An Introduction to America’s Music

CHAPTER 8 | EDWARD MACDOWELL 191

Listen & Refl ect

1. How does Beach use melody, harmony, rhythm, and orchestration to emphasize the Irish
   character of her borrowed theme?


2. How does she use those elements at other times to minimize the folk character?


3. Locate and listen to a recording of Dvorˇák’s New World Symphony. Do any of its themes
   strike you as folklike?


4. How does Dvorˇák’s treatment of those themes resemble Beach’s symphony, and how
   does it differ?

EDWARD MACDOWELL

Although George Chadwick included Edward MacDowell in his list of “the boys,”

MacDowell’s musical orientation ran against the classicist strain of German

Romanticism—from Beethoven and Schubert through Mendelssohn, Schumann,

and Brahms—that inspired the Bostonians. Instead, he identifi ed with the “New

German School” of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner, which emphasized pro-

grammatic description and musical narrative over the classical sonata forms of

symphony and string quartet.

In 1876 MacDowell’s mother took her musically gifted sixteen-year-old son to

Europe for more specialized training. He was accepted at the Paris Conservatory

but disliked French instruction and moved to Germany two years later, study-

ing piano in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt and taking composition lessons; from

1881 to 1882 he taught piano at the Darmstadt Conservatory. In July 1882, when

he played his First Piano Concerto at a concert in Zurich attended by Liszt, the

strong response surpassed anything MacDowell had imagined and changed the

way he thought of himself as a musician.

Now MacDowell gave more and more attention to composing. By 1884 German

publishers had issued some of his works, and other pianists had started playing

them. In the same year, he married Marian Nevins, an American and a former

piano student, and the couple settled in 1885 in Wiesbaden, where MacDowell

taught piano and composed. Three years later, having lived nearly half his life in

timing section comments

6:03 Theme in oboe, in the original key; three phrases, abb.

6:41 A new extension begins with the a phrase of the theme; crescendo to a loud chord.

A descending line played by two clarinets leads to a duet for oboe and English

horn that ends inconclusively.

8:01 coda Return to the tempo of B.

Listening Guide 8.1

Gaelic Symphony, second movement

AMY BEACH

CD 1.25

years in Europe

172028_08_183-204_r3_ko.indd 191 23/01/13 10:24 AM