Book Description

Edward MacDowell was one of the finest composers of nineteenth-century America. In his lifetime, MacDowell's fame was widespread throughout Europe and the United States; his music was praised by none other than Franz Liszt, Jules Massenet, and Edvard Grieg. While his fame was extensive, MacDowell's place in music began to fade after his untimely and tragic death in 1908, and his music and reputation has since suffered a certain neglect. Alan Levy's biography is the first full-length work on MacDowell and draws extensively on personal papers and letters, largely closed from public access until recently. Levy challenges the omission of MacDowell from most musical histories and returns the spotlight to this long-overlooked composer. Levy covers MacDowell's early life and schooling in New York, his musical studies in France and Germany, and his emergence as a keyboard artist and composer. From there, the biography moves on to MacDowell's successful career in Boston and in Peterboro, New Hampshire. Levy concludes with MacDowell's tenure as the first Professor of Music at Columbia University and his untimely decline and death. There is also discussion of Marian MacDowell's successful establishment of the MacDowell Colony for Artists, which continues to the present day. Alan Levy elegantly captures the story of this composer who enjoyed musical talent and relative popular success during his lifetime. He brings together a great deal of otherwise inaccessible information and material on a somewhat muted voice in American Music History.