But alas, MacDowell soon found out his mistake. He discovered that he would have to unlearn all he had acquired and begin from the beginning. And even then the instruction was not very thorough.
They now thought of Frankfort, where the composer Joachim Raff was the director and Carl Heymann, a very brilliant pianist, was one of the instructors.
After months of delay, during which young MacDowell worked under the guidance of Ehlert, he at last entered the Frankfort Conservatory, studying composition with Raff, and piano with Heymann. Both proved very inspiring teachers. For Heymann he had the greatest admiration, calling him a marvel, whose technic was equal to anything. "In hearing him practise and play, I learned more in a week than I ever knew before."
Edward MacDowell remained in close study at the Frankfort Conservatory for two years, his mother having in the meantime returned to America. He had hoped to obtain a place as professor on the teaching staff of the institution. Failing to do this he took private pupils. One of these, Miss Marian Nevins, he afterwards married. He must have been a rather striking looking youth at this time. He was nineteen. Tall and vigorous, with blue eyes, fair skin, rosy cheeks, very dark hair and reddish mustache, he was called "the handsome American." He seemed from the start, to have success in teaching, though he was painfully shy, and always remained so.
In 1881, when he was twenty, he applied for the position of head piano teacher in the Darmstadt Conservatory, and was accepted. It meant forty hours a week of drudgery, and as he preferred to live in Frankfort, he made the trip each day between the two towns. Besides this he went once a week to a castle about three hours away, and taught some little counts and countesses, really dull and sleepy children, who cared but little if anything for music. However the twelve hours spent in the train each week, were not lost, as he composed the greater part of his Second Modern Suite for piano, Op. 14; the First Modern Suite had been written in Frankfort the year before. He was reading at this period a great deal of poetry, both German and English, and delving into the folk and fairy lore of romantic Germany. All these imaginative studies exerted great influence on his subsequent compositions, both as to subject and content.
MacDowell found that the confining labors at Darmstadt were telling on his strength, so he gave up the position and remained in Frankfort, dividing his time between private teaching and composing. He hoped to secure a few paying concert engagements, as those he had already filled had brought in no money.
One day, as he sat dreaming before his piano, some one knocked at the door, and the next instant in walked his master Raff, of whom the young American stood in great awe. In the course of a few moments, Raff suddenly asked what he had been writing. In his confusion the boy stammered he had been working on a concerto. When Raff started to go, he turned back and told the boy to bring the concerto to him the next Sunday. As even the first movement was not finished, its author set to work with vigor. When Sunday came only the first movement was ready. Postponing the visit a week or two, he had time to complete the work, which stands today, as he wrote it then, with scarcely a correction.
At Raff's suggestion, MacDowell visited Liszt in the spring of 1882. The dreaded encounter with the master proved to be a delightful surprise, as Liszt treated him with much kindness and courtesy. Eugen D'Albert, who was present, was asked to accompany the orchestral part of the concerto on a second piano. Liszt commended the work in warm terms: "You must bestir yourself," he warned D'Albert, "if you do not wish to be outdone by our young American." Liszt praised his piano playing too, and MacDowell returned to Frankfort in a happy frame of mind.
At a music Convention, held that year in Zurich, in July, MacDowell played his First Piano Suite, and won a good success. The following year, upon Liszt's recommendation, both the First and Second Modern Suites were brought out by Breitkopf and Haertel. "Your two Piano Suites are admirable," wrote Liszt from Budapest, in February, 1883, "and I accept with sincere pleasure and thanks the dedication of your piano Concerto."
The passing of Raff, on June 25, 1882, was a severe blow to MacDowell. It was in memory of his revered teacher that he composed the "Sonata Tragica," the first of the four great sonatas he has left us. The slow movement of this Sonata especially embodies his sorrow at the loss of the teacher who once said to him: "Your music will be played when mine is forgotten."