Edward MacDowell (1860 -1908)
The Man:
New York is more
often the Mecca for artists rather than the birthplace, but in the case of
Edward MacDowell it can boast a geographic claim to both his nativity and
death. Edward MacDowell was born on December 18, 1860 and died on January 23,
1908. He began his study of music at the piano keyboard at an early age. His
first lessons took place when he was eight under the tutelage of an old family
friend Juan Buitrago, a native of Bogota, Columbia and an accomplished musician.
Their piano lessons at this time were subject to frequent interruptions; for
when strict supervision was not exercised over young Edward he was prone to
indulge at the keyboard a fondness for composition which developed concurrently
with, and often at the expense of his proficiency in piano technique. He was
not a prodigy, though his gifts were evident and plentiful. His early attempts
at composition were varied by an apt use of the pencil and sketching board. He
liked to cover his music books with drawings that showed both the observing eye
and skillful hand of a born artist. However, music and drawing were not
sufficient outlets for his impulse toward expression. MacDowell also wrote a
good deal of prose and verse and was very fond of creating fairy tales.
His first
professional piano teacher was Paul Desvernine, with whom he studied until he
was fifteen. He also studied with Teresa Carrefio (1853-1917) (to whom he
dedicated his Second Piano Concerto).
In 1876 he traveled
to Paris accompanied by his mother. He passed the admission examination to the
Paris Conservatory and began the Autumn term as a student of Antoine Francois
Marmontel (1816-1898) and Augustin Savard (1814 -1881). One of his fellow
pupils was Claude Debussy whom MacDowell described as a youth of erratic and
non-conformist tendencies. His studies at the Conservatory were encumbered by
his difficulty in understanding French. A teacher was hired to assist Edward in
his resolute attack in overcoming his linguistic barrier. On one occasion,
during one of these French lessons when the monotony of the hour was
intolerable, Edward drew a free-hand sketch (a portrait of his teacher) under
cover of his lesson book. As is always the case in an experienced instructor's
tutelage, the event was detected and in an effort to embarrass the student,
Edward was asked to exhibit the result of his efforts. The piece was such a
remarkable likeness of the subject that the instructor insisted on keeping the
sketch. Edward's mother was later advised that an instructor at the École de
Beaux Arts felt the sketch evidenced a talent that begged development. This,
compounded by Edward's desire to continue his study elsewhere, culminated in
MacDowell studying in Wiesbaden with Louis Ehlert (1825 -1884) in 1879 and then
in Frankfurt with Carl Heymann (1854- 1922). It was in Frankfurt that MacDowell
studied composition with Joachim Raff (1822- 1882). Through Raff's influence he
became a piano teacher at the Darmstadt Conservatory in 1881 A year later, Raff
introduced MacDowell to Franz Liszt. Liszt found MacDowell a personal delight
and was most enthusiastic over his compositional efforts. The following years
were spent in successful concert work. In 1884 MacDowell resumed teaching and
compositional work in Wiesbaden Four years later he returned to America, first
settling in Boston and eventually returning to New York where he was called to
the professorship of music at Columbia University. This was a tragic mistake.
Visits to Boston and the purchase of a much-Ioved summer home in Peterborough,
New Hampshire could not relieve the mental strain brought on by the overwork
and battles with the administration over financing the music department and
recognizing the academic worthiness of musical studies.
One of MacDowell's students
at Columbia, John Erskine (1879 -1951 ) noted that when he told a Columbia
University Dean of his interest in taking music courses the dean tried to
dissuade him. "The idea had not yet penetrated the academic skull that
music is a house-broken subject deserving polite toleration if not
hospitality", Erskine stated. "For most of the cultural high priests
music was something you 'took up' on the side, a mental discipline less
rigorous and possibly less rewarding than poker." MacDowell resigned a
beaten man in 1904, succumbed to acute nervous prostration, and died in 1908.
The Music:
As Nicholas E. Tawa
stated in his treatise The Coming of Age of
American Art Music: "MacDowell's music is usually serious,
emotional and shaped by an introspective contemplation of remembered
experiences. He considered himself a poet-singer and invariably wrote around a
poetic idea. He wished to compose music that captured an aspect of nature, the
essence of myth and fairyland, or the spirit of romance, chivalry and heroism.
