MacDowell [McDowell],
Edward (Alexander)
(b New York, 18 Dec 1860; d New
York, 23 Jan 1908). American composer, pianist
and teacher. At the turn of the 20th century he was
America's best-known composer both at home and abroad, particularly renowned
for his piano concertos and evocative piano miniatures.
1. Life.
2. Views and
aesthetics.
3. Orchestral music.
4. Early piano music.
5. Sonatas.
6. Late piano sets.
7. Vocal music.
WORKS
WRITINGS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DOLORES PESCE (text, bibliography), MARGERY
MORGAN LOWENS (work-list)
MacDowell, Edward
1. Life.
MacDowell's
ancestry was English on his mother's side and Scottish-Irish on his father's.
Though his father's family had been Quakers, there is little indication that MacDowell
practised this or any other religion. He showed skill in drawing and music at
an early age, and when he was eight began piano lessons with the Colombian
violinist Juan Buitrago. Buitrago introduced him as a boy to Teresa Carreño,
who encouraged him and later became a promoter of his music in the USA and
abroad.
In
April 1876 his mother took him to Paris to attend the Conservatoire, where he
studied the piano with Marmontel. Dissatisfied with the instruction he was
receiving, he went on to Germany in 1878, and studied in turn in Stuttgart,
Wiesbaden and Frankfurt (at the Hoch Konservatorium with Carl Heymann for piano
and Raff for composition). On several occasions in 1879 and 1880 he played for
Liszt at conservatory concerts, and this helped further his career. By August
1880 he had left the conservatory and begun to support himself by giving
private piano lessons, which he did until 1885, except for a year spent
teaching at the Städtische Akademie für Tonkunst, Darmstadt (1881–2). His first
seven opus numbers, works either for piano or male chorus, were published under
the pseudonym of Edgar Thorn(e).
Meanwhile
he continued his association with Raff, who encouraged him to send his Erste
moderne Suite op.10 to Liszt on its completion in 1881; Liszt recommended
the work for performance at a meeting of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein
in 1882 and for publication by Breitkopf & Härtel. This was the beginning
of his success as a composer, and other German firms were to publish his music
within the next few years. In 1883 Teresa Carreño began playing his (by then)
two Moderne Suiten in concerts throughout the USA. The next year he
married Marian Nevins, a fellow American. They settled first in Frankfurt, then
Wiesbaden, and from 1885 to 1888 MacDowell devoted himself almost exclusively
to composition. In part because of financial difficulties he decided to return
to America in the autumn of 1888.
MacDowell
and his wife lived in Boston from 1888 to 1896, and during that period he
composed his opp.37–51, which include his ‘Indian’ Suite and Woodland
Sketches. These years also saw his rise to public attention as a result of
concerts in which he played his own music. In March 1889 he gave the première
of his Second Concerto under the direction of Theodore Thomas in New York; the
next month he played it again with the Boston SO. There followed performances
of his symphonic poems and orchestral suites, as well as of his solo piano
pieces. A performance by the Boston SO of his First Piano Concerto and ‘Indian’
Suite at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, in January 1896, was a high
point in his career; he was critically acclaimed as both performer and
composer, and within months was offered an appointment as Columbia University's
first professor of music.
He
lived in New York from 1896 until his death, working enthusiastically and
devotedly at the task of building Columbia's music department, in which he was
the sole teacher for two years. He also continued to teach the piano privately,
gave concerts during the winter vacations, conducted the Mendelssohn Glee Club
(1896–8) and served as president of the Society of American Musicians and
Composers (1899–1900). Though he found time to compose only during summer
vacations, his works from this time include several important sets of piano
pieces, as well as partsongs and solo songs. After his return from a sabbatical
year (1902–3), during which he toured the USA and Canada giving concerts, he
fell out with Nicholas Murray Butler, the new president of Columbia, and resigned
his position in mid-1904.
After this he remained active as a private piano teacher and as a
member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters (to which he was elected in
1898), the American Academy of Arts and Letters (he was one of its founders in
1904) and the American Academy in Rome. His health began to deteriorate in
1904, perhaps as a result of a traffic accident he had that year and by the
autumn of 1905 he was almost completely helpless, mentally and physically. For
the remaining three years of his life he and his wife spent winters in New York
and summers at their home in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
MacDowell, Edward
2. Views and aesthetics.
MacDowell presented his views on music in lectures at Columbia
that were published after his death as Critical and Historical Essays.
In one lecture he discussed music's expressive ability, calling it ‘a language,
but a language of the intangible, a kind of soul-language’. His music often
draws on an external stimulus, indicated by the work's title, but though he
admitted the possibility of depicting an object or event, he saw a higher
musical development in a work that could communicate the frame of mind or mood
experienced by the composer when he contemplated that object or event. A title,
motto or poem was affixed to the music only to indicate what the stimulus had
been. As for music's expressive powers, he credited those to the expanded
harmonic language he had inherited from Wagner and Liszt. He also believed in
the continued importance of melody. A related issue was his disinclination to
follow abstract forms for their own sake; form for him was ‘inherent to the
idea’.
His stimuli came from literature on many of the subjects dear to
the Romantic imagination: medieval legends, landscapes (especially forests),
seascapes, fairy tales. His attraction to Celtic legends may have been fuelled
by a renewed interest in them in the later decades of the 19th century by
writers such as Standish O'Grady and Fiona Macleod; similarly, Celtic and Norse
legends were a favourite subject of such Pre-Raphaelite painters as Edward
Burne-Jones, whom MacDowell admired. His interest in Norse legends may also
have been spurred on by his communications with Grieg.
In his late sets of piano pieces he tended more and more to add
titles and epigraphs of his own creation; many relate to the American
landscape, particularly that of New England. Perhaps he was thus answering the
nationalistic challenge that preoccupied American composers in the 1890s by
conveying the personal impressions of an American reacting to his native land.
In 1896 he became a close friend of the American writer Hamlin Garland, who
promoted a similar response in literature; Garland devoted some of his writings
to the Amerindian, a subject that interested MacDowell as well.
