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Edward MacDowell
Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic
Charles Anthony Johnson, conductor
Suite No. 2 (Indian), Op. 48
Edward Alexander MacDowell was born in New York City on December 18, 1861. He attended first the Paris Conservatory and then the Frankfurt Conservatory, where he studied composition with Joachim Raff, who brought him to the attention of Liszt. He taught briefly at Darmstadt and Wiesbaden, returning to the United States in 1888 and settling in Boston. Although today he is most remembered for his piano pieces, during his lifetime his orchestral works were all quickly premiered by the Boston Symphony and enthusiastically received. When Columbia University created a chair of music in 1896, the trustees unanimously chose MacDowell, citing him as "the greatest musical genius America has produced." After his resignation from the position in 1904, his health failed rapidly and he died in 1908. Shortly thereafter a group of admirers in the state of New Hampshire organized the MacDowell Colony, a scenic summer retreat where over the years a large number of writers and composers have had the opportunity to work in quiet and inspiring surroundings.
His entry in Baker's Biographical Dictionary reads as follows: "Among American composers MacDowell occupies a very high place. He is pre-eminently a poet whose exquisite fancies find their happiest expression in the smaller forms. His most pronounced gift is a fertile invention, and his themes are generally short, always clearly defined, wonderfully expressive, and logically developed. His sense of proportion, symmetry, and artistic unity is well-nigh perfect; with unerring instinct he strikes and maintains a fundamental mood, carefully avoiding irrelevant or disturbing elements. His harmonic scheme is bold within the limits of the beautiful, his rhythm varied and incisive, his melody invariably noble, his climaxes powerful and stirring. Directness, freshness, and vitality constitute the perennial charm of MacDowell's music. Finally, MacDowell was the first American composer of stature who incorporated native elements in his music and depicted, in Romantic colors, the landscape of America."
MacDowell wrote two orchestral suites, both in five movements, both structured fast-slow-fast-slow-fast, with each movement being a self-contained, miniature tone poem. The first suite was premiered by the Boston Symphony on September 24, 1891. In keeping with many of his works (Woodland Sketches, Forest Idylls, etc.), it evokes pictures of the outdoors - In a haunted forest, Summer Idyll, In October, The Shepherdess' Song, and Forest Spirits. As a device to tie the suite together, the introductory theme of the first movement returns briefly in the middle of the last movement.
His use of native elements is especially evident in his second suite for orchestra, which was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1895. Subtitled Indian Suite, all of the themes were derived from native American Indian melodies. It may be significant that Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World," also using native American materials, had appeared two years earlier. While there is no detailed "program" presented, a different character and general scene of Indian life is suggested for each movement by their separate subtitles: Legend; Love Song; In War-time; Dirge; and Village Festival. The suite is very effectively unified by the use in each movement of an "Indian" rhythmic figure consisting of two short repeated notes.
Sea Pieces was written in 1885 and is typical of MacDowell's collections of short piano pieces. Six of the eight pieces are presented here in an orchestral version - To the sea, From a wandering iceberg, A.D. MDCXX, Starlight, Song, and Nautilus.
Charles Anthony Johnson received his M.A. in composition and his Ph.D. in musicology from UCLA. From 1967 to 1978, Dr. Johnson was on the faculty of Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where he taught music history and theory and conducted the orchestra. Since 1973 he has pursued a dual career as a conductor and violist. He is presently in his twenty-first season as Music Director of the Clear Lake Symphony and has served as Music Director of the Houston Civic Symphony and the Bryan-College Station Chamber Orchestra. Dr. Johnson has been a guest conductor of the Houston Ballet and has also conducted in Spain, Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.
Recorded in Zlin, Czech Republic, October, 1994
Recording Engineer: Reinhard Geller
Executive Producer: John Gladney Proffitt
Cover Art: Florence Johnson
Edward MacDowell (1861-1908)
Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic
Charles Anthony Johnson, conductor
Suite No. 2 (Indian), Op. 48 (31:30)
Suite No. 1, Op. 42 (21:00)
In a haunted forest (4:50)
The Shepherdess' Song (4:15)
Sea Pieces, Op. 55 (16:00)
Orchestrated by Charles Johnson
From a wandering iceberg (2:20)
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