Although he might provide an evocative title, he rarely supplied a detailed
program to accompany the work. A broad suggestion of its character sufficed.
Each work set forth a primary ambience and sustained it to the end. Marian
MacDowell explained that her husband believed that poetic titles aided a
performer's interpretation without limiting imagination. She stated that
MacDowell's writing was never descriptive in a realistic sense; it was the
expression of a mood which might be awakened by a scene, a poem, an idea, or an
experience.' His music was seldom pictorial or imitative. It presents the
spirit of a picture rather than the picture itself."
Nicholas Tawa
continues "MacDowell himself once confessed that he preferred to write for
piano rather than orchestra, because getting an orchestra to perform a work was
a headache, and usually he would hear such a work played perhaps once every two
or three years. On the other hand, he himself could play any of his piano
compositions whenever he wished."
"Fine as his
most mature pieces may be however, they can now and again strike the ear of a
modern-day listener as close to becoming too alike in the types of mood
projected and the way the music realizes a mood. A better appreciation arises
when one listens to one piece at a time or the batches of two or three pieces.
The moods heard in most of the miniatures of MacDowell's maturity are
restricted to three: the tender song without words with the tune in the upper
part, melodious legato and the fingers of both hands occupied with chordal
accompaniment; the majestic statement somewhat declamatory in nature, sonorous,
thickly textured the most significant part set forth in octaves and the deep
bass utilized; and the high spirited playful bagatelle, such as the pieces
depicting autumnal scenes or "Uncle Remus" or "Br'er
Rabbit", where patterns of sound are less chordal and dense, syncopations
are often introduced and sixteenth notes are likely to dart about in a
whimsical manner. Real contrapuntal activity is rare. Thin textures are
normally not for him. Foreign to his style is a plain single-note tune in one
hand, accompanied by some sort of broken chord figuration also set forth in
single notes in the other. Interestingly, a majority of the miniatures even
many of the etudes pose no great technical difficulty. Their challenge lies in
the interpretation of the poetic expression required by the composer".
Nicholas Tawa
concludes. "The finest of MacDowell's short characteristic pieces are
collected in four suites. Woodland Sketches, Opus 51 (1896); Sea Pieces, Opus
55 (1898); Fireside Tales, Opus 61 (1902); and New England Idyls, Opus 62
(1902). Each work is clearly structured and compact. Each is an individual
tonal painting executed by a sure hand certain of what it wants to achieve and
how to achieve it. One may be a modest diatonic ditty supported by constant
triads; another a complex chromatic melody heard above altered seventh and
ninth chords."
Woodland Sketcheswas composed when
MacDowell was reflecting and interpreting the natural beauty surrounding his
Peterborough summer home. It was in Peterborough that he wrote all of them. To a Wild Rose became number one in the
set almost accidentally MacDowell wrote out a short melody every morning which
he would later throwaway In this way he felt he kept his technique of melodic
composition finely honed. Upon hearing one of these cast-offs, Mrs. MacDowell
remarked that it reminded her of some wild roses growing close to their cabin
in Peterborough. MacDowell retrieved the tune and titled it accordingly
predicated on his wife's suggestion. Will-o
'-the- Wisp is an example of MacDowell's effortless bagatelle style.
At an Old Trysting Place does not
refer to lovers. It is MacDowell's effort to try and express the homesickness
of a group of people who originated in Peterborough but had to travel west in
search of fertile lands thus abandoning their birth place. This work is
MacDowell trying to capture the feeling of pining for home. In Autumn vibrates with cheer and is brisk
and snappy just like a fall day after summer's languor. From an Indian Lodge states itself in
declamation. To a Water-lily originates
from MacDowell smelling the scent of a water-lily growing out a of a coal-black
pool on an old deserted road. His comment was "I have been thinking of the
resemblance between that pool and the tenements I found when I went to look for
my birth place. Suddenly I realized that the slums are a great deal like that
black pool. Some of our finest citizens have come out of that environment just
as the water lilies force their way to the surface to flower in great
beauty."
From Uncle Remus is a tribute to American writer Joel Chandler
Harris (1848- 1908) as told by an old black Uncle Remus. A Deserted Farm held the same symbolic
import to New England's history as the ruins of an old castle might to a family
in Great Britain. MacDowell tried to capture the emotion of a family leaving a
beloved homestead with the intent to return, and later generations gazing at
the evidences of the abandonment. By a
Meadow Brook does not babble but it does radiate a certain
effervescence and crispness of sound. Told
at Sunset functions as an epilogue.