While MacDowell tackled some larger forms (in symphonic poems,
concertos and sonatas), he was most individual in short piano pieces for he
excelled at compact expression, where a very subtle manipulation of harmony,
melodic contour or texture could take on evocative meaning.
MacDowell, Edward
3. Orchestral music.
MacDowell composed relatively little for orchestra. His four
symphonic poems were all begun while he was living in Germany, and the Romanze
for cello and orchestra and two piano concertos were entirely products of his
German years. Only the two suites were composed after his return to America,
and then soon after: his wife attributed his turn away from orchestral music to
the paucity in America of good professional orchestras.
MacDowell’s scores reveal great skill in orchestration: in his
most characteristic and effective textures the strings play the main thematic
material while flutes weave a delicate filigree above, or else there are
exposed homophonic wind or brass passages, frequently in dialogue with strings.
With respect to their harmonic language, the symphonic poems and the Second
Suite are rich in Wagner-Liszt chromaticism. Yet the key schemes for the
movements of the suites and piano concertos are conservative in comparison to
those of the later piano sets, the movements being related by thirds or fifths.
That MacDowell was drawn to the symphonic poem is not surprising,
given that his stay in Germany brought him into contact with two of the genre's
great exponents, Raff and Liszt. His first endeavour, Hamlet, Ophelia
op.22 (1884–5), was conceived as two separate works on Shakespearean
characters: op.22 was to include Hamlet, Benedick and Othello,
and op.23 Ophelia, Beatrice and Desdemona. Drafts of the
discarded movements (as well as of Falstaff) are in the Library of
Congress. In 1886 MacDowell turned to Tennyson's Idylls of the King as
the literary background for his Lancelot und Elaine; he was to return to
this source in his ‘Eroica’ Sonata of 1894–5. The third symphonic poem, Lamia
(1887–8), is based on Keats. The fourth (1886–90), consisting of Die
Sarazenen and Die schöne Aldâ, on the Song of Roland; MacDowell
intended these two surviving pieces as the middle movements of a symphony on
the epic.
Ophelia and Die Sarazenen are one-dimensional character sketches.
But in Hamlet and Aldâ MacDowell's approach was like Liszt's in
his Hamlet: a character's inner conflicts are brought to life by dramatic
juxtaposition of diatonic and chromatic materials. In Lamia MacDowell
adopts a different Lisztian technique to convey various aspects of the
character's emotional constitution – thematic transformation – and changes of
musical character represent a direct response to the detailed programme printed
in the score. In Lancelot und Elaine some events are blatantly depicted,
and MacDowell, perhaps hesitant about this, withheld the programme when he
published the work.
MacDowell had planned to write two other symphonic poems: Merlin
and Vivien and Hiawatha and Minnehaha, the latter projected in 1887.
He took up the Amerindian motif, though, in his Second Suite, which is among
his most often performed works, and is the only complete work of his to
incorporate Amerindian melodies. (Individual movements do so in some of the
‘late piano sets’.) The suite uses war songs, festival songs, a love song and a
mourning song, taken from Theodore Baker's Über die Musik der
nordamerikanischen Wilden (1882). MacDowell referred to the Dirge
movement as one of his most successful pieces. Though nominally the lament of
an Amerindian woman on the death of her son, it conveys a universal sense of
grief. MacDowell wrote it in response to the death of his mentor Raff. While
the love movement is equally universal, the other three movements, Legend,
In War-Time and Village Festival, are colourful narratives of
Indian life and the drama outsiders connect with it.
MacDowell's earlier suite, op.42, offers five movements unrelated
except in their titles' emphasis on nature and the seasons. In contrast to the
three dramatic Indian Suite movements, which evolve in a fairly free manner,
all the movements of op.42 have a certain classical formal simplicity.
When MacDowell's Second Piano Concerto was performed in New York
in 1894, the critic James Huneker made a striking comparison: ‘It sounds a
model of its kind – the kind which Johannes Brahms gave the world over thirty
years ago in his D-minor concerto'. The Second Concerto has remained one of
MacDowell's most appreciated works, though in both concertos he was somewhat
indebted to other composers. The First, in A minor, opens with a piano passage
reminiscent in contour and texture of the equivalent point in Grieg's concerto
in the same key; both may trace back to Schumann's concerto. In the Second,
MacDowell divides the piano cadenza into three segments over the course of the
first movement, as had Liszt in his E
concerto. Also, in their piano writing MacDowell's
concertos show considerable similarity to Tchaikovsky's. Yet several features
give the Second Concerto a distinct flavour. Whereas rhythmic movement in many
of the composer's short piano pieces is reserved, the rhythms of the Second
Concerto are infectiously alive and vibrant, made particularly so through their
use of dance figures and syncopation. MacDowell unusally made his middle
movement a scherzo, deriving the music from the discarded sketches for Benedick,
and strove for a high level of cohesion both within and between movements.
Materials from the introduction to the first movement return transformed in its
body, and first-movement ideas are both quoted and transformed in the finale.
MacDowell, Edward
4. Early piano music.
Between 1876 and 1890 MacDowell composed 22 works for piano, only
four of them applying traditional formal models: the two Moderne Suiten,
the Prélude et fugue and the Etude de concert. The other published
works, with the exception of the Serenade, are collections in which individual
movements carry fanciful or poetic titles, often with a poem included in the
printed music.
MacDowell said that ‘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’. In his early pieces he turned for inspiration to the poetry
of Goethe, Heine, Hugo, Tennyson, Shelley, D.G. Rossetti, Hans Christian
Andersen and Bulwer-Lytton. Four sets – Idyllen (revised as Six Idyls
after Goethe), Sechs Gedichte nach Heinrich Heine, Vier kleine
Poesien and Marionetten – provide a conspectus of his approaches. In
the Goethe set he cultivates the manner he was to master in later piano sets:
triggered by the poetry, he provides in each movement his single impression,
his personal response to an image of the natural world (under such titles as In
the Woods and To the Moonlight). In the Heine set he brings a
psychological dynamic into play, reacting to poems in which the characters
dream and reminisce: as a result, these movements unfold with contrasting
sections where changes of mode, texture, melody, harmony and rhythm combine to
suggest a change of mindset or even an arresting of time. While three of the Vier
kleine Poesien are essentially simple atmospheric impressions, the fourth –
The Eagle (after Tennyson) – shows MacDowell's ability to capture the
drama of a poem, when, in its final measures, he moves abruptly from ppp
to fff, during a precipitous leap up and descent to depict the eagle's
fall. Finally, Marionetten is a wonderfully light, whimsical series of
character sketches, in which each puppet comes to life in an appropriate
musical texture.
