Edward MacDowell | Page 6

without stint. Others bid you write, write
incessantly about everything under the sun, until by long practice you
evolve a style of your own, unhampered in its originality by the
memory of the achievements of others resulting from much reading.
There are still others who advise an equal division of time between
study of the classics and self-expression. The latter is the most natural

and common method and leads in time to the goal. Perhaps the same is
true of musical style. Technical skill, accuracy, interpretation and
appreciation come from studying and performing the works of others;
then if one aspires to original work, let him compose, essaying any and
everything until his own peculiar bent is discovered, unless it forces
itself upon him with the insistence of destiny from the outset.
While the critics have admitted the freshness, originality and general
excellence of MacDowell's work and marveled over his versatility, his
shorter piano pieces and songs are as yet most popular in the making of
programmes. However, Henry T. Finck says of his sonatas: "As regards
the sonatas, I ought to bear MacDowell a decided grudge. After I had
written and argued a hundred times that the sonata form was 'played
out,' he went to work and wrote four sonatas to confute me. To be sure,
I might have my revenge and say they are 'not sonatas'; but they are no
more unorthodox than the sonatas of Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and
Grieg, though they have a freedom of their own which is captivating.
They are brimful of individuality and charm; they will be heard often in
the concert halls of the future."
The "Sonata Tragica" might have been written of the composer himself,
and "The Heroica" could easily have been inspired by his wife, instead
of by the Arthur legends, for she is a knightly soul, combining to a
most unusual degree the artistic temperament, womanly tenderness and
charm, with a chivalrous sort of courage, suggesting Tennyson's lines:
"My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,
As pure and true as blades of
steel."
These are busy days for her at Peterboro, where she is daily striving to
put the MacDowell ideals into permanent and practical effect. The plan
is most appealing and can, perhaps, be better understood by contrast, if
a little insight is given into a state of things, the amelioration of which
is the purpose of the project.
You are invited, then, to step into a neat and attractive modern
apartment kitchen, say three years ago. The grocery boy had just left.
Everything was there, and of unusually good quality--crisp lettuce,

golden oranges, the inevitable loaf of whole wheat bread, the sugar and
lemons--and as the housekeeper compared the articles with the grocer's
book which she held in her hand, she gave a start. Some one across the
way was playing "To a Wild Rose." Yes, it was Wednesday, and a
glance at the kitchen clock revealed the fact that in ninety minutes the
MacDowell Club would be called to order, and she had promised a
poem for the programme. Shades of Sappho! What was to be done?
There had been no time in the two weeks since the last meeting,
between housekeeping, mending, grinding out of pot-boilers and
countless interruptions, to give the matter a thought, and she had never
been known to forget such a promise.
Pegasus neighed reassuringly, and seizing the stub of a pencil attached
to the grocer's book, after a moment of concentration, in which she
closed her eyes to shut out the material vision before her, she scribbled
rapidly on a few blank pages in the back of the plebeian record. After
several readings of the lines and sundry interlined revisions, she tore
out the sheets, blessed Pegasus for coming in under the wire so nobly,
and hurried away to dress. At the appointed time, sheepishly trying to
conceal her unpoetic manuscript, which there had been no time to copy,
behind a lace fan, she arose, flushed but sustaining her reputation for
reliability as a programme feature.
'Twas for like-conditioned people, aspiring to work out their dreams in
words, tones, color or clay in congenial surroundings, undisturbed by
any domestic or other distraction or inharmony, that Edward
MacDowell conceived the idea now being carried out at Peterboro,
New Hampshire.
The plan was not to provide a rest-cure or moderate-priced summer
home for broken-down musicians, artists and writers, as many seem to
think, but to give those at the very height of their productiveness a
chance for undisturbed work, under the inspiration of nature in her
most alluring guise, and association, after work hours, with such rare
souls as could arouse higher aspiration by thought interchange and
comparison of ideals.
Ask the average workman along any artistic line what he would rather

have than anything else and he is