could, in fact, play fast more easily than he could slowly. One of his
ever-present fears was that in performance his fingers would run away
with him. And many hours were spent in endeavours to control such an
embarrassing tendency. This extraordinary velocity, acquired in the
Paris Conservatory, and from his friend and teacher, Carl Heymann, of
Frankfort, invariably set his listeners agape, and was always one of
the chief sensations at his concerts.

"But for this finger speeding and for his other technical acquirements
as well, MacDowell cared little, except as they furthered his one
absorbing aim. He was heart and soul a composer, and to be able to
play his own music as he heard it in his inner ear was his single spur
to practice. From the time of his complete immersion in composition,
his ideas of pianistic effects, of tone colour, gradually led him
farther and farther away from conventional pianism. Scales and
arpeggios, as commonly rendered, had no longer interest or charm for
him. He cared for finger passages only when they could be made to
suggest what he wanted them to suggest in his own colour-scheme. With
his peculiar touch and facility at command, he rejoiced in turning
such passages into streams and swirls of tone, marked with strong
accents and coloured with vivid, dynamic contrasts.

"That his passage playing rarely sounded clean and pure--like that of
a Rosenthal--was due not only to his musical predilections, but to his
hand formation as well. His hand was broad and rather thick-set, and
tremendously muscular. It would not bend back at the knuckles; and the
fingers also had no well-defined knuckle movement. It appears,
therefore, that he could not, if he would, have succeeded on more
conventional technical lines. Gradually he developed great strength
and intense activity in the middle joints, which enabled him to play