Edward MacDowell by Lawrence Gilman
page 93 of 144 (64%)
page 93 of 144 (64%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
of Roland" from which the conception of the music sprang.
Like the "Idyls" after Goethe, the "Six Poems" after Heine (op. 31), for piano, are devoted to the embodiment of a poetic subject,--with the difference that instead of the landscape impressionism of the Goethe studies we have a persistent impulse toward psychological suggestion. Each of the poems which he has selected for illustration has a burden of human emotion which the music reflects with varying success. The style is more individualised than in the Goethe pieces, and the invention is, on the whole, of a superior order. The "Scotch Poem" (No. 2) is the most successful of the set; the "... schöne, kranke Frau, Zartdurchsichtig und marmorblass," and her desolate lamenting, are sharply projected, though scarcely with the power that he would have brought to bear upon the endeavour a decade later. Less effective, but more characteristic, is "The Shepherd Boy" (No. 5). This is almost, at moments, MacDowell in the happiest phase of his lighter vein. The transition from F minor to major, after the _fermata_ on the second page, is as typical as it is delectable; and the fifteen bars that follow are of a markedly personal tinge. "From Long Ago" and "From a Fisherman's Hut" are less good, and "The Post Wagon" and "Monologue" are disappointing--the latter especially so, because the exquisite poem which he has chosen to enforce, the matchless lyric beginning "Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht," should, it seems, have offered an inspiring incentive. In the "Four Little Poems" of op. 32 one encounters a piece which it is possible to admire without qualification: I mean the music |
|