MacDowell, Edward
5. Sonatas.
MacDowell composed his four sonatas between 1891 and 1900. Where
the first carries only a title, ‘Tragica’, the others have also a motto or
epigraph to associate them with a legend: for the ‘Eroica’, the Arthurian tale
of Tennyson’s Idylls of the Kings; for the ‘Norse’, the heroic legend of
Sigurd and his wife Gudrun; for the ‘Keltic’, the separate legends of Deirdre
and of Cuchullin from the Cycle of the Red Branch.
MacDowell's pronouncements on his intentions in these sonatas are
found largely in private correspondence. He confirmed that he intended each
movement of the ‘Eroica’ to evoke the mood of some part of the Arthurian
legend. Where the ‘Norse’ and ‘Keltic’ are concerned, he remarked that ‘the
music is more a commentary on the subject than an actual depiction of it’. But
despite his disclaimers he crossed the boundary between mood evocation and
direct representation in the finales of both the ‘Eroica’ and the ‘Keltic’. The
former movement, on ‘the passing of Arthur’, contains a passage that makes
sense only in relation to the legend: a two-page murmured insertion depicting
Arthur's gradual weakening and death after his battle with Mordred. Similarly
in the ‘Keltic’ the last movement's conclusion depicts Cuchullin's death, as a
furious, violent utterance gives way to a passage marked ‘broad, with tragic
pathos’, before a gradual dissipation of sound. In one of MacDowell's most
literal uses of tone-painting, a darting two-note motive suggests the bird that
lands on Cuchullin's shoulder as he takes his last breath.
In general, though, the movements of these sonatas are mood
pieces. Only the ‘Tragica’ and ‘Eroica’ contain scherzos, the latter's
particularly spirited and elf-like to match the Doré illustration in which a
knight of the Round Table is surrounded by elves. The slow movements of the
‘Eroica’, ‘Norse’ and ‘Keltic’ can be considered, according to MacDowell's
testimony, tender evocations of Guinevere, Gudrun and Deirdre. Yet each
movement evolves with some degree of unrest that results in a forceful,
transformed statement of a quiet, tender melody before a return to its initial
state – an expression of emotional upheaval. Elsewhere in each sonata the
female character is treated as a single essence through the device of calling
up her melody. In the first movement of the ‘Eroica’, MacDowell anticipates the
Guinevere movement by using her melody as the lyrical second-theme counterpart
to Arthur's forceful first theme; he then evokes her memory after Arthur's
death by recalling her theme in the coda of the last movement. Likewise,
Gudrun's theme is glimpsed briefly as an interruption within the finale of the
‘Norse’.
The opening movements of the ‘Eroica’, ‘Norse’ and ‘Keltic’
project the noble, triumphant side of Arthur, Sigurd and Cuchullin, while their
finales summon a sense of reckless drive, of these strong-willed personalities
fulfilling their destinies even to death. The ‘Tragica’ stands apart in its
evolution towards a more heroic, resolute mood, though a lingering sense of the
tragic is created through MacDowell's recall in the finale of the work's
opening gesture – a snap rhythm, now elongated.
This latter feature of the ‘Tragica’ illustrates MacDowell's
tendency to unite the movements of his sonatas. In the ‘Tragica’, the snap
rhythm reappears in the second movement as well as the fourth; in the ‘Eroica’,
the opening chordal music is quoted in two other movements; in the ‘Norse’, an
intricate, unifying key scheme is worked out; and in the ‘Keltic’, the initial
theme's melodic and rhythmic profile is evoked in the second movement, while
the theme is recalled intact at the very end of the third. The reappearance of
the woman's melody in other movements of the ‘Eroica’ and ‘Norse’ has been
noted.
MacDowell's sonata forms reveal certain characteristic traits.
Several movements reach a third principal key area, either in the exposition
(‘Norse’, second movement), or in the development (‘Eroica’, ‘Norse’ and
‘Keltic’, first movements). Others do not reach a stable secondary key area
(‘Norse’ and ‘Keltic’, third movements), though developmental principles are
evident. There are a few instances of thematic transformation (‘Tragica’,
fourth movement, where the main melody is transformed into a lyrical utterance,
coinciding with the secondary key area; ‘Keltic’, third movement, where the
staccato, impetuous melody is transmuted at the start of the coda into a broad,
tragic proclamation). In general, MacDowell moved towards a more fluid approach
to sonata form in his last two sonatas.
MacDowell, Edward
6. Late piano sets.
Between 1896 and 1902 MacDowell composed four sets of piano pieces
which contain some of his best-known music: Woodland Sketches, Sea
Pieces, Fireside Tales and New England Idyls. All the individual
pieces have titles, and those of the Sea Pieces and New England Idyls
also contain epigraphs or poems, most of them by MacDowell, though several in Sea
Pieces come from other sources.
The titles show the importance of the American landscape to MacDowell's
musical imagination at this time: To a Wild Rose, A Deserted Farm,
A Haunted House, In Deep Woods, From a Log Cabin. Other
American references are to Indian motives (From an Indian Lodge of Woodland
Sketches and Indian Idyl from New England Idyls), to the
Uncle Remus tales of Joel Chandler Harris (Of Br'er Rabbit from Fireside
Tales and From Uncle Remus of Woodland Sketches), and to the
country's founding Puritans (From Puritan Days of New England Idyls
and A.D. MDCXX from Sea Pieces, the latter incorporating a hymn
of thanksgiving). But aside from A.D. MDCXX the Sea Pieces
contain no specifically American allusions.
