realisation of his dream.

The death of MacDowell completed the blow which his failing brain-power had dealt to American music and his many sympathisers, between two and three years before. His spirit lives, however, in his music and in the wonderful MacDowell Colony at Peterboro, New Hampshire. The latter is an amazing realisation of the composer's dream of an ideal environment for creative work in Music, Art and Literature. A chapter describing the Colony will be found further on in this book. In addition to the central organisation, now known as The Edward MacDowell Association, Incorporated, there are springing up in many American cities offshoots known as MacDowell Clubs, which contribute towards the expenses of the Colony.

MACDOWELL AS COMPOSER

Macdowell's position to-day in creative musical art remains the same as it was twenty years ago—one of unassailable independence and individualism. Although these two factors, whether assailable or not, must be a feature of any composer who lays claim to greatness, in MacDowell's case they are so marked as to form the strongest bulwark of his natural position among great music makers. His tone poetry is of a quality and power that is not quite like that of any other composer, and in the portraying, or suggesting, as he preferred to call it, of Natural, Historical and Legendary subjects he stands alone. Superbly gifted as a lyrical poet both in the literary and the musical sense, and with a most refined and keen feeling for the dramatic, he spoke with a voice of singular eloquence and power. Probably his greatest achievement was his remarkable, unerring ability to create atmospheres of widely varied kinds in his music, and in this respect there is no composer quite his equal. The soft beauty, grandeur, vastness and might of Nature; the joys and sorrows of Humanity; the romance of History and imaginative Legend; the buoyancy of sunshine and wind; the mysteriousness of enchanted woods; all these he translated with inimitable vividness into music. He could suggest with as definite and unmistakable a musical atmosphere, the simple beauty of a little wild flower, as the might of the sea; as well the fanciful and imaginative scenes of fairy tale as the wild and lonely vastness of the great American prairies; as well the joviality and humour of his countrymen as the elemental strength, and rude, stern manliness of the North American Indian, and the heroic, stirring atmosphere of the ancient bards.

That MacDowell was greater than is generally recognised in England is an opinion that increasingly forces itself on all who study and become closely acquainted with his best work. He is generally admitted to be great in small, lyrical forms, but it is insufficient to regard him merely as a miniaturist. The form of the well-known Sea Pieces (Op. 55) for pianoforte is small, for example, and yet the material is big and grand enough for symphonic work. The equally well-known Woodland Sketches, Op. 51, contain pieces of charming and delicate conception, as well as broader writing, and can hardly be considered as the products of a restricted inspiration. The poetry is so unmistakably fresh and individual, and the atmosphere so vividly suggested, that the ability of the composer to condense his material into such small compass is remarkable to even the most casual observer. Far from shewing weakness, the small form of MacDowell's compositions is a proof of his strength, for few other composers have been able to suggest such big scenes, often of far-reaching and wide significance, on such small canvasses as those on which he painted his tone poems.

The outstanding reason for his preference for writing albums of short pieces (partly due, no doubt, to lack of time for more extended work) was that he loved to seize a passing impression or inspiration and to express it in music before it faded from his mind. Nearly all his small pieces are musical photographs of the fancies of an impressionable and sensitive imagination.

The criticism sometimes heard that he was only good in small forms is, however, based on a fallacy due to an imperfect acquaintance with his work and is completely shattered by the indisputable greatness of his two concertos, of his four pianoforte sonatas and of the "Indian" Suite for orchestra. The sonatas, although not all of equal value, comprise some of the finest pianoforte music in existence. They are notable for their passion, breadth of style, massive momentum, dramatic power and eloquence of expression. Admirers think them only equalled by such creations as Beethoven's Sonata Appassionata. It is curious that MacDowell's sonatas are infrequently performed, for they bring the resources of the modern pianoforte into full and sonorous play, sweeping the whole of the keyboard with their stirring expressions. It is possible that as they are not in general demand, the average virtuoso does not consider their technical difficulties worth conquering. Nay, it is even doubtful whether the pianist's mind could always rise to the heights of fervent poetry and imagination whither MacDowell was often carried and the memories of which are embodied in his finest music.

As a tone poet MacDowell has none of the sensuous emotionalism that wins popularity in the drawing room and at the musical recitals of popular pianists. He is never sentimental and his strength and passion is always finely controlled, never feverish. His music is singularly free from the emotionalisms of sex, the love-impulse with him is always noble and restrained. In all his moods there is a human spirit and some definitely suggested content, the most notable purist exceptions being the two pianoforte concertos. His tone colourings are never used densely or oppressively, but only serve to heighten the suggestiveness of the whole. He loved the pianoforte as an instrument for personal melodic and harmonic expression, and understood the range of its tonal resources. His biggest music for it is written with very broad and extended chords, strong in character, but always wonderfully clear and ringing, and eminently suited for pianoforte sonority. His tone nuances range from a shadowy, mysterious pppp to a virile, massive ffff.

MacDowell's best orchestral composition is his Second (Indian) Suite, Op. 48. This is one of his most noble works, scored with masterly skill and vividly suggesting the great plains and forests, the wild and lonely retreats, the festivals, sorrows, rejoicings, and romances and also the stern, rude manliness of the North American Indians, whose pathetic annals form such a stirring page in American history. MacDowell also wrote three symphonic poems for orchestra, another suite, and some symphonic sketches.

The songs of MacDowell make an important section of the catalogue of his works, and are chiefly notable for their beauty and tenderness of expression, and he was at his very best when writing in the pure lyric form. His efforts comprising Ops. 56, 58 and 60 are of a rare and expressive order. He also composed a number of fine part-songs for male-voice choruses. Most of his best vocal works are set to his own verses, as he could seldom satisfy himself that words ally themselves naturally with music.

Poetry furnishes a composer with inspiration for expression which, MacDowell felt, could not be clearly demonstrated in a small space, and that the music therefore is apt to distort the words if they are harnessed to it in song form. Most of MacDowell's finest pianoforte pieces bear verses in addition to titles, thus definitely indicating what the music is intended to suggest. His verses are of an uncommon and gifted order, for he was a true poet in both the literary and the musical sense. His poems were collected some years after his death and published under the title of Book of Verses, by Edward