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," or "somewhat savagely," or "daintily and joyously," not being content with the usual color terms. When he is loud, he is very, very loud, and in the same composition will have a passage marked with four p's. He likes contrasts and uses them very effectively. His music has the charm of infinite variety, but there is an insistent note of sombreness pervading most of it that is heard even above the majesty of the "Sea Pieces," the beauty of the "Woodland Sketches" and the humor of the "Marionettes." In the "New England Idyls" there is a plaintive little wail, "From a Log Cabin," the rustic retreat in the woods at Peterboro, his "house of dreams untold," where MacDowell did most of his later composition. It speaks of solitude, isolation and a moan of the wind is heard in the tree tops, with an answering moan from the heart of a man who may have had some premonition of his fate.
He is the first composer of world-note since Brahms who did his best work for the piano. Others have used that instrument as a means merely, reserving their crowning efforts for the orchestra, where it is, of course, far less difficult to achieve fine effects. While he wrote successful orchestral suites, he dignified the single instrument by devoting his first thought to piano literature.
His humorous suite, "The Marionettes," very strongly suggests Jerome K. Jerome's "Stageland," in which the villain is represented as an individual who always wears a clean collar and smokes a cigarette. The hero approaches the heroine from the rear and "breathes his attachment down her back," and the poor heroine is pursued by the relentless storm, while on the other side of the street the sun is shining. MacDowell portrays the coquettish "Soubrette," the longing "Lover," the strong-charactered "Witch," the gay "Clown," the sinister "Villain" and the simple, tender "Sweetheart," with a Prologue indicating "sturdy good humor" and an Epilogue to be rendered "musingly, with deep feeling." The suite is very attractive and in sharp contrast to his romantic, heroic and lyric work.
Another potent factor in the formation of MacDowell's style of composition was his love of nature. No one has put truer brooks, birds, flowers, trees, meadows or sea into tone. Whenever he "loafed and invited his soul," the tired, city-worn world reaped the benefit. His lesser piano compositions may be, in a sense, considered in the light of a diary. We are with him in a fisherman's hut, in deep woods, on a deserted farm, in the haunted house, by the lily pond, in mid-ocean, by a meadow brook, by smoldering embers, always seeing the picture, hearing the voices or feeling the atmosphere that appealed to his artist mind. The charm of common things, the ever-present beauty and harmony in all forms of life, supplied him with endless inspiration.