In some pieces MacDowell masterfully captured the essence of an
image: the evanescent delicacy of a wild rose through a profusion of short
motives with sparingly placed dissonances, or the cathedral-like expanse of the
deep woods through soaring materials spaced over six octaves. In others he
suggested a vague sort of longing, a hazy memory of sentiment associated with a
place: At an Old Trysting-Place and A Deserted Farm from Woodland
Sketches achieve this effect through both internal and final repetitions of
a motive that lingers on a tone other than the tonic. In all of these examples
we gain a sense of what he meant by ‘soul-language’. Only in a few pieces did
he offer a direct, unreserved emotional expression: in New England Idyls,
the epigraph lines of Mid-Winter – ‘And lo! a thread of fate is snapped,
a breaking heart makes moan’ – are realized at the point when the muffled,
low-lying chords have built dramatically to fff, to be followed by a
gradual dissipation of sound; the mournful mood of From a Log Cabin
yields to a passionate, exuberant climax before returning to the opening
disquiet; and in the final piece of Sea Pieces, In Mid-Ocean,
there is a powerful surge of sound in the penultimate moments.
These collections of pieces work as sets in varying degrees. Woodland
Sketches has the most interwoven key scheme, with obvious symmetries in the
sequence of ten pieces: A–f
–A–F–c–F–F–f–A–f. Moreover, the final piece quotes from nos.3, 5 and
8, as though recollecting certain poignant memories one last time. In the Sea
Pieces, the three movements that deal most directly with the sea, nos.1, 6
and 8, all have the same melodic gesture at the same pitch level. The six Fireside
Tales follow an imaginative, adventurous key scheme: F–D–A–c–f–D (note the symmetrically placed augmented fourths).
The final D provides
balance to the central A
and also reawakens the D
heard in the middle section of no.1. New England Idyls plays with a
symmetrical key scheme similar to that of Woodland Sketches, and
additionally adds a unifying half-step inflection in several of the pieces.
MacDowell, Edward
7. Vocal music.
In addition to 42 solo songs, MacDowell published some 14 partsong
collections, primarily for male chorus, and many of them for the Mendelssohn
Glee Club, for which he also arranged songs by others. According to Gilman,
MacDowell sketched as well one act of a music drama on an Arthurian subject,
with comparatively little singing and much emphasis on the orchestral
commentary.
MacDowell began composing lieder during his stay in Germany,
setting texts of Heine, Goethe, Klopstock and Geibel. These early songs show
his indebtedness to the European tradition in their fairly full piano
accompaniments that sometimes provide lines complementary to the voice and in
their absorption of Wagner's harmonic language. MacDowell turned to English
texts in 1886, specifically to those of Burns and contemporary Americans:
Margaret Deland, William Henry Gardner, William Dean Howells and, eventually,
himself. In his middle period (roughly 1886–90) he preferred very sparse piano
accompaniments, putting emphasis on a simple lyricism and a conservative use of
harmonic colour, and in some cases (e.g. the cycle From an Old Garden)
these songs reveal in both text and music a sentimentality associated with the
Victorian parlour. Critics of these middle-period songs note that MacDowell
treated the voice part with persistent metrical regularity, with little
flexibility or freedom of expression.
This criticism was answered in MacDowell's last-period songs
(1893–1901), when he turned almost exclusively to poems of his own and the
predictability of declamation declines. In an interview published a few years
before his death, he said that ‘song writing should follow declamation’ and
‘music and poetry cannot be accurately stated unless one has written both’.
Along with the greater declamatory freedom, the harmonic palette is enlivened,
though MacDowell's characteristic half-diminished and diminished chords now
outweigh the early-period predilection for augmented 6ths and Neapolitan
chords. The later songs continue to focus on the composer's predominant themes
of ideal love and the serenity of nature, though occasionally, as in op.47, his
subject is more emotionally intense and direct: a lost love (Folksong),
a contemptuous lover (The West-Wind Croons in the Cedar-Trees), the
powerful sea (The Sea). Yet even here the music rarely attempts to be
‘an instrument of precise emotional utterance’ (Gilman). Only on occasion did
MacDowell use the expressive possibilities of the minor mode or of full-fledged
modulations, and, despite his avowed concern for words, he excelled as a
songwriter when he gave free reign to his lyric gift, in songs such as A
Maid Sings Light (op.56) and Confidence (op.47).
MacDowell, Edward
WORKS
Editions: In Passing Moods: Album of Selected Pianoforte Compositions by
Edward MacDowell (Boston and New York,
1906) [1906]Stimmungsbilder: Ausgewählte Klavier-Stücke von Edward MacDowell
(Boston and New York, 1908) [1908]Six Selected Songs by Edward MacDowell:
High Voice (Boston and New York, 1912) [19121]Six Selected
Songs by Edward MacDowell: Low Voice (Boston and New York, 1912) [19122]MacDowell:
Ausgewählte Klavierstücke, ed. W. Weismann (Leipzig, 1960) [W]Music by
MacDowell for Piano Solo, ed. G. Anson (New York, 1962) [A]Edward
MacDowell: Songs (Opp.40, 47, 56, 58, 60), with introduction by H.W.
Hitchcock, Earlier American Music, vii (New York, 1972) [Hi]Edward
MacDowell: Piano Pieces (Opp.51, 55, 61, 62), with introduction by H.W.
Hitchcock, Earlier American Music, viii (New York, 1972) [Hii]
MSS, printed works and other material in
US-NYcu, NYp, Wc, the MacDowell Colony and M.M. Lowens’s private collection
opp.1–7 published under pseudonym Edgar Thorn(e)
for further details see Sonneck (1917) and
Lowens (1971)
orchestral
reductions for piano(s) by the composer
op.
