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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
"Pelléas 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 Étude_, 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 Carreño. 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 École
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 _tournée_ 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 Café 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-Fürstenau castle at Erbach-Fürstenau, a wearisome three-hour
journey. The castle was a mediæval _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 châtelaine, 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 mediæval 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 Abbé 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 Zürich, 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 Härtel. "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 glühen"); 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 "Fantasiestücke" of op. 17:
"Erzählung" and the much-played "Hexentanz"; the "Barcarolle"
and "Humoreske" of op. 18; and the "Wald-Idyllen" (op. 19):
"Waldesstille," "Spiel der Nymphen," "Träumerei," "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 Würzburg
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 protégé 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 Härtel. 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 Härtel 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 Aldâ" (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. Carreño 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 Américaine_, '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 Aldâ." 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 Étude 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 æsthetic 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."