MacDowell, Edward Alexander

MacDowell, Edward Alexander (1861–1908),New York‐born composer, went abroad to study (1876) at Paris, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt, and taught piano at the Darmstadt Conservatory (1881–82). Before returning to the U.S. (1888), he composed his first and second piano concertos and other works for piano and orchestra. In Boston (1888–96), he taught, appeared as a concert pianist, and composed such piano works as the Twelve Virtuoso Studies, Woodland Sketches, the Tragica and Eroica sonatas, and many songs, tone poems, and the first and second (Indian) suites for orchestra. He headed Columbia's department of music (1896–1904), but after many difficulties resigned the post, and, exhausted and embittered, lost his reason after 1905. While at Columbia he produced his Norse and Keltic sonatas, the Sea Pieces, the Fireside Tales, and the New England Idyls, all for piano. MacDowell, like Grieg, was a leading composer of the late romantic tradition, but his nationalism, less marked than Grieg's, is found only in occasional use of Indian themes. He was often inspired by the countryside at his Peterboro, N.H., farm, where his widow, the pianist Marian Nevins MacDowell, established the MacDowell Colony for composers, artists, and writers. Authors who have stayed there include E.A. Robinson, Willa Cather, the Benéts, Thornton Wilder, and Hervey Allen.