Edward MacDowell | Page 4

Sidney Lanier took music into poetry in his "Science of English Verse." Wagner also thought that because of the exactness of musical science, a composer became practically the actor of each of his parts, while the dramatic author could never be sure what meaning would be read into his lines.
The native poetic temperament of MacDowell and his almost invariable use of lines, figures or stanzas of poetry as inspiration in composition leads one to believe that he would have attempted opera when he had grown to it. This was one of the few musical forms that he did not essay. Perhaps he was of the opinion of Beethoven, as Wagner conceived him, who said when speaking of opera: "The man who created a true_ musical drama would be looked upon as a fool--and would _be one in very truth if he did not keep such a thing to himself, but wanted to bring it before the public."
MacDowell is frequently called a mystic, and most of his efforts breathe the Celtic spirit, which is full of melancholy, romance and tenderness. Ghosts creep through their pages and wandering, restless spirits call from his most characteristic harmonies. Wagner was a mystic at sixteen, dwelling largely in the abstract, but grew out of this, through varied experience, into an active philosopher, with every objective faculty on the alert, and thus escaped, perhaps, the fate of MacDowell.
The literary loves of MacDowell, who supplied him with such a wealth of inspiration, were Goethe, Heine, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Keats, and he was himself a poet of no mean ability. Lawrence Gilman says, in his thorough analysis of his work, that, writing as he usually does from some poetic theme, the effect is lost if the hearer does not know the idea around which the composition is woven. For instance, one is apt to take "A.D. 1620" for a funeral dirge, just to hear it without knowledge of the subject, as it somewhat resembles the Chopin Funeral March; but the title suggests something historic, and knowing the lines that inspired it, one can easily distinguish the waves and the majestic movement of a great ship putting out to sea.
Naturally, MacDowell drew heavily upon the German poets, Goethe and Heine, in his earlier works, as he began his serious study of composition in Germany. Equally naturally did he turn to Tennyson, as they are alike in psychic development and in their powers of interpretation of nature. Recently, in Lincoln, England, a new statue of Tennyson was unveiled. It is by Watts, and represents the poet clad in a cape overcoat, with slouch hat in hand and his dog at his side. He and his dumb friend have been strolling in the woods and his head is bent over an uprooted flower held lovingly in his hand. Underneath are the lines which inspired the striking pose:
"Flower in the crannied wall,?I pluck you out of the crannies,?I hold you here, root and all, in my hand.?Little flower--but if I could understand?What you are, root and all, and all in all,?I should know what God and man is."
It is a beautiful conception, the big, tall man contemplating thus reverently, with bared head, the tender epitome of life. The dog, with head upraised, points a comprehending nose in the direction of his poet-master's find, and looks as if he longed to help him unravel the mystery. MacDowell would adore this piece of sculpture, for he sought the secret of life in flower and brook and landscape, in mountain and vale and sea.
Gilman compares the "Sea Pieces" to Walt Whitman and Swinburne. Like Whitman, MacDowell is no strict adherent to set forms, placing inspiration ahead of tradition. Some of his most beautiful?compositions are very brief. Poe claims that there is no such thing in existence as a "long poem." Since a poem only deserves the name in proportion to its power to excite and elevate the soul, and a sustained condition of soul excitement and elevation is a psychic impossibility, the oft-used phrase is a contradiction in terms. Applying this idea to the familiar piano compositions of MacDowell, they have every right to be called "tone poems." Poetry is the color-work of the mind, as distinguished from its sculpture and architecture, which represent mere form. There is more than form in the compositions under consideration; the tinge of color is everywhere, the wave of poetry that produces soul excitement and elevation, from signature to final chord. While he handles a subject broadly, as an impressionist, accomplishing striking effects with a few bold, characteristic strokes, MacDowell still works out his tone picture with considerable detail, carefully indicating the results he wishes to achieve. He reminds one in his methods of Corot, the great landscape painter. He will tell you to play a passage "very tenderly,"