United States or Tuvalu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
"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.
Edward Alexander MacDowell. The matter of precedence in creative art is as hopeless of solution as it is unimportant. And yet it seems appropriate to say, in writing of E.A. MacDowell, that an almost unanimous vote would grant him rank as the greatest of American composers, while not a few ballots would indicate him as the best of living music writers.
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.
Even with an assistant, however, MacDowell found his labours very far from being light. 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.
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.
This is fine, but there are some always who have special opportunities for service come their way, and so the Major specially mentions Captain H. M. Newson, Lieutenants Acland, Allard, Dann, Wood and MacDowell; and amongst the N.C.O.'s, Mellor, Darling, Edgenton, Peters, Fletcher, Spriggs and Hogan.
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.
The next year Raff introduced him to Liszt, who became so enthusiastic over his compositions that he got him the honor of playing his first piano suite before the formidable Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik Verein, which accorded him a warm reception. The following years were spent in successful concert work, till 1884, when MacDowell settled down to teaching and composing in Wiesbaden.
The orchestral compositions of our John K. Paine are masterworks, and the songs and pianoforte pieces of MacDowell are equal to anything produced in Europe since Chopin and Franz. We have several other men of great promise, and altogether the outlook for America, as well as for Europe, is bright. The books, pamphlets, and newspaper articles on Wagner would fill a library.
Word Of The Day