Symphony orchestra of Baltimore, and Asger Hamerik, his director for
six years, says of him: "In his hands the flute no longer remained a
mere material instrument, but was transformed into a voice that set
heavenly harmonies into vibration. Its tones developed colors, warmth
and a low sweetness of unspeakable poetry. His conception of music was
not reached by an analytic study of note by note, but was intuitive
and spontaneous, like a woman's reason." In 1878 he played a flute
concerto at a symphony concert, and the director said of him: "His
tall, handsome, manly presence, his flute breathing noble sorrows,
noble joys, the orchestra softly responding. The audience was
spellbound. Such distinction, such refinement! He stood the master,
the genius."

In studying MacDowell, one is reminded at every turn of this dual
genius. Like Lanier, his message is being better understood every
year, and now that he is gone, "fulfillment is dropping on a come-true
dream."

MacDowell had great advantages over Lanier in his early life in
freedom from financial worry. In his youth he was privileged to travel
and search until he found his own real masters, in the Frankfort
Conservatory, where he studied piano with Heymann and composition with
Raff. At Weimar he met Liszt, who recognized his ability and accorded
him such unstinted praise that he was invited to play his first piano
suite before the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik-Verein at its nineteenth
annual convention, held at Zurich in July, 1882. Both the composition
and his rendition of it won enthusiastic appreciation and applause.

Lanier had a hard, brave struggle to maintain his ideals in the face
of a continually thwarting fate that would have caused many a man,