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15
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Piano
Concerto no.1, a, 1882, 2 pf (Leipzig, Brussels and New York, 1884), fs
(Leipzig and New York, 1911); movts 2 and 3, New York, 30 March 1885,
complete, Boston, 3 April 1888
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22
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Hamlet,
Ophelia, sym. poems, 1884–5 (Breslau and New York, 1885), pf 4 hands (Breslau
and New York, 1885); Ophelia, New York, 4 Nov 1886, complete, Wiesbaden, 26
Dec 1886
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23
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Piano
Concerto no.2, d, 1884–6, 2 pf (Leipzig and Brussels, 1890), fs (Leipzig and
New York, 1907); New York, 5 March 1889
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25
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Lancelot
und Elaine, sym. poem after A. Tennyson, 1886 (Breslau and New York, 1888),
pf 4 hands (Breslau and New York, 1888); Boston, 10 Jan 1890
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29
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Lamia,
sym. poem after J. Keats, 1887 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1908), pf 4
hands (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1908); ?Boston, 23 Oct 1908
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30
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Die
Sarazenen, Die schöne Aldâ, 2 frags. after The Song of Roland, 1886–90
(Leipzig and New York, 1891), pf 4 hands (Leipzig and New York, 1891);
Boston, 5 Nov 1891
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35
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Romanze,
vc, orch, 1887 (Breslau and New York, 1888), vc, pf (Breslau and New York,
1888); Darmstadt, 1887/8
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42
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Suite,
a, 1888–91 (Boston and Leipzig, 1891), pf 4 hands (Boston and Leipzig, 1883),
no.3 added 1893 (Boston, 1893): 1 In einem verwünschten Walde (In a Haunted
Forest), 2 Sommer-Idylle (Summer Idyll), 3 Im Oktober (In October), 4 Gesang
der Hirtin (The Shepherdess’s Song), arr. pf (1906, 1908), 5 Waldgeister
(Forest Spirits); Worcester, MA, 24 Sept 1891, complete, Boston, 25 Oct 1895
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48
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Suite
no.2 ‘Indian’, e, 1891–5 (Leipzig and New York, 1897): 1 Legend, 2 Love Song,
3 In War-time, 4 Dirge, 5 Village Festival; New York, 23 Jan 1896
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piano
for 2 hands unless otherwise stated
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Improvisations
(Rêverie), 1876, MS op.1, US-Wc
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8
chansons fugitives, 1876, MS op.2, Wc
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Petits
morceaux, 1876, MS op.3, Wc
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3
petits morceaux, 1876, MS op.4, Wc, also as op.5, NYp
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Suite
de 5 morceaux, 1876: 1 Barcarolle, MS op.5, Wc; 2 La petite glaneuse,
3 Dans la nuit, 4 Le réveille matin, 5 Cauchemar, lost
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10
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Erste
moderne Suite, e, 1880–81 (Leipzig, 1883), rev. 1904–5 (Leipzig and New York,
1906): 1 Praeludium, rev. 1904 (Leipzig and New York, 1904), 2 Presto, 3
Andantino und Allegretto, 4 Intermezzo, 5 Rhapsodie, 6 Fuge
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13
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Prélude
et fugue, d, 1881 (Leipzig, 1883)
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14
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Zweite
moderne Suite, a, 1882 (Leipzig, 1883): 1 Praeludium, 2 Fugato, 3 Rhapsodie,
4 Scherzino, 5 Marsch, 6 Phantasie-Tanz
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16
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Serenade,
1882 (Leipzig, 1883)
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17
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Zwei
Fantasiestücke, 1883 (Breslau and New York, 1884): 1 Erzählung, 2 Hexentanz
|
|
18
|
Zwei
Stücke, 1884 (Breslau and New York, 1884): 1 Barcarolle, 2 Humoreske
|
|
19
|
Wald
Idyllen, 1884 (Leipzig, 1884): 1 Waldesstille, 2 Spiel der Nymphen, 3
Träumerei, 4 Driaden-Tanz
|
|
20
|
Drei
Poesien, 4 hands, 1885 (Breslau and New York, 1886): 1 Nachts am Meere, 2
Erzählung aus der Ritterzeit, 3 Ballade
|
|
21
|
Mondbilder
nach H.C. Andersen’s Bilderbuch ohne Bilder, 4 hands, 1885 (Breslau and New
York, 1886): 1 Das Hindumädchen, 2 Storchgeschichte, 3 In Tyrol, 4 Der
Schwan, 5 Bärenbesuch
|
|
24
|
Vier
Stücke, 1886 (Breslau and New York, 1887): 1 Humoreske, 2 Marsch, 3
Wiegenlied, 4 Czardas; no.1 ed. in A
|
|
28
|
Idyllen,
