Edward MacDowell has been acclaimed
America’s greatest composer. If we try
to substitute another name in its place, one of equal
potency cannot be found.
Our composer’s ancestors were
Irish and Scotch, though his father was born in New
York City and his mother was an American girl.
Edward was their third son, and appeared December
18, 1861; this event happened at the home of his parents,
220 Clinton Street, New York.
The father was a man of artistic instincts,
and as a youth, fond of drawing and painting.
His parents had been Quakers of a rather severe sort
and had discouraged all such artistic efforts.
Little Edward seems to have inherited his father’s
artistic gifts, added to his own inclination toward
music.
The boy had his first piano lessons
when he was about eight years old, from a family friend,
Mr. Juan Buitrago, a native of Bogota, South America.
Mr. Buitrago became greatly interested in Edward and
asked permission to teach him his notes. At that
time the boy was not considered a prodigy, or even
precocious, though he seemed to have various gifts.
He was fond of covering his music and exercise books
with little drawings, which showed he had the innate
skill of a born artist. Then he liked to scribble
bits of verses and stories and invent fairy tales.
He could improvise little themes at the piano, but
was not fond of technical drudgery at the instrument
in those early days.
The lessons with Mr. Buitrago continued
for several years, and then he was taken to a professional
piano teacher, Paul Desvernine, with whom he remained
till he was fifteen. During this time he received
occasional lessons from the brilliant Venezuelan pianist,
Teresa Carreno, who admired his gifts and later played
his piano concertos.
Edward was now fifteen, and his family
considered he was to become a musician. In those
days and for long after, even to the present moment,
it was thought necessary for Americans to go to Europe
for serious study and artistic finish. It was
therefore determined the boy should go to Paris for
a course in piano and theory at the Conservatoire.
In April, 1876, accompanied by his mother, he left
America for France.
He passed the examinations and began
the autumn term as a pupil of Marmontel in piano and
of Savard in theory and composition.
Edward’s knowledge of French
was very uncertain, and while he could get along fairly
well in the piano class, he had considerable trouble
in following the lessons in theory. He determined
to make a special study of the language, and a teacher
was engaged to give him private lessons.
His passion for drawing was liable
to break out at any moment. During one of the
lesson hours he was varying the monotony by drawing,
behind his book, a picture of his teacher, whose special
facial characteristic was a very large nose.
Just as the sketch was finished he was detected and
was asked to show the result. The professor,
instead of being angry, considered it a remarkable
likeness and asked to keep it. Shortly after
this the professor called on Mrs. MacDowell, telling
her he had shown the drawing to an eminent painter,
also an instructor at the Ecole des Beaux
Arts. The painter had been so greatly impressed
with the boy’s talent that he offered him a three
years’ course of free instruction, under his
own supervision. He also promised to be responsible
for Edward’s support during that time.
This was a vital question to decide;
the boy’s whole future hung in the balance.
Mrs. MacDowell, in her perplexity, laid the whole matter
before Marmontel, who strongly advised against diverting
her son from a musical career. The decision was
finally left to Edward himself, and he chose to remain
at the Conservatoire.
Conditions there, however, were not
just to his liking, and after two years he began to
think the school was not the place for him. It
was the summer of 1878, the year of the Exposition.
Edward and his mother attended a festival concert
and heard Nicholas Rubinstein play the Tschaikowsky
B flat minor piano Concerto. His performance was
a revelation. “I can never learn to play
the piano like that if I stay here,” exclaimed
Edward, as they left the hall.
They began to consider the merits
of the different European schools of music, and finally
chose Stuttgart. Mrs. MacDowell and her son went
there in November hoping that in this famous Conservatory
could be found the right kind of instruction.
But alas, MacDowell soon found out
his mistake. He discovered that he would have
to unlearn all he had acquired and begin from the
beginning. And even then the instruction was not
very thorough.
They now thought of Frankfort, where
the composer Joachim Raff was the director and Carl
Heymann, a very brilliant pianist, was one of the
instructors.
After months of delay, during which
young MacDowell worked under the guidance of Ehlert,
he at last entered the Frankfort Conservatory, studying
composition with Raff, and piano with Heymann.
Both proved very inspiring teachers. For Heymann
he had the greatest admiration, calling him a marvel,
whose technic was equal to anything. “In
hearing him practise and play, I learned more in a
week than I ever knew before.”
Edward MacDowell remained in close
study at the Frankfort Conservatory for two years,
his mother having in the meantime returned to America.