Sea Pieces contains eight numbers, all superb and
prefaced with a line or short stanza of verse. Each number introduces a moving
and striking piece with a concept focusing on the distinction of particular
aspect of the oceanscape and its wonder, mystery and vast beauty. To the Sea opens this set of miniature
tone-paintings. MacDowell prefaces it "Ocean thou mighty monster".
The work is to be played "With dignity and breadth" evoking the body
of water. From a Wandering Iceberg is
prefaced with four lines.
" An errant
princess of the north,
A virgin, snowy
white
Sails adown the
summer seas
To realms of burning
light"
A.D. MDCXX is a musical picture of the Mayflower, to be
played with "ponderous swing" evoking the ship that brought the
Pilgrims to American shores like a Winslow Homer painting. It is prefaced as
well.
"The yellow
setting sun
Melts the lazy sea
to gold
And gilds the
swaying galleon
That towards a land
of promise
Lunges hugely
on."
Starlight is a tender mood picture of the sea during a
starry night:
"The stars are
but the cherubs
That sing about the
throne
Of gray old Ocean's
spouse,
Fair Moon's pale
majesty."
Song is the song of a sailor on the watch, now grave,
now joyous, but always brave:
A merry song, a
chorus brave,
And yet a sigh
regret
For roses sweet, in
woodland lanes -
Ah, love can ne'er
forget!
From the Depths was one of pianist Rudolph Ganz's favorite
MacDowell works. He calls this languid and mysterious piece "exceptionally
grave and powerful". It is prefaced with only one line: "And who
shall sound the mystery of the sea?" Nautilus
paints in tones a poetic picture of "The Chambered
Nautilus" -that fairy creature of the sea floating in iridescent splendor
upon the sunlit waves. The sheet music carries with the title a charming
suggestion in the line: "A fairy sail and a fairy boat." The
collection ends with In Mid-ocean, to
be played with "deep feeling" and prefaced with:
"Inexorable!
Thou straight line
of eternal fate
That ring'st the
world,
Whil'st on thy
moaning breast
We play our puny
parts
And reckon us
immortal!"
Fireside Tales was composed with a great deal of whimsy and
humor. Syncopations and brusque gesturing that one associates with a
minstrel-show dance appear in numbers 1, 3, 5 and 6. A privacy and musing and a
gentle, serious fancifulness, give us a clue as to what the young MacDowell
might have smiled over as a toddler-child. The collection begins with An Old Love Story, a tender and charming
miniature musical love sonnet. Of Br'er
Rabbit is a spirited and humorous romp with Joel Chandler Harris'
fictional rabbit: "He was born little, so no matter whereabouts you put
him, he could cut capers and play pranks. What he couldn't do with his feet he
could do with his head, and when his head got him in trouble, he put his
dependence back on his feet, because that's where he kept his lippity-clip and
his blickety-blick." From a German
Forestis a dreamy picture
of MacDowell's visits to German forests while
a student in the 1880's. Of Salamanders is
a whimsical, impressionistic picture of a long tailed, short legged, slender
bodied, moist skinned salamander that feels equally at home in water and on
land. In A Haunted House MacDowell
comes upon a mysterious, abandoned house whose inhabitants are lithesome
spirits. The Fireside Tales come
to a close musingly in By Smouldering Embers
where the fire is almost out, it is late in the evening and
MacDowell bids us good night.
New England Idyls, as their title suggest, are the contents of a
recorded dreamlike fantasy: Most tender in nature all the numbers are
impeccably rendered miniatures of a place "over there" before we hit
adult reality when we skipped with slings shots in our pockets and danced in
virgin rain puddles in our Sunday school best. The first of the idyls is An Old Garden prefaced with a bit of
poetry:
"Sweet-alyssum,
Moss grown stair,
Rows of roses,
Larkspur fair.
All old posies,
Tokens rare
Of love undying
Linger there.
"
Mid-summer is a dreamy portrait of a warm and lazy time
of the year:
"Droning
summer slumbers on
Midst drowsy
murmurs sweet.
Above, the lazy
cloudlets drift,
Below, the swaying
wheat."
