, his sensuousness is never luscious.
+It is difficult to think of a single passage from which that accent
+upon which I have dwelt--the accent of nobility, of a certain
+chivalry, a certain rare and spontaneous dignity--is absent. Yet he
+can be, withal, wonderfully tender and deeply impassioned, with a
+sharpness of emotion that is beyond denial. In such songs as
+"Deserted" (op. 9); "Menie" (op. 34); "The Robin Sings in the Apple
+Tree," "The West Wind Croons in the Cedar Trees" (op. 47); "The Swan
+Bent Low to the Lily," "As the Gloaming Shadows Creep" (op. 56);
+"Constancy" (op. 58); "Fair Springtide" (op. 60); in "Lancelot and
+Elaine"; in "Told at Sunset," from the "Woodland Sketches"; in "An Old
+Love Story," from "Fireside Tales": in this music the emotion is the
+distinctive emotion of sex; but it is the sexual emotion known to
+Burns rather than to Rossetti, to Schubert rather than to Wagner.
+
+He had the rapt and transfiguring imagination, in the presence of
+nature, which is the special possession of the Celt. Yet he was more
+than a mere landscape painter. The human drama was for him a
+continually moving spectacle; he was most sensitively attuned to its
+tragedy and its comedy,--he was never more potent, more influential,
+indeed, than in celebrating its events. He is at the summit of his
+powers, for example, in the superb pageant of heroic grief and equally
+heroic love which is comprised within the four movements of the
+"Keltic" sonata, and in the piercing sadness and the transporting
+tenderness of the "Dirge" in the "Indian" suite.
+
+In its general aspect his later music is not German, or French, or
+Italian--its spiritual antecedents are Northern, both Celtic and
+Scandinavian. MacDowell had not the Promethean imagination, the
+magniloquent passion, that are Strauss's; his art is far less
+elaborate and subtle than that of such typical moderns as Debussy and
+d'Indy. But it has an order of beauty that is not theirs, an order of
+eloquence that is not theirs, a kind of poetry whose secrets they do
+not know; and there speaks through it and out of it an individuality
+that is persuasive, lovable, unique.
+
+There is no need to attempt, at this juncture, to speculate concerning
+his place among the company of the greater dead; it is enough to avow
+the conviction that he possessed genius of a rare order, that he
+wrought nobly and valuably for the art of the country which he loved.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF WORKS
+
+COMPOSITIONS OF EDWARD MACDOWELL
+
+
+Op. 9.   _Two Old Songs_, for voice and piano (1894)[18]:
+           1. Deserted
+           2. Slumber Song
+
+[18] The publication dates given here are those of the original
+editions.
+
+Op. 10.  First _Modern Suite_, for piano (1883):
+           Praeladium--Presto--Andantino and
+           Allegretto--Intermezzo--Rhapsody--Fugue
+
+Op. 11.] _An Album of Five Songs_, for voice and piano
+Op. 12.]   1. My Love and I
+           2. You Love me Not
+           3. In the Skies
+           4. Night-Song
+           5. Bands of Roses
+
+Op. 13.  _Prelude and Fugue_, for piano (1883)
+
+Op. 14.  _Second Modern Suite_, for piano (1883):
+           Praeludium--Fugato--Rhapsody--Scherzino--March--Fantastic
+           Dance
+
+Op. 15.  _First Concerto_, in A-minor, for piano and orchestra (1885)
+
+Op. 16.  _Serenata_, for piano (1883)
+
+Op. 17.  _Two Fantastic Pieces_, for piano (1884):
+           1. Legend
+           2. Witches' Dance
+
+Op. 18.  _Two Compositions_, for piano (1884):
+           1. Barcarolle
+           2. Humoresque
+
+Op. 19.  _Forest Idyls_, for piano (1884):
+           1. Forest Stillness
+           2. Play of the Nymphs
+           3. Revery
+           4. Dance of the Dryads
+
+Op. 20.  _Three Poems_, for piano, four hands (1886):
+           1. Night at Sea
+           2. A Tale of the Knights
+           3. Ballad
+
+Op. 21.  _Moon Pictures_, for piano, four hands (1886):