He had hoped to obtain a place as professor on the
teaching staff of the institution. Failing to
do this he took private pupils. One of these,
Miss Marian Nevins, he afterwards married. He
must have been a rather striking looking youth at
this time. He was nineteen. Tall and vigorous,
with blue eyes, fair skin, rosy cheeks, very dark hair
and reddish mustache, he was called “the handsome
American.” He seemed from the start, to
have success in teaching, though he was painfully
shy, and always remained so.
In 1881, when he was twenty, he applied
for the position of head piano teacher in the Darmstadt
Conservatory, and was accepted. It meant forty
hours a week of drudgery, and as he preferred to live
in Frankfort, he made the trip each day between the
two towns. Besides this he went once a week to
a castle about three hours away, and taught some little
counts and countesses, really dull and sleepy children,
who cared but little if anything for music. However
the twelve hours spent in the train each week, were
not lost, as he composed the greater part of his Second
Modern Suite for piano, O; the First Modern Suite
had been written in Frankfort the year before.
He was reading at this period a great deal of poetry,
both German and English, and delving into the folk
and fairy lore of romantic Germany. All these
imaginative studies exerted great influence on his
subsequent compositions, both as to subject and content.
MacDowell found that the confining
labors at Darmstadt were telling on his strength,
so he gave up the position and remained in Frankfort,
dividing his time between private teaching and composing.
He hoped to secure a few paying concert engagements,
as those he had already filled had brought in no money.
One day, as he sat dreaming before
his piano, some one knocked at the door, and the next
instant in walked his master Raff, of whom the young
American stood in great awe. In the course of
a few moments, Raff suddenly asked what he had been
writing. In his confusion the boy stammered he
had been working on a concerto. When Raff started
to go, he turned back and told the boy to bring the
concerto to him the next Sunday. As even the
first movement was not finished, its author set to
work with vigor. When Sunday came only the first
movement was ready. Postponing the visit a week
or two, he had time to complete the work, which stands
today, as he wrote it then, with scarcely a correction.
At Raff’s suggestion, MacDowell
visited Liszt in the spring of 1882. The dreaded
encounter with the master proved to be a delightful
surprise, as Liszt treated him with much kindness and
courtesy. Eugen D’Albert, who was present,
was asked to accompany the orchestral part of the
concerto on a second piano. Liszt commended the
work in warm terms: “You must bestir yourself,”
he warned D’Albert, “if you do not wish
to be outdone by our young American.” Liszt
praised his piano playing too, and MacDowell returned
to Frankfort in a happy frame of mind.
At a music Convention, held that year
in Zurich, in July, MacDowell played his First Piano
Suite, and won a good success. The following
year, upon Liszt’s recommendation, both the First
and Second Modern Suites were brought out by Breitkopf
and Haertel. “Your two Piano Suites are
admirable,” wrote Liszt from Budapest, in February,
1883, “and I accept with sincere pleasure and
thanks the dedication of your piano Concerto.”
The passing of Raff, on June 25, 1882,
was a severe blow to MacDowell. It was in memory
of his revered teacher that he composed the “Sonata
Tragica,” the first of the four great sonatas
he has left us. The slow movement of this Sonata
especially embodies his sorrow at the loss of the
teacher who once said to him: “Your music
will be played when mine is forgotten.”
For the next two years MacDowell did
much composing. Then in June 1884 he returned
to America, and in July was married to his former pupil,
Miss Marian Nevins, a union which proved to be ideal
for both. Shortly after this event the young
couple returned to Europe.
The next winter was spent in Frankfort,
instructing a few private pupils, but mostly in composing,
with much reading of the literature of various countries,
and, in the spring, with long walks in the beautiful
woods about Frankfort. Wiesbaden became their
home during the winter of 1885-6. The same year
saw the completion of the second. Piano Concerto,
in D minor.
In the spring of 1887, MacDowell,
in one of his walks about the town, discovered a deserted
cottage on the edge of the woods. It overlooked
the town, with the Rhine beyond, and woods on the other
side of the river. Templeton Strong, an American
composer, was with him at the time, and both thought
the little cottage an ideal spot for a home.
It was soon purchased, and the young husband and wife
lived an idyllic life for the next year. A small
garden gave them exercise out of doors, the woods
were always enticing and best of all, MacDowell was
able to give his entire time to composition. Many
beautiful songs and piano pieces were the result,
besides the symphonic poem “Lamia,” “Hamlet
and Ophelia,” the “Lovely Aida,”
“Lancelot and Elaine,” and other orchestral
works.
