Edward MacDowell . nicable in its voicing ofthat indefinable enchantment of association whichclings about certain aspects, certain phases, of thevisible world—that subtle emotion of things pastand irrecoverable which may inhabit a field at night,or a quiet street at dusk, or a sudden intimation ofspring in the scent of lilacs. But although suchthemes as he loves to dwell upon in his celebrationof the magic of the natural world are very preciousto his imagination, the human spectacle has held forhim, from the first, an emotion scarcely less swiftand abundant. His scope is comprehensive : hecan
Edward MacDowell . nicable in its voicing ofthat indefinable enchantment of association whichclings about certain aspects, certain phases, of thevisible world—that subtle emotion of things pastand irrecoverable which may inhabit a field at night,or a quiet street at dusk, or a sudden intimation ofspring in the scent of lilacs. But although suchthemes as he loves to dwell upon in his celebrationof the magic of the natural world are very preciousto his imagination, the human spectacle has held forhim, from the first, an emotion scarcely less swiftand abundant. His scope is comprehensive : hecan voice the archest gaiety, a naive and charminghumour, in his Marionettes and in his songs, From an Old Garden ; there is tenderness andvirile passion in the symphonic poems, an acute andspontaneous pathos in the early songs and in thepiano paraphrases after Goethe and Heine; whilein the sonatas, in the Indian suite, and in manyof the later songs, the tragic note is struck withimpressive and indubitable THE LOG-CABIN IN THE WOODS AT PETERBORO. WHERE MACDOVVELL COMPOSES HIS ART AND ITS METHODS 25 Of the specifically musical traits through whoseexercise MacDowell exhibits the tendencies andpreferences which underlie his art, one must beginby saying that his distinguishing quality—that whichputs so unmistakable a stamp upon his work—eludesprecise definition. His tone is unmistakable. Itschief possession is a certain clarity and directnesswhich is apparent no less in moments of great stressand complexity of emotion than in passages ofsimpler and slighter content. His style has little ofthe torrential rhetoric, the unbridled gusto andexuberance of Strauss, though it owns something ofhis forthright quality; nor has it anything of theshadows and hesitancies of Debussy. One thinks,as a discerning commentator has observed, of the11 broad Shakespearean daylight of Fitzgeralds finephrase as being not inapplicable to the atmosphereof MacDowells writing. He has little affin
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