MacDowell and Templeton Strong
From a photograph taken at Wiesbaden in 1888

This was a time of rich productiveness for MacDowell; and the life that he and his wife were able to live was of an ideal serenity and detachment. He was now devoting his entire energy to composition. He put forth during these years at Wiesbaden the four pieces of op. 24 ("Humoresque," "March," "Cradle Song," "Czardas"); the symphonic poem "Lancelot and Elaine" (op. 25); the six songs, "From An Old Garden," to words by Margaret Deland (op. 26); the three songs for male chorus of op. 27 ("In the Starry Sky Above Us," "Springtime," "The Fisherboy"); the "Idyls" and "Poems" for piano (op. 28 and op. 31), after Goethe and Heine; the symphonic poem "Lamia" (op. 29); the two "Fragments" for orchestra after the "Song of Roland": "The Saracens" and "The Lovely Aldâ" (op. 30); the "Four Little Poems" for piano—"The Eagle," "The Brook," "Moonshine," "Winter" (op. 32); the three songs of op. 33 ("Prayer," "Cradle Hymn," "Idyl") and the two of op. 34 ("Menie," "My Jean"); and the "Romance" for 'cello and orchestra. He had, moreover, the satisfaction of knowing that his work was being received, both in Europe and in his own country, with interest and respect. His reputation had begun unmistakably to spread. "Hamlet and Ophelia" had been performed at Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, Baden-Baden, Sondershausen, Frankfort. On March 8, 1884, his former teacher, Teresa Carreno, had played his second piano suite at a recital in New York; in March of the following year two movements from the first suite were played at an "American Concert" given at Princes' Hall, London; on March 30, 1885, at one of Mr. Frank Van der Stucken's "Novelty Concerts" in New York, Miss Adele Margulies played the second and third movements from the first piano concerto. In the same year Mme. Carreño played on tour in America three movements from the second suite, and in the following September she played at the Worcester Festival of that year the "Hexentanz" of op. 17. On November 4, 1886, the "Ophelia" section of op. 22 was performed at the first of Mr. Van der Stucken's "Symphonic Concerts" at Chickering Hall, New York. Mr. H.E. Krehbiel, reviewing the work in the Tribune, praised the orchestration as "brilliant" ("though the models studied are rather more obvious than we like"), the melodic invention as "beautiful" and as having a poetical mood and characteristic outline. He considered that the music deserved repetition during the course of the season, and pronounced it "a finer work in every respect than the majority of the novelties which have come to us this season with French and English labels." Mr. Henry T. Finck, writing in the Evening Post, characterised the work as "an exquisitely conceived tone-poem, charmingly orchestrated and full of striking harmonic progressions." A year after the performance of the "Ophelia" in New York Mr. Van der Stucken produced its companion piece, "Hamlet." In April, 1888, at the first of a course of "pianoforte-concerto concerts" given by Mr. B.J. Lang at Chickering Hall, Boston, MacDowell's first concerto was played by Mr. B.L. Whelpley. "The effect upon all present," wrote Mr. W.F. Apthorp in the Transcript, "was simply electric." The concerto "was a surprise, if ever there was one. We can hardly," he declared, "recall a composition so full of astonishing and unprecedented effects [it will be recalled that this concerto was composed in 1882, when MacDowell was nineteen years old]. The work was evidently written at white heat; its brilliancy and vigour are astounding. The impression it made upon us, in other respects, is as yet rather undigested... But its fire and forcibleness are unmistakable." These opinions are of interest, for they testify to the prompt and ungrudging recognition which was accorded to MacDowell's work, from the first, by responsible critics in his own country.

He might well have felt some pride in the sum of his achievements at this time. He had not completed his twenty-seventh year; yet he had published a concerto and two orchestral works of important dimensions—"Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine"; most of the music that he had so far written had been publicly performed, and almost invariably praised with warmth; and he was becoming known in Europe and at home. His material affairs, however, were far from being in a satisfactory or promising condition; for there was little more than a precarious income to be counted upon from his compositions; and he had given up teaching. Musicians from America began coming to the little Wiesbaden retreat to visit the composer and his wife, and he was repeatedly urged to return to America and assume his share in the development of the musical art of his country. It was finally decided that, all things considered, conditions would be more favorable in the United States; and in September, 1888, the MacDowells sold their Wiesbaden cottage, not without many pangs, and sailed for their own shores.