In September, 1888, the MacDowells
sold their Wiesbaden cottage and returned to America,
settling in Boston. Here MacDowell made himself
felt as a pianist and teacher. He took many pupils,
and made a conspicuous number of public appearances.
He also created some of his best work, among which
were the two great Sonatas, the “Tragica”
and “Eroica.” One of the important
appearances was his playing of the Second Concerto
with the Philharmonic Orchestra of New York, under
Anton Seidl, in December, 1894.
In the spring of 1896 a Department
of Music was founded at Columbia University, of New
York, the professorship of which was offered to MacDowell.
He had now been living eight years in Boston; his fame
as a pianist and teacher was constantly growing; indeed
more pupils came to him than he could accept.
The prospect of organizing a new department from the
very beginning was a difficult task to undertake.
At first he hesitated; he was in truth in no hurry
to accept the offer, and wished to weigh both sides
carefully. But the idea of having an assured
income finally caused him to decide in favor of Columbia,
and he moved from Boston to New York the following
autumn.
He threw himself into this new work
with great ardor and entire devotion. With the
founding of the department there were two distinct
ideas to be carried out. First, to train musicians
who would be able to teach and compose. Second,
to teach musical history and aesthetics.
All this involved five courses, with
many lectures each week, taking up form, harmony,
counterpoint, fugue, composition, vocal and instrumental
music, both from the technical and interpretative
side. It was a tremendous labor to organize and
keep all this going, unaided. After two years
he was granted an assistant, who took over the elementary
classes. But even with this help, MacDowell’s
labors were increasingly arduous. He now had
six courses instead of five, which meant more classes
and lectures each week. Perhaps the most severe
drain on his time and strength was the continual correction
of exercise books and examination papers, a task which
he performed with great patience and thoroughness.
Added to all this, he devoted every Sunday morning
to his advanced students, giving them help and advice
in their piano work and in composition.
Amid all this labor his public playing
had to be given up, but composition went steadily
on. During the eight years of the Columbia professorship,
some of the most important works of his life were
produced; among them were, Sea Pieces the two later
Sonatas, the Norse and the Keltic, Fireside Tales,
and New England Idyls. The Woodland Sketches
had already been published and some of his finest songs.
Indeed nearly one quarter of all his compositions were
the fruit of those eight years while he held the post
at Columbia.
In 1896 he bought some property near
Peterboro, New Hampshire-fifteen acres
with a small farmhouse and other buildings, and fifty
acres of forest. The buildings were remodeled
into a rambling but comfortable dwelling, and here,
amid woods and hills he loved, he spent the summer
of each year. He built a little log cabin in the
woods near by, and here he wrote some of his best
music.
In 1904 MacDowell left Columbia, but
continued his private piano classes, and sometimes
admitted free such students as were unable to pay.
After his arduous labors at Columbia, which had been
a great drain on his vitality, he should have had
a complete rest and change. Had he done so, the
collapse which was imminent might have been averted.
But he took no rest though in the spring of 1905 he
began to show signs of nervous breakdown. The
following summer was spent, as usual, in Peterboro
but it seemed to bring no relief to the exhausted
composer. In the fall of that year his ailment
appeared worse. Although he seemed perfectly
well in body, his mind gradually became like that
of a child. The writer was privileged to see him
on one occasion, and retains an ineffaceable memory
of the composer in his white flannels, seated in a
large easy chair, taking little notice of what was
passing about him, seldom recognizing his friends or
visitors, but giving the hand of his devoted wife a
devoted squeeze when she moved to his side to speak
to him.
This state continued for over two
years, until his final release, January 23, 1908,
as he had just entered his forty-seventh year.
The old Westminster Hotel had been the MacDowell home
through the long illness. From here is but a
step to St. George’s Episcopal Church, where
a simple service was held. On the following day
the composer was taken to Peterboro, his summer home,
a spot destined to play its part, due to the untiring
efforts of Mrs. MacDowell, in the development of music
in America.
Mr. Gilman tells us:
“His grave is on an open hill-top,
commanding one of the spacious and beautiful views
he had loved. On a bronze tablet are these lines
of his own, used as a motto for his ‘From a
Log Cabin,’ the last music he ever wrote:
’A house of dreams untold
It looks out over the whispering tree-tops
And faces the setting sun.’”