In his own time, Edward MacDowell was considered to be the first great American composer, and he was the first American-born composer whose works were published and widely performed in Europe. MacDowell was born in New York City on December 18, 1860, the third son of Thomas and Frances Knapp McDowell. (MacDowell changed the spelling of the family name in the late 1870s.) He began piano lessons at the age of eight with Juan Buitrago, a Colombian violinist who was a boarder in the McDowell home. He also took occasional lessons from the young Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreno, who later became a champion of his music. Showing exceptional promise, at the age of 16 he moved to Paris with Buitrago and his mother to continue his studies. He won a scholarship and full admission to the Paris Conservatory in 1877. In 1879 he entered the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he studied composition with conservatory director Joachim Raff. He left the conservatory after one year but remained in Germany, composing, teaching, and performing until 1888. In 1884 he traveled to the United States to marry Marian Nevins, one of his piano students. The couple returned to Germany and settled in Wiesbaden. He was strongly encouraged by Franz Liszt, who recommended his works for performance and publication. During these years in Germany, he composed prolifically, completing many works for piano, songs, part-songs, two piano concerti, the Romanz for cello and orchestra, and three orchestral tone poems.
In 1888 MacDowell and his wife returned to the United States and settled in Boston, where his reputation was quickly established. Within a year he had performed his Second Piano Concerto, op. 23, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Wilhelm Gericke and in New York with an orchestra under the direction of Theodore Thomas. During his years in Boston, he continued to compose, teach, and perform, and his music was heard frequently in American concert halls. In 1896 MacDowell moved to New York City to accept appointment as the first professor of music at Columbia University. For the next eight years he devoted himself tirelessly to the creation of a music department. In addition to his academic responsibilities, he conducted the Mendelssohn Glee Club, a prominent New York men’s chorus. From 1899 to 1900 he served as president of the newly formed Society of American Musicians and Composers. MacDowell resigned his position at Columbia in 1904 following a dispute with the university president, Nicholas Murray Butler. By 1905 he was showing signs of the mental illness that plagued him during his last years. He died of paresis (general paralytica) in New York City on January 23, 1908.
Although MacDowell was an American composer, his music was firmly within the late romantic European tradition. Some of his best-known works, such as Indian Sketches and From Puritan Days, celebrated American themes. Yet his compositional style reflected the influence of Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, and Grieg. He resented concerts of exclusively American music and at times refused to participate in such events. He disliked being categorized as an American composer, preferring to be recognized as a composer whose nationality happened to be American. In the final years of his life, MacDowell dreamed of creating a retreat for artists, writers, and musicians on the property of his summer home in Peterborough, New Hampshire. In 1907 his wife realized his dream by founding the MacDow-ell Colony, which was destined to become one of the most important arts colonies of the 20th century.
Further reading: Alan H. Levy, Edward MacDowell: An American Master (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1998); John Fielder Porte, Edward MacDowell: A Great American Tone Poet, His Life and Music (Boston: Longwood Press, 1978).
—William Peek
World History