1887 (Breslau and New York, 1887), rev. as Six Idyls after Goethe, 1901
(Boston and New York, 1901): 1 Ich ging im Walde (In the Woods), 2 Unter des
grünen blühender Kraft (Siesta), 3 Füllest wieder Busch und Thal (To the
Moonlight), 4 Leichte silberwolken Schweben (Silver Clouds), 5 Bei dem Glanz
der Abendröthe (Flute Idyl), 6 Ein Blumenglöckchen (The Bluebell); nos.1 and
3 ed. in A
|
|
31
|
Sechs
Gedichte nach Heinrich Heine, 1887 (Breslau and New York, 1887), rev. as Six
Poems after Heine, 1901 (Boston and New York, 1901): 1 Wir sassen am
Fischerhause (From a Fisherman’s Hut), 2 Fern an schottischer Felsenküste
(Scotch Poem), 3 Mein Kind, wir waren Kinder (From Long Ago), 4 Wir führen
allein im Dunkeln (The Postwaggon), 5 König ist der Hirtenknabe (The Shepherd
Boy), 6 Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht (Monologue); no.2, in 1906, ed. in A
|
|
32
|
Vier
kleine Poesien, 1887 (Leipzig and New York, 1888): 1 Der Adler (The Eagle)
[after Tennyson], 2 Das Bächlein (The Brook) [after Bulwer-Lytton], 3
Mondschein (Moonshine), [after D.G. Rossetti], 4 Winter [after P.B. Shelley];
nos.1 and 3 ed. in A
|
|
36
|
Etude
de concert, 1887 (Boston, 1889)
|
|
37
|
Les
orientales, 3 morceaux after V. Hugo, 1887–8 (Boston and Leipzig, 1889): 1
Clair de lune, 2 Dans le hamac, 3 Danse andalouse; no.3 1908, ed. in W
|
|
38
|
Marionetten,
1888 (Breslau and New York, 1888); rev. as Marionettes, 1901 (Boston and New
York, 1901) [nos.1 and 8 added 1901]: 1 Prologue, 2 Soubrette, 3 Liebhaber
(Lover), 4 Bube (Villain), 5 Liebhaberin (Lady-Love), 6 Clown, 7 Hexe
(Witch), 8 Epilogue; nos.1 and 8 in 1908, nos.2, 4 and 6 ed. in A
|
|
39
|
12
Etüden, 1889–90 (Boston and Leipzig, 1890): 1 Jagdlied (Hunting Song), 2 Alla
tarantella, 3 Romanze (Romance), 4 Arabeske (Arabesque), 5 Waldfahrt (In the
Forest), 6 Gnomentanz (Dance of the Gnomes), 7 Idylle (Idyl), 8 Schattentanz
(Shadow Dance), 9 Intermezzo, 10 Melodie (Melody), 11 Scherzino, 12 Ungarisch
(Hungarian); nos.2 and 10 in 1906, 1908, nos.2 and 12 ed. in A
|
|
45
|
Sonata
tragica, g, 1891–2 (Leipzig and New York, 1893)
|
|
46
|
Zwölf
Virtuosen-Etüden, 1893–4 (Leipzig and New York, 1894): 1 Novelette, 2 Moto
perpetuo, 3 Wilde Jagd, 4 Improvisation, 5 Elfentanz, 6 Valse triste, 7
Burleske, 8 Bluette, 9 Träumerei, 10 Märzwind, 11 Impromptu, 12 Polonaise;
nos.1, 4 and 10 ed. in A
|
|
49
|
Air
et rigaudon, ?1894 (Boston, 1894); Rigaudon ed. in A
|
|
50
|
Sonata
eroica, g, 1894–5 (Leipzig and New York, 1895)
|
|
51
|
Woodland
Sketches, 1896 (New York, 1896): 1 To a Wild Rose, 2 Willo’ 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 [after J.C. Harris], 8 A Deserted Farm, 9 By a Meadow Brook,
10 Told at Sunset; nos.5 and 8 in 1906, no.8 in 1908, no.1 transcr. 1v, pf in
19121, 19122, nos.1, 4 and 7–9 ed. in W, nos.1, 5–7 ed.
in A, nos. 1–10 in Hii
|
|
1
|
Amourette,
1896 (New York, 1896); in 1906
|
|
2
|
In
Lilting Rhythm, 1896 (New York, 1897)
|
|
55
|
Sea
Pieces, 1896–8 (New York, 1898): 1 To the Sea, 2 From a Wandering Iceberg, 3
A.D. MDCXX, 4 Starlight, 5 Song, 6 From the Depths, 7 Nautilus, 8 In
Mid-Ocean; no.5, as Sea Song in 1906, no.5 in 1908, nos.3 and 5 ed. in W,
nos.2, 4, and 5 ed. in A, nos.1–8 in Hii
|
|
4
|
Forgotten
Fairy Tales, 1897 (New York, 1897): 1 Sung Outside the Prince’s Door, 2 Of a
Tailor and a Bear, 3 Beauty in the Rose-garden, 4 From Dwarfland; no.1 ed. in
A
|
|
7
|
Six
Fancies, 1898 (New York, 1898): 1 A Tin Soldier’s Love, 2 To a Humming Bird,
3 Summer Song, 4 Across Fields, 5 Bluette, 6 An Elfin Round; no.2 in 1906,
no.1 ed. in A
|
|
57
|
Sonata
no.3 ‘Norse’, d, 1898–9 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1900)
|
|
59
|
Sonata
no.4 ‘Keltic’, e, 1900 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1901)
|
|
61
|
Fireside
Tales, 1901–2 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1902): 1 An Old Love Story, 2 Of
Br’er Rabbit [after J.C. Harris], 3 From a German Forest, 4 Of Salamanders, 5
A Haunted House, 6 By Smouldering Embers; no.6 in 1906, no.1 in 1908, nos.1,
4 and 6 ed. in W, no.2 ed. in A, nos. 1–6 in Hii
|
|
62
|
New
England Idyls, 1901–2 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1902): 1 An Old Garden,
2 Mid-Summer, 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; no.9 in 1908, nos.1, 4, 6, 8 and 9 ed. in W, nos.7 and 9 ed.
in A, nos.1–10 in Hii
|
songs
all for 1 voice and piano
|
—
|
Der
Fichtenbaum (H. Heine), US-NYcu
|
|
—
|
Lieber
Schatz (W. Osterwald), NYcu
|
|
11
|
Drei
Lieder, 1881 (Leipzig, 1883): 1 Mein Liebchen, 2 Du liebst mich nicht
(Heine), 3 Oben wo die Sterne (Heine)
|
|
12
|
Zwei
Lieder, 1880–81 (Leipzig, 1883): 1 Nachtlied (E. Geibel), 2 Das Rosenband
(F.G. Klopstock); Nachtlied orchd 1880, Wc
|
|
—
|
O
mistress mine (W. Shakespeare), ?1884, Wc
|
|
26
|
From
an Old Garden (M. Deland), 1886–7 (New York, 1887): 1 The Pansy, 2 The
Myrtle, 3 The Clover, 4 The Yellow Daisy, 5 The Bluebell, 6 The Mignonette
|
|
33
|
Drei
Lieder, 1887–8 (Breslau and New York, 1889): 1 Bitte (A Request) (J.C.