+           1. The Hindoo Maiden
+           2. Stork's Story
+           3. In Tyrol
+           4. The Swan
+           5. Visit of the Bear
+
+Op. 22.  _Hamlet and Ophelia_, symphonic poem for orchestra (1885)
+
+Op. 23.  _Second Concerto_, in D-minor, for piano and orchestra
+         (1890)
+
+Op. 24.  _Four Compositions_, for piano (1887):
+           1. Humoresque
+           2. March
+           3. Cradle Song
+           4. Czardas
+
+Op. 25.  _Lancelot and Elaine_, symphonic poem for orchestra (1888)
+
+Op. 26.  _From an Old Garden_, for voice and piano (1887):
+           1. The Pansy
+           2. The Myrtle
+           3. The Clover
+           4. The Yellow Daisy
+           5. The Blue Bell
+           6. The Mignonette
+
+Op. 27.  _Three Songs_, for male chorus (1890):
+           1. In the Starry Sky Above Us
+           2. Springtime
+           3. The Fisherboy
+
+Op. 28.  _Six Idyls after Goethe_, for piano (1887):
+           1. In the Woods
+           2. Siesta
+           3. To the Moonlight
+           4. Silver Clouds
+           5. Flute Idyl
+           6. The Bluebell
+
+Op. 29.  _Lamia_, symphonic poem for orchestra (1908)[19]
+
+[19] Posthumous.
+
+Op. 30.  _The Saracens; The Lovely Alda_, two fragments
+(after the Song of Roland), for orchestra (1891)
+
+Op. 31.  _Six Poems after Heine_, for piano (1887):
+           1. From a Fisherman's Hut
+           2. Scotch Poem
+           3. From Long Ago
+           4. The Post Wagon
+           5. The Shepherd Boy
+           6. Monologue
+
+Op. 32.  _Four Little Poems_, for piano (1888):
+           1. The Eagle
+           2. The Brook
+           3. Moonshine
+           4. Winter
+
+Op. 33.  _Three Songs_, for voice and piano (1894):
+           1. Prayer
+           2. Cradle Hymn
+           3. Idyl
+
+Op. 34.  _Two Songs_, for voice and piano (1889):
+           1. Menie
+           2. My Jean
+
+Op. 35.  _Romance_, for violoncello and orchestra (1888)
+
+Op. 36.  _Etude de Concert_, in F-sharp, for piano (1889)
+
+Op. 37.  _Les Orientales_, for piano (1889):
+           1. Clair de Lune
+           2. Dans le Hamac
+           3. Danse Andalouse
+
+Op. 38.  _Marionettes_, Eight Little Pieces, for piano (1888)[20]:
+           1. Prologue
+           2. Soubrette
+           3. Lover
+           4. Witch
+           5. Clown
+           6. Villain
+           7. Sweetheart
+           8. Epilogue
+
+[20] In their original form this set comprised only six pieces.
+MacDowell afterward revised them extensively, rearranged their order,
+and added the "Prologue" and "Epilogue." In this altered form they
+were published in 1901.
+
+Op. 39.  _Twelve Studies_, for piano (1890):
+           [ Hunting Song
+           | Alla Tarantella
+           | Romance
+Book 1.    | Arabesque
+           | In the Forest
+           | Dance of the Gnomes]
+           [ Idyl
+           | Shadow Dance
+Book 2.    | Intermezzo]
+           | Melody
+           | Scherzino
+           | Hungarian]
+
+Op. 40.  _Six Love Songs_, for voice and piano (1890):
+           1. Sweet, Blue-eyed Maid
+           2. Sweetheart, Tell Me
+           3. Thy Beaming Eyes
+           4. For Love's Sweet Sake
+           5. O Lovely Rose
+           6. I Ask but This
+
+Op. 41.  _Two Songs_, for male chorus (1890):
+           1. Cradle Song
+           2. Dance of the Gnomes
+
+Op. 42.  _First Suite_, for orchestra (1891-1893[21]):
+           1. In a Haunted Forest
+           2. Summer Idyl
+           3. In October
+           4. The Shepherdess' Song
+           5. Forest Spirits
+
+[21] As originally published, in 1891, this suite comprised only the
+first, second, fourth, and fifth movements. The third, "In October,"
+though composed at the same time as the others, and intended for
+inclusion in the suite, was not published until 1893, when it was
+issued as a "supplement" under the same opus number.
