Overwhelmed by the new-found powers of suggestion in tonal tint and the riot of hitherto undreamed of orchestral combinations, we are forgetting that permanence in music depends upon melodic speech._ PREFACE Owing to the high cost of book production at the present time, the use of illustrations, both musical and photographic, has been restricted in this book. It was decided only to fully illustrate the analysis of MacDowell's "Indian" Suite for Orchestra, _Op. 48_, this being a work less accessible to the general reader than the composer's well known pianoforte pieces. The author gratefully acknowledges the help of:-- Mrs. MacDowell--Information and gift of MacDowell portraits, an original letter and a piece of MS. of the composer. Mr. W.W.A. Elkin--Information and loan of scores. Mr. Charlton Keith--Loan of _D minor Pianoforte Concerto_. Messrs. J. and W. Chester, Ltd.--Information. CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH MACDOWELL AS COMPOSER MACDOWELL THE MAN THE MACDOWELL COLONY REPRODUCTION OF A MACDOWELL LETTER THE MUSIC: WORKS WITH OPUS NUMBERS WORKS WITHOUT OPUS NUMBERS ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO MACDOWELL'S WORKS EDWARD MACDOWELL BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH EDWARD ALEXANDER MACDOWELL was born in New York City, U.S.A., on December 18th, 1861, of American parents descended from a Quaker family of Scotch-Irish extraction who emigrated to America about the middle of the 18th Century. He was their third son. As a boy he studied the pianoforte with Juan Buitrago, a South American, Pablo Desvernine, a Cuban, and for a short time with the famous Venezuelan pianist, Teresa Carreño. He also indulged in childish composition on his own account. He was not a "wonderful" pupil and did not like the drudgery of practising "exercises." When he was fourteen years of age he went to France, accompanied by his mother, to study pianoforte playing and the theory of music at the Paris Conservatoire under Marmontel and Savard respectively. Here one of his fellow students was Debussy, even then looked upon as having curious and unconventional ideas on his art. MacDowell had also to learn the French language, and the person who taught him French discovered that the young American had a decided gift for drawing. He showed one of the boy's sketches to a teacher at the School of Fine Arts, who offered to take the boy as a pupil for three years free of charge, and to be responsible for his maintenance during that time. With his striking imaginative powers and love of Nature, and his appreciation of Historical and Legendary lore, it is very probable that MacDowell might have become distinguished as a painter had he applied himself to painting, for he was a born artist and very fond of sketching, but he refused the offer on the advice of his music teachers, and continued his studies at the Conservatoire.