Glücklich, trans. MacDowell), 2 Geistliches Wiegenlied (Cradle Hymn) (Lat.
anon.), 3 Idylle (Idyll) (J.W. von Goethe, trans. MacDowell); nos.2 and 3
rev. ?1894, no.2 with Eng. text by S.T. Coleridge (New York, 1894)
|
|
34/2
|
If
I had but two little wings, ?1887, MS lost, photocopies, MacDowell Colony and
M.M. Lowens’s private collection
|
|
34
|
Two
Songs (R. Burns), 1887 (Boston, 1889): 1 Menie, 2 My Jean; no.1 ed. in 19121,
no.2 ed. in 19122
|
|
40
|
Six
Love Songs (W.H. Gardner), 1890 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1890): 1 Sweet
blue-eyed maid, 2 Sweetheart, tell me, 3 Thy beaming eyes, 4 For sweet love’s
sake, 5 O lovely rose, 6 I ask but this; no.3 ed. in 19121, 19122,
nos.1–2 in Hi
|
|
47
|
Eight
Songs, 1893 (Leipzig and New York, 1893): 1 The robin sings in the apple-tree
(MacDowell), 2 Midsummer Lullaby (after Goethe), 3 Folksong (W.D. Howells), 4
Confidence (MacDowell), 5 The west-wind croons in the cedar-trees
(MacDowell), 6 In the Woods (after Goethe), 7 The Sea (Howells), 8 Through
the Meadow (Howells); nos.1–8 in Hi
|
|
9
|
Two
Old Songs, 1894 (New York, 1894): 1 Deserted (Burns), 2 Slumber Song
(MacDowell); no.1 ed. in 19121, 19122
|
|
56
|
Four
Songs (MacDowell), 1898 (New York, 1898): 1 Long ago, 2 The swan bent low to
the lily, 3 A maid sings light, 4 As the gloaming shadows creep; no.2 ed. in
19122, no.3 ed. in 19121, nos.1–4 in Hi
|
|
58
|
Three
Songs (MacDowell), 1899 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1899): 1 Constancy
(New England AD 1899), 2 Sunrise, 3 Merry Maiden Spring; nos.1–3 in Hi
|
|
60
|
Three
Songs (MacDowell), 1901 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1902): 1 Tyrant Love,
2 Fair Springtide, 3 To the Golden Rod; no.2 ed. in 19121, no.3
ed. in 19122, nos.1–3 in Hi
|
partsongs
unless otherwise stated, for male chorus in 4 parts and with
piano accompaniment
|
27
|
Drei
Lieder für vierstimmigen Männerchor, unacc., 1887 (Boston and Leipzig, 1890):
1 Oben wo die Sterne glühen (In the starry sky above us) (Heine, trans.
MacDowell), 2 Schweizerlied (Springtime) (Goethe, trans. MacDowell), 3 Der
Fischerknabe (The Fisherboy) (F. von Schiller, trans. MacDowell)
|
|
41
|
Two
choruses, 1890 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1890): 1 Cradle Song (MacDowell,
after P. Cornelius), 2 Dance of Gnomes (MacDowell)
|
|
43
|
Two
Northern Songs (MacDowell), mixed chorus 4vv, 1890–91 (Boston, Leipzig and
New York, 1891): 1 The Brook, 2 Slumber Song
|
|
44
|
Barcarole
(F. von Bodenstedt, trans. MacDowell), mixed chorus 8vv, pf 4 hands, 1890
(Boston and Leipzig, 1892)
|
|
3
|
Two
choruses (New York, 1897): 1 Love and Time (M. Farley), 1896, 2 The Rose and
the Gardener (A. Dobson), 1897
|
|
52
|
Three
choruses, 1896–7 (New York, 1897): 1 Hush, hush! (T. Moore), 2 From the Sea
(MacDowell), 3 The Crusaders (MacDowell)
|
|
53
|
Two
choruses (R. Burns), 1897 (New York, 1897): 1 Bonnie Ann, 2 The Collier
Lassie
|
|
54
|
Two
choruses (MacDowell) (New York, 1898): 1 A Ballad of Charles the Bold, 1897,
2 Midsummer Clouds, 1887
|
|
5
|
The
Witch (MacDowell), 1897 (New York, 1898)
|
|
—
|
Two
Songs from the Thirteenth Century (trans. MacDowell), 1897 (New York, 1897):
1 Winter wraps his grimmest spell (after N. von Reuenthal), 2 As the gloaming
shadows creep (after Frauenlob)
|
|
6
|
War
Song (MacDowell), 1898 (New York, 1898)
|
|
—
|
College
Songs for Male Voices, 1900–01 (Boston and New York, 1901): 1 Columbia’s Sons
(E. Keppler), unison male vv, 2 We love thee well, Manhattanland (MacDowell),
3 Columbia! O alma mater (MacDowell), 4 Sturdy and Strong (MacDowell), 5 O
wise old alma mater (MacDowell), 6 At Parting (MacDowell), unacc.
|
|
—
|
Two
College Songs (MacDowell), female chorus 4vv, ?1901–2 (Boston and New York,
1907): 1 Alma mater, 2 At Parting [rev. of College Songs for Male Voices,
nos.3 and 6]
|
|
—
|
Summer
Wind (R. Hovey), female chorus 4vv, ?1902 (Boston and New York, 1902)
|
other works
|
—
|
Suite,
vn, pf, ?1877, Wc
|
|
—
|
Cadenza
for Mozart: Conc., d, k466, 1st movt, pf, ?1882, Wc
|
|
—
|
Technical
Exercises, Pt 1, pf, 1893–4 (Leipzig and New York, 1894)
|
|
—
|
Technical
Exercises, Pt 2, pf, 1893–5 (Leipzig and New York, 1895)
|
editions, arrangements
|
Orch:
J. Raff: Romeo und Juliet Ov., Macbeth Ov., 1890–91 (Boston, 1891) [also arr.
2 pf]
|
|
Pf:
kbd pieces by J.S. Bach [6], 1890 (Boston and Leipzig, 1890); H. Huber,
Handel-Lavignac, M. van Westerhout, 1894 (New York, 1894); Glinka-Balakirev,
F. Liszt, M. Moszkowski [2], G. Pierné [2], H. Reinhold, N.V. Shcherbachov,
J. Ten Brink, van Westerhout, N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, G. Martucci, P. Geisler,
T. Dubois, C. Cui, 1894–5 (New York, 1895); Liszt, Geisler [2], Alkan, P.
Lacombe, F. Couperin, Pierné, 1896 (New York, 1896); G.B. Grazioli, 1899
(Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1900); J.B. Loeillet, J.-P. Rameau [2], J.
