Edward MacDowell’s European Piano Music : The Forging of an American Composer

Edward MacDowell’s European Piano Music is a critical study of the piano music that MacDowell composed during his European sojourn (1876–1888), steeped in reception history and with a special emphasis of programmaticism. The book expands current knowledge of MacDowell’s childhood in four of the chapters based on his previously uninvestigated sheet music collection, thereby achieving a better balance among the stages of MacDowell’s life than is evident in most books of the life-and-works variety. Prolific contemporaneous music criticism, meticulously preserved in MacDowell’s scrapbooks, is likewise undervalued in the MacDowell literature, but it furnishes penetrating observations about the expressive and programmatic content of numerous compositions, especially as it was revealed to critics when MacDowell performed his own works. Lastly, the book offers explanations for why MacDowell immersed himself in European culture for decades and then, at a crucial juncture in his career, embraced diverse American heritages and worked toward a conception of a pluralistic music that was American “in a creative sense.” The book’s content and methodology would appeal most directly to specialists within the broad fields of musicology and music theory, particularly within American art music and its composers; nineteenth-century music; program music; reception history; and piano literature. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Music Examples List of Tables Abbreviations Prologue Notes 1 The Sheet Music Collection of Walter and Eddie McDowell: Provenance, Contents, Cosmopolitanism Provenance Contents Cosmopolitanism Notes References 2 The Collection and Eddie’s Teachers: Buitrago, Desvernine, Carreño Buitrago Desvernine Carreño The Trio Notes References 3 The Sheet Music Collection’s Compositional Impact Topics Topics and the Body Topics and the Voice Topics of Nature and the Supernatural Piano Styles Topical Summations and Narratives Notes References 4 “Untold Gold”: Taking the Juvenilia Seriously Juvenile Manuscripts: Processes and Ambiguities Topics and the Body Topics and the Voice Nature and the Supernatural Pianistic Topics Topical Conclusions Narration and Programmaticism Notes References 5 Leaving Paris, Finding a Vocation in Germany An Abrupt Farewell A Multi-Stage Transition The New Germans and the Opposition Ehlert Heymann Böhme Raff Notes References 6 “Modernity” in MacDowell’s First Three Published Piano Works Op. 10: Genre, Influence, and Performance The Suite’s Modernity: Cyclical Form, Harmony, Texture, Poetry Op. 10: Topics, Incipient Narratives, and Enhancing Revisions Op. 10: A Summation, a Wider Lens, and an Americanist Perspective Op. 13: Tradition and “Modernity” Op. 14: A Second Essay in “Modernity” Critical Contexts: Quality and Modernity An American Conclusion Notes References 7 The Transatlantic First Piano Concerto Genesis and Publication Performance History Conception of Genre, Reception of Style Recurrent Topics Matters of Influence Notes References 8 Frankfurt Character Pieces: Forgotten Narratives Serenade, Op. 16 Zwei Fantasiestücke, Op. 17 Zwei Stücke, Op. 18 Wald-Idyllen, Op. 19 Drei Poesien, Op. 20 Mondbilder, Op. 21 Frankfurt: Achievement and Legacy Notes References 9 Wiesbaden Character Pieces: Literary and Theatrical Embodiments Vier Stücke, Op. 24 Idyllen, Op. 28 Sechs Gedichte Nach Heinrich Heine, Op. 31 Vier Kleine Poesien, Op. 32 Etude De Concert, Op. 36 Les Orientales, Op. 37 Marionetten, Op. 38 Notes References 10 The Shakespearean Second Piano Concerto Conception, Composition, Revision Performance and General Critical Assessments MacDowell as Featured Soloist Carreño and Company Myriad Influences Forms and Models Piano and Orchestra A Shakespearean Concerto An American Concerto Notes References Epilogue Notes References Appendix: The Sheet Music Collection’s Contents, Organized By Performing Media and Genres Bibliography Index