For an interesting and closely observed description of MacDowell's technical peculiarities as a piano player I am indebted to his friend and pupil, Mr. T.P. Currier, who had followed MacDowell's career as a pianist from the time of his first public appearance in Boston:
"[His finger velocity] was at that time [in 1888] the most striking characteristic of his playing," says Mr. Currier. "For him, too, it was a mere bagatelle. He took to prestissimo like a duck to water. He could, in fact, play fast more easily than he could slowly. One of his ever-present fears was that in performance his fingers would run away with him. And many hours were spent in endeavours to control such an embarrassing tendency. This extraordinary velocity, acquired in the Paris Conservatory, and from his friend and teacher, Carl Heymann, of Frankfort, invariably set his listeners agape, and was always one of the chief sensations at his concerts.
"But for this finger speeding and for his other technical acquirements as well, MacDowell cared little, except as they furthered his one absorbing aim. He was heart and soul a composer, and to be able to play his own music as he heard it in his inner ear was his single spur to practice. From the time of his complete immersion in composition, his ideas of pianistic effects, of tone colour, gradually led him farther and farther away from conventional pianism. Scales and arpeggios, as commonly rendered, had no longer interest or charm for him. He cared for finger passages only when they could be made to suggest what he wanted them to suggest in his own colour-scheme. With his peculiar touch and facility at command, he rejoiced in turning such passages into streams and swirls of tone, marked with strong accents and coloured with vivid, dynamic contrasts.
"That his passage playing rarely sounded clean and pure—like that of a Rosenthal—was due not only to his musical predilections, but to his hand formation as well. His hand was broad and rather thick-set, and tremendously muscular. It would not bend back at the knuckles; and the fingers also had no well-defined knuckle movement. It appears, therefore, that he could not, if he would, have succeeded on more conventional technical lines. Gradually he developed great strength and intense activity in the middle joints, which enabled him to play with a very close, often overlapping, touch, and to maintain extremely rapid tempi in legato or staccato with perfect ease and little fatigue. With this combination of velocity and close touch, it was a slight matter to produce those pianistic effects which were especially dear to him.
"MacDowell's finger development has been thus dwelt upon, because it was, as has been said, the feature of his technic which immediately surprised and captivated his hearers. Less noticeable was his wrist and octave work. But his chord playing, though also relatively unattractive, was even in those early days almost as uncommon in its way as was his velocity. And in this field of technic, during his later years, when in composition his mind turned almost wholly to this mode of expression, he reached a plane of tonal effect which, for variety, from vague, shadowy, mysterious ppp, to virile, orchestral ffff, has never been surpassed by any pianist who has visited these shores in recent years. His tone in chord playing, it is true, was often harsh, and this fault also appeared in his melodic delivery. But in both cases any unmusical effect was so greatly overbalanced by many rare and beautiful qualities of tone production, that it was easily forgiven and forgotten.
"Wonderful tone blending in finger passages; a peculiarly crisp, yet veiled staccato; chord playing extraordinary in variety,—tender, mysterious, sinister, heroic; a curiously unconventional yet effective melodic delivery; playing replete with power, vitality, and dramatic significance, always forcing upon the ear the phrase, never the tickling of mere notes; a really marvellous command and use of both pedals,—these were the characteristics of MacDowell's pianistic art as he displayed it in the exposition of his own works. Unquestionably he was a born pianist. If it had not been for his genius for composition, he would, without doubt, have been known as a brilliant and forceful interpreter of the greatest piano literature. But his compositional bent turned him completely away from mere piano playing. He was a composer-pianist, and as such he ever desired to be regarded."
The house at Peterboro, New Hampshire, where MacDowell spent his summers
As a pianist, as in all other matters touching his own capacities, he was often tortured by doubts concerning the effect of his performances. "I shall never forget," recalls his wife, "the first time he played it [the "Eroica" sonata] in Boston. We all thought he did it wonderfully. But when I went around to the green-room door to find him, fearing something might be wrong, as he had not come to me, he had gone. When I got home, accompanied by two friends, there he was almost in a corner, white, and as if he were guilty of some crime, and he said as we came in: 'I can play better than that. But I was so tired!' We almost wept with the pity of the unnecessary suffering, which was yet so real and intense. In a short time he was more himself, and naïvely admitted that he had played three movements well, but had been a 'd—— fool in one.' I grew to be very used to this as the years went on, for he could not help emphasising to himself what he did badly, and ignoring the good."