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About
America’s first internationally recognized composer, Edward MacDowell was born into a Quaker family of Scottish descent on December 18, 1861. As a child he studied piano, before going abroad in 1876 to Paris, then on to Germany, where he found a sympathetic spiritual home. Like his compatriots Paine, Chadwick, Griffes, and Farwell, who also made the German pilgrimage, MacDowell immersed himself in not only advanced counterpoint and harmony, but also in the entire Romantic ethos. Imbibing from the stream of German folklore, poring over the great Romantic writers from Goethe and Schiller to Heine, Geibel, and Lenau, and listening to the music of Brahms, Wagner, Liszt, Schumann and Wolf, MacDowell endeavored to compose symphonic and vocal works in the European mode. His early German songs, Opus 11 and 12, hold their own next to those by his European contemporaries. So, too, does his first Piano Concerto (1885), which won him praise from none other than Franz Liszt, for whom he played it at Weimar. It continued to gain him recognition when he performed it with the Boston Symphony upon his return to the U.S. in 1888.
For the next 18 years MacDowell built a career as a respected teacher (at Columbia University from 1896 to 1904) and composer. His symphonic music resonates with poetical suggestion, often uses programmatic titles to evoke moods, and displays an affinity for folk-based elements, among them an interest in Native American melody. The 42 solo songs with which he endowed the repertoire demonstrate a passion not only for the German Romantics but also for the texts of his Scots precursor Robert Burns and for the English and French Romantics. In 1895 MacDowell founded an artistic colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, which remains today a mecca for artists seeking a stimulating and reflective environment for creative work.
–Thomas Hampson and Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold, PBS I Hear America Singing
Photo: Edward Alexander MacDowell, head-and-shoulders portrait, seated, facing right, between 1890 and 1908. Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress.
Related Information
Songs
A Maid Sings Light (op. 56, no. 3)
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Four Songs, Op. 56
As the Gloaming Shadows Creep (op. 56, no. 4)
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Four Songs, Op. 56
Constancy (op. 58, no. 1)
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Three Songs, Op. 58
Eight Songs, Op. 47
Song CollectionEdward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
William Dean Howells
Fair Springtide
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Three Songs, Op. 60
Folksong
Edward MacDowell
William Dean Howells
Song Collection: Eight Songs, Op. 47
For Sweet Love's Sake
Edward MacDowell
William Henry Gardner
Song Collection: Six Love Songs, Op. 40
Four Songs, Op. 56
Song CollectionEdward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
I Ask But This
Edward MacDowell
William Henry Gardner
Song Collection: Six Love Songs, Op. 40
Long Ago (op. 56, no. 1)
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Four Songs, Op. 56
Merry Maiden Spring (op. 58, no. 3)
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Three Songs, Op. 58
O Lovely Rose
Edward MacDowell
William Henry Gardner
Song Collection: Six Love Songs, Op. 40
Six Love Songs, Op. 40
Song CollectionEdward MacDowell
William Henry Gardner
Sunrise (op. 58, no. 2)
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Three Songs, Op. 58
Sweet Blue-Eyed Maid
Edward MacDowell
William Henry Gardner
Song Collection: Six Love Songs, Op. 40
Sweetheart Tell Me
Edward MacDowell
William Henry Gardner
Song Collection: Six Love Songs, Op. 40
The Robin Sings in the Apple-Tree
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Eight Songs, Op. 47
The Sea
Edward MacDowell
William Dean Howells
Song Collection: Eight Songs, Op. 47
The Swan Bent Low to the Lily (op. 56, no. 2)
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Four Songs, Op. 56
The West-Wind Croons in the Cedar-Trees
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Eight Songs, Op. 47
Three Songs, Op. 58
Song CollectionEdward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Three Songs, Op. 60
Song CollectionEdward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Through the Meadow
Edward MacDowell
William Dean Howells
Song Collection: Eight Songs, Op. 47
To the Goldenrod
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Three Songs, Op. 60
Thy Beaming Eyes
Edward MacDowell
William Henry Gardner
Song Collection: Six Love Songs, Op. 40
Tyrant Love
Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Song Collection: Three Songs, Op. 60
Videos
Recordings

Wondrous Free
(Leonard Bernstein, Paul Bowles, John Alden Carpenter, John Woods Duke, Stephen Foster, Sidney Homer, Francis Hopkinson, Charles Ives, Edward MacDowell, William Grant Still and Elinor Remick Warren)
2009
View recording

Dvořák und seine Zeit
(Charles Wakefield Cadman, Arthur Farwell, Edward MacDowell and Charles Ives)
2004

I Hear America Singing
(Ernst Bacon, Jean Berger, Paul Bowles, Henry T. Burleigh, Stephen Foster, Ernest Gold, Charles Griffes, Richard Hageman, Sergius Kagen, Charles Martin Loeffler, Edward MacDowell, Charles Naginski, John Jacob Niles, Hermann Reutter, Frédéric Louis Ritter, Ned Rorem, William Grant Still, Hugo Weisgall and Tennessee Williams)
2001
View recording

Paul Sperry Sings Songs of an Innocent Age
(Amy Marcy Beach, Charles Wakefield Cadman, John Alden Carpenter, George Whitefield Chadwick, Arthur Foote, Henry F. Gilbert, Charles Griffes, Charles Ives, Edward MacDowell and Ethelbert Nevin)
1990
Books
Sheet Music
Eight Songs, Op. 47 (medium voice)
Composer(s): Edward MacDowell
Voice Type: Medium
Buy via Classical Vocal ReprintsEight Songs, Op. 47 (low voice)
Composer(s): Edward MacDowell
Voice Type: Low
Buy via Classical Vocal ReprintsEight Songs, Op. 47 (low voice)
Composer(s): Edward MacDowell
Voice Type: Low
Find at your Local LibraryFour Songs, Op. 56 (high voice)
Composer(s): Edward MacDowell
Song(s): Long Ago (op. 56, no. 1)
The Swan Bent Low to the Lily (op. 56, no. 2)
A Maid Sings Light (op. 56, no. 3)
As the Gloaming Shadows Creep (op. 56, no. 4)
Voice Type: High
Buy via Classical Vocal ReprintsFour Songs, Op. 56 (high voice)
Composer(s): Edward MacDowell
Song(s): Long Ago (op. 56, no. 1)
The Swan Bent Low to the Lily (op. 56, no. 2)
A Maid Sings Light (op. 56, no. 3)
As the Gloaming Shadows Creep (op. 56, no. 4)
Voice Type: High
Find at your Local LibraryFour Songs, Op. 56 (low voice)
Composer(s): Edward MacDowell
Song(s): Long Ago (op. 56, no. 1)
The Swan Bent Low to the Lily (op. 56, no. 2)
A Maid Sings Light (op. 56, no. 3)
As the Gloaming Shadows Creep (op. 56, no. 4)
Voice Type: Low
Buy via Classical Vocal ReprintsThe First Book of Soprano Solos
Composer(s): Louis Campbell-Tipton, Samuel Barber, Edward MacDowell, Oley Speaks
Buy via Sheet Music PlusThree Songs, Op. 58
Composer(s): Edward MacDowell
Song(s): Constancy (op. 58, no. 1)
Sunrise (op. 58, no. 2)
Merry Maiden Spring (op. 58, no. 3)
Three Songs, Op. 60
Composer(s): Edward MacDowell
Song(s): Tyrant Love
Fair Springtide
To the Goldenrod