An Introduction to America’s Music

194 PART 2 | FROM THE CIVIL WAR THROUGH WORLD WAR I

piece like “To a Wild Rose” seems indisputable; and from still another, both

MacDowell and this piano piece refl ect an interweaving of European and American

traits on an equal footing.

NATIONALISM AND THE INDIAN SUITE

Several years before the Woodland Sketches, in an effort to compose music that

did not sound German-inspired, MacDowell wrote an orchestral piece, the Sec-

ond (Indian) Suite (1891), based on American Indian melodies. The melodies were

drawn from transcriptions in Theodore Baker’s 1882 dissertation on the music of

North American Indians (see chapter 9).

Listen & Refl ect

1. Is MacDowell’s title an appropriate indicator of the music’s character? Why or why not?


2. Aaron Copland’s “Morning on the Ranch” (see LG 15.2) is a much later example of musical
   nature painting. Does it seem to share any aesthetic qualities with “To a Wild Rose”? Why
   or why not?

date: 1896

performer: James Barbagallo, piano

genre: character piece for piano

meter: duple

form: ABAC

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

• sustained mood with no sharp contrasts


• simple, delicate textures


• clear, songlike melody in foreground


• mildly dissonant harmony with touches of
  chromaticism

timing section comments

0:00 A An 8-bar melody, built on a short-short-long rhythm, avoids stepwise motion and

the tonic pitch until its last note. Simple harmony with gentle dissonances, as in

the second bar.

0:11 A variant of the 8-bar melody, with a somewhat higher contour. In bar 6, the left

hand echoes the short-short-long rhythm.

0:23 B 12 bars, introducing more chromatic harmonies, climaxing in a 4-bar phrase that

emphasizes the dominant chord, with a diminuendo on the piece’s highest note.

0:44 A Repeat of the opening 8-bar melody.

0:56 C Chromatic melody related to B unfolds over a tonic pedal point (a long-held note

with changing harmonies over it), then resolves in a quiet, gentle cadence.

note From Woodland Sketches, op. 51.

CD 1.26 Listening Guide 8.2 “To a Wild Rose” EDWARD MACDOWELL

172028_08_183-204_r3_ko.indd 194 23/01/13 10:24 AM