Edward MacDowell | Page 3

it is interesting to know that according to the teachings of
the ancient science of astrology, which is having a considerable revival
at present, the composer is entitled to unconventional methods and an
unusual combination of qualities, as he was born on the cusp between
the zodiacal signs of Sagittarius and Capricornus. The latter sign
produces people who will work well independently, but are very
restless when under orders or hampered by rules and regulations. They
love freedom, are fine entertainers, have little self-esteem, are inclined
to be either on the heights or in the depths, are excellent musicians and
lovers of harmony and beauty. They are often victims of over-work
because of the determination to make a brilliant success of what they
undertake and of their lack of judgment in regard to their powers of
endurance. Sagittarius people are characterized by directness of speech

and act. They are of varied talents, very musical and turn naturally to
the spiritual side of life. They belong to the prophetic realm and see
wonderful visions, but are no idle dreamers, being always mentally and
physically active. Whatever there may be in the science of astrology,
one who is familiar with the life and character of Edward MacDowell
cannot fail to be impressed by the correctness of this delineation, so far
as it goes.
But his style of composition is not, to my mind, capricious. It is the
result of many interesting influences of heredity, culture and individual
temperament and application. When he went to Paris, at fifteen, he was
a pupil of Marmontel in piano and of Savard in theory and composition;
but young as he was, the French school did not satisfy him. He heard
Nicholas Rubinstein play while in Paris, and became fired with
enthusiasm by his style and impressed with the idea that in Germany he
would find his own. His father was of Quaker extraction and had
decided artistic ability, but his pious parents would not permit him to
indulge even the thought of cultivating or pursuing so trivial a calling.
Edward inherited his father's talent, and while in the French capital,
during a period of despondency over his slow progress with the
language, he made a caricature of the teacher of his French class on a
leaf of his exercise book. In some way it fell under the tutor's eye, and
it was of such excellence that it aroused new interest in the gifted hoy
instead of indignation. The teacher showed it to one of the leading
artists in Paris, who implored young MacDowell to leave off music and
study art, assuring him that he had unusual ability. But the lad also had
a well-developed
discriminative faculty. He had chosen his ideal and
could not he persuaded to forsake it, preferring tone-pictures to those
made with brushes and palette.
Besides the Quaker strain, with its tendency toward dignity, simplicity
and openness to the leadings of spirit, he owes to his Celtic lineage the
mystic, poetic, dashing, unsophisticated vein that might be easily
mistaken for caprice, and to his American birth is due, no doubt, many
of the more solid, practical characteristics that combined to produce the
proper balance.

Naturally, he was deeply influenced by his foreign teachers and also by
his favorites among the great masters whose works he studied. He is
said to have adored Wagner, with Tschaikowsky and Grieg for lesser
musical loves. To what extent he drew upon Wagner no one can say,
but that he did so, either unconsciously or with that imitation that is
sincerest flattery is very evident. Many passages suggest Wagner, and
one can easily imagine the ardent young American worshiping the great
German master, as he in turn had adored Beethoven.
Liszt used to say: "I only value people by what they are to Wagner."
There is no estimating the value of Wagner to those who came after
him. He was not satisfied, we are told, with either the melody of the
Italians or the rhetorical excesses of the French. The music of
Beethoven was his ideal, and the dramas of Shakespeare, whose work,
to his mind, compared with the early Greek plays, was like a scene in
nature in comparison with a piece of architecture. Mme. de Staël called
beautiful architecture "frozen music." It was just this architectural,
frozen, congealed condition that Wagner wished to overcome, without
running into any frivolities. He was in every sense a living, breathing
man, and his work is pervaded by this virile, life-like quality. In his
first youthful attempt at drama, forty-two persons perished in the
development of the plot and most of them had to be brought back as
ghosts to enable him to complete the piece. Now, however, one is
haunted by the faithfulness to life of his creations, not by the ghosts