For Mid-winter MacDowell provides the
following poetic motto:
"In shrouded
awe the word is wrapped,
The sullen wind
doth groan,
Neath winding-sheet
the earth is stone
The wraiths of snow
have flown
And lo! A thread of
fate is snapped
A breaking heart
makes moan
A virgin cold doth
rule alone
From old
Mid-winter's throne."
Sweet Lavender is another of MacDowell's sweet and delicate
masterpieces:
"From days of
yore,
Of lover's lore,
A faded bow
Of one no more.
A treasured store
Of lover's lore,
Unmeasured woe
For one, no
more."
Woods, forests and
trees were often MacDowell's inspirations. He treasured his home in New
Hampshire and often took walks among the trees. In Deep Woods tells the tale:
"Above, long slender
shafts of opal flame,
Below, the dim
cathedral aisles;
The silent mystery
of immortal things
Broods o'er the
woods at eve:
The lore and music
of the American Indian was a significant source of musical inspiration for
Edward MacDowell In his Indian Idyl he
utilizes an Iowan Indian love song:
"Alone by the
wayward flame
She weaves broad
wampum skeins
While afar through
the summer night
Sigh the wooing
flutes' soft strings."
Once again in To an Old White Pine MacDowell erects a
stately, dignified musical monument:
"A giant of
an ancient race
He stands, a
stubborn sentinel
O'er swaying gentle
forest trees
That whisper at his
feel."
American Puritan
roots are once again musically treated in From
Puritan Days which has the shortest poetic motto: "In Nomine
Domini" translation: "In
the name of God" From a Long Cabin is
perhaps MacDowell's own view of his Peterborough home:
"A house of
dreams untold,
It looks out over
the whispering tree-tops
And faces the
setting sun."
The Joy of Autumn races along with utmost
insouciance:
"From hill-top
to vale,
Through meadow and
dale,
Young Autumn doth
wake the world
And naught shall
avail
But our souls shall
sail
With the flag of
life unfurled."
James Huneker
called MacDowell "the most poetic composer in America". Olin Downes
stated that MacDowell' s place in music history is unquestioned. "His was
the nature and expression of the complete artist - of the reaches of his spirit
and his perception of nature and the beauty and tragedy of human destiny,
revealed to him by his "familiars" of forest, sky and sea." To
Virgil Thomson, MacDowell "left us a repertory of unforgettable pieces,
all different from one another and all charming." Upton Sinclair wrote.
"His personality was to me as a bit of radium, which continues to give out
energy, and yet is undiminished and imperishable. He was a vital artist and one
does not meet many of them in one lifetime. " His wife had his tombstone
inscribed with the lines prefixed to the piece From
a Log Cabin:
A house of dreams
untold,
It looks out over
the whispering tree-tops,
And faces the
setting sun
James Barbagallo
was born in Pittsburgh, California on November 3rd, 1952. His maternal
grandfather was a piano builder who recommended to his daughter that, when she
had children of her own, she start them at the keyboard, but only after they
had mastered their fractions. He was nine years old when he started formal
musical instruction and nine when he started to play the piano. The most
influential teachers in his life were James Beall, Julian White, and Sascha Gorodnitzki
and he received a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from The Juilliard School in
1974 and 1976. At Juilliard, he was Sascha Gorodnitzki's assistant. Although he
was a prize-winner at the University of Maryland International Piano
Competition in 1978, and at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition
in 1980, it was his Bronze Medal at the Seventh International Tchaikovsky Piano
Competition in Moscow in 1982 that catapulted James Barbagallo into
international prominence. He toured all over the world, performing in many of
the best concert halls and formed the Amadeus Trio with Timothy Baker and
Rafael Figueroa. In 1993, he began recording the complete piano works of Edward
MacDowell for Marco Polo, but never completed his beloved MacDowell series. On
26th February, 1996 he died unexpectedly of a heart attack in California, where
he had come for more recording sessions. He was 43 years old. In addition to
the four volumes of MacDowell's solo piano music, he recorded MacDowell's
complete songs with tenor Steven Tharp, a disc of the Bach transcriptions of
the Russian pianist and Liszt student, Alexander Siloti, and Arthur Foote's
piano quintet and quartet with the Da Vinci Quartet of Colorado. This recording
of the piano quintet was James Barbagallo's last recording.