TO HENRY T. FINCK




PREFACE


This study is based upon the monograph on MacDowell which I
contributed in 1905 to the "Living Masters of Music" series. That
book could not, of course, remain in the series after the death of
MacDowell three years later; it was therefore taken from its place
and used as a foundation for the present volume, which supersedes it
in every respect. The biographical portion is almost wholly new, and
has been greatly enlarged, while the chapters dealing with
MacDowell's music have been revised and extended.

In completing this survey of one who in his art is still of to-day, I
have been poignantly conscious throughout of the fact that posterity
has an inconvenient habit of reversing the judgments delivered upon
creative artists by their contemporaries; yet to trim deftly one's
convictions in the hope that they may elastically conform to any one
of a number of possible verdicts to be expected from a capricious
futurity, is probably as dangerous a proceeding as to avow, without
equivocation or compromise, one's precise beliefs. It will therefore
be understood that the critical estimates which are offered in the
following pages have been set down with deliberation.

I desire to acknowledge gratefully the assistance which I have
received from various sources: Primarily, from Mrs. Edward MacDowell,