Elizabeth Fry Page

“ All genius, in the end, is of one blood, and MacDowell is unquestionably a genius.
When one is entering upon a literary career, the first injunction is to "acquire a style." "But how?" asks the aspirant. Some say by becoming familiar with the forms of expression of the best authors, and such advise that you read without stint. Others bid you write, write incessantly about everything under the sun, until by long practice you evolve a style of your own, unhampered in its originality by the memory of the achievements of others resulting from much reading. ”

“ Authors, musical and literary, write more often to fill a demand, subjectively felt perhaps, than to create one or to establish a form representative of their nation or section, though occasionally, when the author is a genius and fearlessly gives expression to his own divinity, regardless of precedent, he finds himself responsible for a new order, though in that case the individuality of the author is the leaven that leaveneth the lump, and not the locality.
We are only beginning, as a nation, to recognize music as an essential to general culture. ”

“ There is more than form in the compositions under consideration; the tinge of color is everywhere, the wave of poetry that produces soul excitement and elevation, from signature to final chord. While he handles a subject broadly, as an impressionist, accomplishing striking effects with a few bold, characteristic strokes, MacDowell still works out his tone picture with considerable detail, carefully indicating the results he wishes to achieve. ”

“ One cannot be a true poet, it seems to me, without at least an abiding love and sympathetic appreciation of the finest in music, or a great musician without a love of poetry and a responsiveness to its witchery. ”

“ We have no people's music. "Give me, oh give me, the man who sings at his work," said Carlyle, and I often think when I hear an American laborer singing at his task that if dear old Carlyle were only alive and I could give him the unmelodious disturber of the public peace, the pleasure would be all mine. American music, the music of the people, is built upon the Puritan hymn tunes and savors of the persecution that made the Pilgrim Fathers fly to the new land. ”

“ EDWARD MACDOWELL HIS WORK AND IDEALS "Late explorers say they have found some nations that have no God; but I have not read of any that had no music." "Music means harmony, harmony means love, love means—God."—SIDNEY LANIER.
"Music is love in search of a word," said the same poet-musician. He was born full of the music and the love, and so was enabled to find and transmit to the world the undying word. ”

“ Perhaps the same is true of musical style. Technical skill, accuracy, interpretation and appreciation come from studying and performing the works of others; then if one aspires to original work, let him compose, essaying any and everything until his own peculiar bent is discovered, unless it forces itself upon him with the insistence of destiny from the outset.
While the critics have admitted the freshness, originality and general excellence of MacDowell's work and marveled over his versatility, his shorter piano pieces and songs are as yet most popular in the making of programmes. ”

“ On the other hand, many of the greatest musical compositions we have were inspired, like most of MacDowell's, by some poet's lines, a single figure, sentence or stanza furnishing the theme of oratorio, cantata, opera or ballad. Schubert's genius could be fired at any time, even under the most adverse conditions, by a beautiful poem, and many writers have received the inspiration for their masterpieces under the influence of music. ”

“ In some compositions combining both words and music, one will be very much the inferior of the other, and the thoughtful student or listener can but regret the discrepancy. Perhaps the words will be imposing and the musical setting trivial, or the music rich and full of color, but the words meaningless and inadequate. MacDowell's songs are satisfying. In his work he reminds one very forcibly of Sidney Lanier, whose genius was perfectly balanced. His music was full of poetry and his poetry ran over with music. ”

“ Whatever else the great power back of the universe may be, He is the Master Artist, and in the making of this village of enchantment He seems to have gathered together all His most beautiful materials and combined them with lavish hand. ”

“ Universality is just now the philosophical ideal, and it seems to me that America, the composite nation, is the proper center from which such a spirit should emanate. Why try to foster the limited local idea with regard to music, or any artistic or intellectual pursuit? Why encourage the production of distinctive American music in a country in which there is not even a distinctive type of face or mode of speech? Here is a Virginian, descended from an American Indian and an English colonist, living next door to a Plymouth Rock Yankee whose husband is a French Canadian. ”

“ The two arts are interdependent and well nigh inseparable. A great musician may compose a song without words, but sooner or later there will be born a poet-soul who, hearing the song, will be irresistibly impelled to supply the words. ”

“ Painters tell us that the highest evidence of skill in transferring nature to canvas is to avoid too much detail, and they squint up their eyes in order not to see too much. These standards prove MacDowell the artist. He does not make the mistake that so many preachers and public teachers do of presuming upon the ignorance or stupidity of his hearers, but leaves something to their imagination and inner artistic senses. ”

