Edward MacDowell

rent lack of continuity and logic in the initial stages of his artistic development. At first glance, MacDowell seems to have attained a phenomenal ripeness and individuality of expression in these

itten until a decade later, when they were issued under an arbitrary opus number as a matter of expediency. Their proper place in MacDowell's musical history is, therefore, about synchronous with th

d ninety-six; not to mention Schumann's two hundred and forty-eight, or Schubert's amazing six hundred and over. MacDowell has written fo

declamation. The accompaniment should be merely a background for the words. Harmony is a frightful den for the small composer to get into-it leads him into frightful nonsense. Too often the accompaniment of a song becomes a piano fantasie with no resemblance to the melody. Colour and harmony under such conditions

ic is free to distort syllables. A poem may be of only four words, and yet those four words may contain enough suggestion for four pages of music; but to found a song on those four words would be impossible. For this reason the paramount value of the poem is that of its suggestion in the field of instrumental

in, words that prove insurmountable obstacles. I have in mind one by Aldrich in which the word 'nostrils' occurs in the very first verse, and one ca

ue from the musical setting, that, while I cannot recall the melodies of many of the songs that I have written, the words of them are so ind

Wind Croons in the Cedar Trees" (op. 47), and of some of the choruses, were of his authorship. He enjoyed what he called "stringing words together," and most of his verses were written off-hand, with a facility which betrayed the marked gift for verbal expression which is apparent in his often admirably stated lectures. But his especial reason for writing the words for his songs was his difficulty hi finding texts which quite suited him. Many poems which he would have liked to set were, as he explained in the words I have quoted, full of snags in the wa

shing traits-sensitiveness and fervour of imagination, a lovely and intimate sense of romance, whimsical and piquant humour, virility, passion, an unerring instinct for atmospheric suggestion. But there are times when, despite his avowed principles in the matter, he sacrifices truth of declamation to the presumed requirements of melodic design-when he seems to pay more heed to the unrelated effect of tonal contours than to the dramatic or emotional need

l's song-groups. As a single instance, I may allege the run in eighth-notes which encumbers the setting of the second syllable of the word "again," in the fourth bar of "Springtide" (op. 60). Such infelicities are difficult to accou

t which weighs heavily against him when one considers the musical quality of his songs as a whole. Not, as a whole, equal to his

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ne of the loveliest and most spontaneous he has written. I do not mean to say that he does not often achieve an ideal correspondence between the significance of his text and the effect of his music; but when he does-as in, for instance, that superb tragedy in little, "The Sea,"[16] or in the still finer "Sunrise"[17]-one's impression is that it is the fortunate result of chance, rather than the outcome of deliberate artistic purpose. It is in songs of an untrammelled lyricism that his art finds its chief opportunity. In such he is both delightful and satisfying-in, for instance, the six flower songs, "From an Old Garden"; in "Confidence" and "In the Woods" (op. 47); in "The Swan Bent Low to the Lily," "A Maid Sings Light," and "Long Ago" (op. 56); and in the delectable "To t