+
+Op. 43.  _Two Northern Songs_, for mixed chorus (1891):
+           1. The Brook
+           2. Slumber Song
+
+Op. 44.  _Barcarolle_, for mixed chorus with four-hand piano
+accompaniment (1892)
+
+Op. 45.  _Sonata Tragica_, for piano (1893)
+
+Op. 46.  _Twelve Virtuoso Studies_, for piano (1894):
+           1. Novelette
+           2. Moto Perpetuo
+           3. Wild Chase
+           4. Improvisation
+           5. Elfin Dance
+           6. Valse triste
+           7. Burleske
+           8. Bluette
+           9. Traeumerei
+          10. March Wind
+          11. Impromptu
+          12. Polonaise
+
+Op. 47.  _Eight Songs_, for voice and piano (1893):
+           1. The Robin Sings in the Apple Tree
+           2. Midsummer Lullaby
+           3. Folk Song
+           4. Confidence
+           5. The West Wind Croons in the Cedar Trees
+           6. In the Woods
+           7. The Sea
+           8. Through the Meadow
+
+Op. 48.  _Second (Indian) Suite_, for orchestra (1897):
+           1. Legend
+           2. Love Song
+           3. In War-time
+           4. Dirge
+           5. Village Festival
+
+Op. 49.  _Air and Rigaudon_, for piano (1894)
+
+Op. 50.  _Second Sonata (Eroica)_, for piano (1895)
+
+Op. 51.  _Woodland Sketches_, for piano (1896):
+           1. To a Wild Rose
+           2. Will'-o-the-Wisp
+           3. At an Old Trysting Place
+           4. In Autumn
+           5. From an Indian Lodge
+           6. To a Water-lily
+           7. From Uncle Remus
+           8. A Deserted Farm
+           9. By a Meadow Brook
+          10. Told at Sunset
+
+Op. 52.  _Three Choruses_, for male voices (1897):
+           1. Hush, hush!
+           2. From the Sea
+           3. The Crusaders
+
+Op. 53.  _Two Choruses_, for male voices (1898):
+           1. Bonnie Ann
+           2. The Collier Lassie
+
+Op. 54.  _Two Choruses_, for male voices (1898):
+           1. A Ballad of Charles the Bold
+           2. Midsummer Clouds
+
+Op. 55.  _Sea Pieces_, for piano (1898):
+           1. To the Sea
+           2. From a Wandering Iceberg
+           3. A.D. 1620
+           4. Starlight
+           5. Song
+           6. From the Depths
+           7. Nautilus
+           8. In Mid-Ocean
+
+Op. 56.  _Four Songs_, for voice and piano (1898):
+           1. Long Ago
+           2. The Swan Bent Low to the Lily
+           3. A Maid Sings Light
+           4. As the Gloaming Shadows Creep
+
+Op. 57.  _Third Sonata (Norse)_, for piano (1900)
+
+Op. 58.  _Three Songs_, for voice and piano (1899):
+           1. Constancy
+           2. Sunrise
+           3. Merry Maiden Spring
+
+Op. 59.  _Fourth Sonata (Keltic)_, for piano (1901)
+
+Op. 60.  _Three Songs_, for voice and piano (1902):
+           1. Tyrant Love
+           2. Fair Springtide
+           3. To the Golden Rod
+
+Op. 61.  _Fireside Tales_, for piano (1902):
+           1. An Old Love Story
+           2. Of Br'er Rabbit
+           3. From a German Forest
+           4. Of Salamanders
+           5. A Haunted House
+           6. By Smouldering Embers
+
+Op. 62.  _New England Idyls_, for piano (1902):
+           1. An Old Garden
+           2. Midsummer
+           3. Mid-winter
+           4. With Sweet Lavender
+           5. In Deep Woods
+           6. Indian Idyl
+           7. To an Old White Pine
+           8. From Puritan Days
+           9. From a Log Cabin
+          10. The Joy of Autumn
+
+
+WITHOUT OPUS NUMBER
+
+         _Two Songs from the Thirteenth Century_, for male chorus (1897):
+           1. Winter Wraps his Grimmest Spell
+           2. As the Gloaming Shadows Creep
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDWARD MACDOWELL***
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