“ The charm of common things, the ever-present beauty and harmony in all forms of life, supplied him with endless inspiration.
In portraying nature, he is in no sense a copyist. He does not describe a scene, an occasion or an object, but suggests it, being an adept in the use of musical metaphor. Robert Louis Stevenson says that the one art in literature is to omit. ”

“ Now, however, one is haunted by the faithfulness to life of his creations, not by the ghosts of his slaughtered victims, and an aspiring young composer who adored him could not help imbibing some of his power.
Wagner thought that the musician should write his own lines in opera or song, and conceived and mastered a new form, taking poetry into music just as Sidney Lanier took music into poetry in his "Science of English Verse." ”

“ The suite is very attractive and in sharp contrast to his romantic, heroic and lyric work.
Another potent factor in the formation of MacDowell's style of composition was his love of nature. No one has put truer brooks, birds, flowers, trees, meadows or sea into tone. Whenever he "loafed and invited his soul," the tired, city-worn world reaped the benefit. His lesser piano compositions may be, in a sense, considered in the light of a diary. ”

“ The plan was not to provide a rest-cure or moderate-priced summer home for broken-down musicians, artists and writers, as many seem to think, but to give those at the very height of their productiveness a chance for undisturbed work, under the inspiration of nature in her most alluring guise, and association, after work hours, with such rare souls as could arouse higher aspiration by thought interchange and comparison of ideals. ”

“ Some think that the negro melodies should form the basis of our American music; but why? The negro is an importation, not a native, and if we want the real thing, it seems to me that we will have to find it in the Indian melodies, but it will take artistic handling to develop them from aboriginal simplicity to the intricacy necessary to represent in any sense present-day, cosmopolitan America. ”

“ Weber says: "To be a true artist you must be a true man." This tribute has been paid MacDowell by his associates: they say he was a true man. Nobleness has been called the chief characteristic alike of himself and his music, with a simplicity that is ever the accompaniment of real nobility. ”

“ Ill health, poverty and lack of appreciation of his life work had not the power to destroy his optimism. He bravely waged an unequal combat with the three, when many a man would have fallen on his own sword to end the bitter struggle with either one of them. ”

“ Across the street is a German-American born in the Middle West, who is married to a Californian of Spanish lineage. My cook is an African, yours is Chinese and perhaps your housemaid is Scandinavian, your chauffeur Irish, and so on. Music, to be effective in such a patchwork civilization as this, would have to be simply music—universal, composite, international. ”

“ The endeavor not to repeat, parrot-like, the formulæ of the Old World has driven many American composers to seek out new inventions and has led to a freshness, in a considerable mass of American work, as in MacDowell's, which may be said to be directly a product of American conditions."
Music is seldom a thing of nationality or locality. Early opera in Germany was Italian and the French grand opera school was founded by a Florentine. The style of music that appeals most keenly to the people of a country or community influences largely the method and manner of its native composers. ”

“ Within, the personality of the absent composer lingers perceptibly, and the two names—"Edward—Marian-1899"—written in his bold chirography in the damp cement, when the cabin hearth was laid before the open fireplace, tell a touching story of a union so real as to make no plan complete, no realization of a long-cherished hope perfect, that did not openly include his wife. ”

“ MacDowell thought that the fine arts were supplemental, each of the other, and wished to include them all in his scheme, so well-built rustic studios, equipped to suit the needs of the occupant, are being placed at intervals on advantageous sites in the woods, tree-screened and far enough apart to insure quiet and privacy, but sufficiently near to give that comfortable sense of human comradeship and safety. ”

“ These are busy days for her at Peterboro, where she is daily striving to put the MacDowell ideals into permanent and practical effect. The plan is most appealing and can, perhaps, be better understood by contrast, if a little insight is given into a state of things, the amelioration of which is the purpose of the project. ”

“ They love freedom, are fine entertainers, have little self-esteem, are inclined to be either on the heights or in the depths, are excellent musicians and lovers of harmony and beauty. They are often victims of over-work because of the determination to make a brilliant success of what they undertake and of their lack of judgment in regard to their powers of endurance. ”

“ Overarch these features with a fair dome of fleece-scattered blue and waft abroad throughout the place a succession of mountain breezes, ozone charged, and you have a place to live and work and grow young in. ”

“ They are of varied talents, very musical and turn naturally to the spiritual side of life. They belong to the prophetic realm and see wonderful visions, but are no idle dreamers, being always mentally and physically active. ”