They settled in Boston, as being less huge and tumultuous than New York, and took lodgings in Mount Vernon Street. In later years they lived successively at 13 West Cedar Street and at 38 Chestnut Street. Though all of his more important music was as yet unwritten, MacDowell found himself already established in the view of the musical public as a composer abundantly worthy of honour at the hands of his countrymen. He made his first public appearance in America, in the double capacity of pianist and composer, at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering Hall, Boston, on November 19, 1888, playing the Prelude, Intermezzo, and Presto from his first piano suite, and, with Kneisel and his associates, the piano part in Goldmark's B-flat Quintet. He was cordially received, and Mr. Apthorp, writing in the Transcript of his piano playing, praised his technique as "ample and brilliant," and as being especially admirable "in the higher phases of playing"; "he plays," wrote this critic, "with admirable truth of sentiment and musical understanding." Of the early and immature suite he could not well write with much enthusiasm, though he found in it "life and brightness."

In the following spring MacDowell made a more auspicious appearance, and one which more justly disclosed his abilities as a composer, when, on March 5, he played his second concerto, for the first time in public, at an orchestral concert in Chickering Hall, New York, under the direction of Mr. Theodore Thomas. His success was then immediate and emphatic. Mr. Krehbiel, in the Tribune, praised the concerto as "a splendid composition, so full of poetry, so full of vigor, as to tempt the assertion that it must be placed at the head of all works of its kind produced by either a native or adopted citizen of America"; and he confessed to having "derived keener pleasure from the work of the young American than from the experienced and famous Russian"—Tchaikovsky, whose Fifth Symphony was performed then for the first time in New York. "Several enthusiastic and unquestionably sincere recalls," concluded the writer, "were the tokens of gratitude and delight with which his townspeople rewarded him." A month later MacDowell played the same concerto in Boston, at a Symphony concert, under Mr. Gericke; his performance of it evoked "rapt attention," and "the very heartiest of plaudits, in which both orchestra and audience joined."

In the summer of that year (1889) MacDowell and his wife went abroad. He had been invited to take part in an "American Concert" at the Paris Exposition, and on July 12, under Mr. Van der Stucken's direction, he played his second concerto.[[4] ] After a short stay on the continent, he returned with his wife to America.

MacDowell found in Boston a considerable field for his activity as pianist and teacher. He took many private pupils, and he made, during the eight years that he remained there, many public appearances in concert. In composition, these years were the most fruitful of his life. He wrote during this period the Concert Study for piano (op. 36); the set of pieces after Victor Hugo's "Les Orientales" (op. 37)—"Clair de lune," "Dans le Hamac," "Danse Andalouse"; the "Marionettes" (op. 38); the "Twelve Studies" of op. 39; the "Six Love Songs" (op. 40); the two songs for male chorus (op. 41)—"Cradle Song" and "Dance of the Gnomes"; the orchestral suite in A-minor (op. 42) and its supplement, "In October" (op. 42-A);[[5] ] the "Two Northern Songs" and "Barcarolle" (op. 43 and op. 44) for mixed voices; the "Sonata Tragica" (op. 45); the 12 "Virtuoso Studies" of op. 46; the "Eight Songs" (op. 47); the second ("Indian") suite for orchestra; the "Air" and "Rigaudon" (op. 49) for piano; the "Sonata Eroica" (op. 50); and the "Woodland Sketches" (op. 51). This output did not contain his most mature and characteristic works—those were to come later, during the last six years of his creative activity; yet the product was in many ways a notable one, and some of it—the two sonatas, the "Indian" suite, the songs of op. 47, the "Woodland Sketches"—was, if not consistently of his very best, markedly fine and characteristic in quality. This decade (from 1887 to 1897) saw also the publication of all his work contained between his op. 22 ("Hamlet and Ophelia") and op. 51 (the "Woodland Sketches") with the exception of the symphonic poem "Lamia," which was not published until after his death.

