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As to other transcriptions, I have never done any that I did not feel instinctively would make good fiddle pieces, such as MacDowell's To a Wild Rose and others of his compositions.
Any one who should undertake casually to examine MacDowell's songs seriatim, beginning with his earliest listed work in this form the "Two Old Songs," op. 9 would not improbably be struck by an apparent lack of continuity and logic in the initial stages of his artistic development. The explanation, which I have elsewhere intimated, is simple.
They are dedicated to Emilio Agramonte, one of MacDowell's first prophets, and one of the earliest and most active agents for the recognition of the American composer. In the lyrics in opus 56 and opus 58 MacDowell has turned song to the unusual purposes of a landscape impressionism of places and moods rather than people.
The poems which suggested this and the preceding piece were used again by MacDowell in two of the most admirable of the "Eight Songs," op. 47. Begun during his last year in Wiesbaden , and completed the following winter in Boston, it stands, in the order of MacDowell's orchestral pieces, between "Lancelot and Elaine" and the two "fragments" after the "Song of Roland."
At all events, if we are not to meet, I am glad to read in the papers of your artistical success in Amerika. With my best wishes, I am, dear Sir, Yours very truly, MacDowell when he learned of her husband's collapse: CHRISTIANIA, December 14, 1905. DEAR MADAM: The news of MacDowell's serious illness has deeply affected me.
I am inclined to rank this movement, with the sonatas and one or two of the "Woodland Sketches" and "Sea Pieces," as the choicest emanation of MacDowell's genius; and of these it is, I think, the most inspired and the most deeply felt. The "Tragica" sonata, op. 45, which antedates the suite by several years, and of which I shall write in another chapter, has a considerably less definite content.
What are the distinguishing traits, after all, of MacDowell's music? The answer is not easily given. His music is characterised by great buoyancy and freshness, by an abounding vitality, by a constantly juxtaposed tenderness and strength, by a pervading nobility of tone and feeling.
Other colors repel, perhaps for the opposite reason. Brilliant red is a warlike color, and finds analogous expression in such pieces as Chopin's Polonaise Militaire, and MacDowell's Polonaise. We cannot help seeing, feeling the color red, when playing such music.
They are sentimental and unleavened, and they are far from worthy of his gifts, though they are not without a certain rather inexpensive charm. The "Marionettes" of op. 38 are in a wholly different case. Published first in 1888, the year of MacDowell's return to America, they were afterward extensively revised, and now appear under a radically different guise.
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.
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