Mattheson, Couperin, C.F. Graun, 1899–1900 (Boston, Leipzig and New York,
1900); Couperin, 1900 (Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1900); Loeillet, 1902
(Boston, Leipzig and New York, 1902)
|
|
Chorus,
4 male vv: partsongs by S. Moniuszko, A.P. Borodin, N.A. Sokolov, N.A.M.
Filke, G. Ingraham, C. Beines, Rimsky-Korsakov, F. von Holstein, 1897 (New
York, 1897); Sokolov, J.V. von Wöss, M. Arnold, 1897–8 (New York, 1898)
|
MacDowell, Edward
WRITINGS
‘Composer versus
Student’, Boston Musical Herald, xiii (1892), 47
‘Music at
Columbia’, Columbia University Bulletin, no.15 (1896), 13
W.J.
Baltzell, ed.: Critical and Historical Essays: Lectures Delivered at
Columbia University (Boston, 1912/R1969
with introduction by I. Lowens)
MacDowell, Edward
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H.T. Finck: ‘An American Composer: Edward A. MacDowell’, Century Magazine, liii ( 1897), 449
R. Hughes: ‘The Innovators’, Contemporary
American Composers (Boston, 1900, rev. 2/1914/R by A. Elson as American
Composers), 34
‘Edward
MacDowell: a Biographical Sketch’, MT, xliv (1904), 221–6
H.T. Finck: ‘Creative Americans: Edward MacDowell, Musician and Composer’, Outlook, lxxxiv (1906), 983
L. Gilman: Edward
MacDowell (London, 1906, rev., enlarged 2/1909/R, with introduction by M.L. Morgan)
‘Professor
MacDowell Dies at Forty-Six’, New York Times (24 Jan 1908)
H.F. Gilbert: ‘Personal Recollections of Edward MacDowell’, New Music Review, xi (1912), 494
O.G. Sonneck: ‘MacDowell versus MacDowell’, Music Teachers National Association: Proceedings, vii (1912), 96–110;
repr. in Suum Cuique (New York, 1916/R), 87–103
T.P. Currier: ‘Edward MacDowell as I Knew Him’, MQ, i ( 1915), 17–51
G.T. Strong: ‘Edward MacDowell as I Knew Him’, Music Student, vii (1914–15), 233–57; viii (1915–16), 5–7, 29–30, 51–2, 81–2, 127–8, 151–3,
189–90, 223–4, 274, 276, 298, 300, 323–4
O.G. Sonneck: Catalogue of
First Editions of Edward MacDowell (Washington DC, 1917/R)
J. Huneker: ‘An American Composer: the Passing of Edward MacDowell’, Unicorns (London, 1918), 6
W.H. Humiston: MacDowell (New York, 1921)
J.F. Porte : Edward
MacDowell (London, 1922)
L.B. McWhood: ‘Edward MacDowell at Columbia University’, Music Teachers National Association: Proceedings, xviii (1923), 71–7
A.F. Brown: The Boyhood
of Edward MacDowell (New York, 1924)
U. Sinclair: ‘Memories of Edward MacDowell’, The Sackbut, vi (1925–6), 127–32; repr. as ‘MacDowell’, American
Mercury, vii (1926), 50–54
J.T. Howard: Our American
Music: Three Hundred Years of it (New York, 1931, enlarged 4/1965 as Our American Music: a Comprehensive History from 1620 to the
Present)
H. Garland: Companions
on the Trail: a Literary Chronicle (New York, 1931)
R.S. Angell,
ed.: Catalogue of an Exhibition Illustrating the Life and Work of Edward
MacDowell: 1861–1908 (New York, 1938)
M. Milinowski: Teresa
Carreño: ‘By the Grace of God’ (New Haven, CT, 1940/R)
J. Erskine: ‘MacDowell at Columbia: some Recollections’, MQ, xxviii (1942), 395–405
J. Erskine: ‘Edward MacDowell’, My
Life in Music (New York, 1950/R), 10
M. MacDowell: Random Notes
on Edward MacDowell and His Music (Boston, 1950)
D. Moore: ‘The Department of Music’, A History of the Faculty of Philosophy: Columbia University, ed. J.M. Barzun (New York, 1957), 270
I. Lowens: ‘Edward MacDowell’, HiFi/Stereo
Review, xix/6 (1967), 61–72
M.M. Lowens: The New York
Years of Edward MacDowell (diss., U. of Michigan, 1971)
A.T. Schwab: ‘Edward MacDowell’s Birthdate: a Correction’, MQ, lxi ( 1975), 233–9
V. Malham: Eighteen
Part Songs for Male Chorus of Edward MacDowell: a Study and Performing Edition (diss., Laval University, 1977)
F.P. Brancaleone: The Short
Piano Works of Edward MacDowell (diss., CUNY, 1982)
C.B. Kefferstan: The Piano
Concertos of Edward MacDowell (diss., U. of Cincinnati,
1984)
D. Pesce: ‘New Light on the Programmatic Aesthetic of MacDowell's Symphonic Poems’, American Music,
iv/4 (1986), 369–89
U.T. Shah: The Solo
Songs of Edward MacDowell: an Examination of Style and Literary Influence (diss., Ball State U., 1987)
D. Pesce: ‘MacDowell’s Eroica Sonata and its Lisztian Legacy’, MR, xlviii (1988), 169–89
F.P. Brancaleone: ‘Edward MacDowell and Indian Motives’, American Music, vii/4 (1989), 359–81
A.F. Block: ‘Amy Beach’s Music on Native American Themes’, American Music, viii/2 (1990), 147–8
D. Pesce: ‘The Other Sea in MacDowell’s Sea Pieces’,
American Music, x/4 (1992), 411–40
R. Crawford: ‘Edward MacDowell: Musical Nationalism and an American Tone Poet’, JAMS, xlix/2 (1996)