Meanwhile his prestige grew steadily. Each new work that he put forth met with a remarkable measure of success, both among the general public and at the hands of many not over-complacent critical appraisers. On January 10, 1890, his "Lancelot and Elaine" was played at a Boston Symphony concert under Mr. Nikisch. In September, 1891, his orchestral suite in A-minor (op. 42) was performed for the first time at the Worcester Festival, and a month later it was played in Boston at a Symphony concert under Mr. Nikisch. In November of the same year the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, under Bernhard Listemann, performed for the first time, at the Tremont Theatre, his "Roland" pieces, "The Saracens" and "The Lovely Aldâ." On the following day—November 6, 1891—he gave his first piano recital, playing, in addition to pieces by Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Templeton Strong, P. Geisler, Alabieff, and Liszt, his own "Witches' Dance," "Shadow Dance" (op. 39), "The Eagle," the Étude in F-sharp (op. 36), the Prelude from the first suite, and the fourth of the "Idyls" after Goethe. He followed this with a second recital in January, 1892, at which he played, among other things, the "Winter," "Moonshine," and "The Brook," from the "Four Little Poems" (op. 32). Discussing the first of these recitals, Mr. Philip Hale (in the Boston Post) wrote these words, which have a larger application than their reference to MacDowell: "No doubt, as a composer, he has studied and mastered form and knows its value; but he prefers suggestions and hints and dream pictures and sleep-chasings to all attempts to be original in an approved and conventional fashion.... They [his compositions] are interesting, and more than that: they are extremely characteristic in harmonic colouring. Their size has nothing to do with their merits. A few lines by Gautier stuffed with prismatic words and yet as vague as mist-wreaths may in artistic worth surpass whole cantos of more famous poets; and Mr. MacDowell has Gautier's sense of colour and knowledge of the power of suggestion." His performance "was worthy of the warmest praise ... seeing gorgeous or delicate colours and hearing the voices of orchestral instruments, it is no wonder that Mr. MacDowell is a pianist of rare fascination." On January 28, 1893, the "Hamlet and Ophelia" was played, for the first time in Boston, by the Symphony Orchestra under Mr. Nikisch; but a more important event was the first performance[[6] ] two months later of the "Sonata Tragica," which MacDowell played at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering Hall. Concerning the sonata Mr. Apthorp wrote: "One feels genius in it throughout—and we are perfectly aware that genius is not a term to be used lightly. The composer," he added, "played it superbly, magnificently." MacDowell achieved one of the conspicuous triumphs of his career on December 14, 1894, when he played his second concerto with the Philharmonic Society of New York, under the direction of Anton Seidl. He won on this occasion, recorded Mr. Finck in the Evening Post, "a success, both as pianist and composer, such as no American musician has ever won before a metropolitan concert audience. A Philharmonic audience can be cold when it does not like a piece or a player; but Mr. MacDowell ... had an ovation such as is accorded only to a popular prima donna at the opera. Again and again he had to get up and bow after every movement of his concerto; again and again was he recalled at the close ... For once a prophet has had great honour in his own country ... He played with that splendid kind of virtuosity which makes one forget the technique." Concerning the concerto, Mr. W.J. Henderson wrote (in the Times) that it was difficult to speak of it "in terms of judicial calmness, for it is made of the stuff that calls for enthusiasm. There need be no hesitation," he continued, "in saying that Mr. MacDowell in this work fairly claims the position of an American master. We may have no distinctive school of music, but here is one young man who has placed himself on a level with the men owned by the world. This D-minor concerto is a strong, wholesome, beautiful work of art, vital with imagination, and made with masterly skill." And Mr. James Huneker observed that "it easily ranks with any modern work in this form. Dramatic in feeling, moulded largely, and its themes musically eloquent, it sounds a model of its kind—the kind which Johannes Brahms gave the world over thirty years ago in his D-minor concerto." In March of the following year MacDowell gave two piano recitals in the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall, New York, playing, beside a number of his smaller pieces, his "Tragica" sonata, which made, if anything, an even profounder impression than it had made in Boston two years before. Probably the most signal of the honours that came to him at this time was paid him when the Boston Symphony Orchestra placed both his "Indian" suite and his first concerto on the programme of its New York concert on January 23, 1896, at the Metropolitan Opera House.

In the spring of 1896 it was determined to found a department of music at Columbia University, New York. This was made possible by a fund of $150,000 given to the trustees by Mrs. Elizabeth Mary Ludow, with the proviso that the income was to be applied in such ways as should "tend more effectually to elevate the standard of musical instruction in the United States, and to afford the most favourable opportunity for acquiring musical instruction of the highest order." In May of that year the professorship was offered to MacDowell, the committee who had the appointment in charge announcing the consensus of their opinion to be that he was "the greatest musical genius America has produced." MacDowell, though he valued greatly the honour of his selection, considered anxiously the advisability of accepting the post. He now had more pupils than he could take, and his pecuniary circumstances would not be improved by the change, save that a settled income would be assured to him. This was of course a tempting prospect; on the other hand, the task of organizing de novo a new department in a large university, and the curtailed freedom which the position would necessitate, made him hesitate. But the assurance of an income free from precariousness finally decided him in favour of acceptance; and in the following autumn he moved from Boston to New York, and began his duties at Columbia.

That he undertook his labours there, from the start, in no casual or perfunctory spirit, is made clear by the bare record of his activity. For the first two years of his incumbency he had no assistant, carrying all the work of his department on his own shoulders. He devoted from eight to ten hours a week to lectures and class-work; and this represented but a small proportion of the time and labour expended in establishing the new department. The aim of the instruction was to be twofold. "First, to teach music scientifically and technically, with a view to training musicians who shall be competent to teach and to compose. Second, to treat music historically and aesthetically as an element of liberal culture." This plan involved five courses of study, and a brief description of them will indicate the scope of the task undertaken by MacDowell.