Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860 - January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces and New England Idylls. Woodland Sketches includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose". In 1904 he was one of the first seven Americans honored by membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Piano Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 15 (1882)
Dedication: Franz Liszt
1. Maestoso; Allegro con fuoco (0:00)
2. Andante tranquillo (10:42)
3. Presto (17:34)
Naxos recording
Stephen Prutsman, piano and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland conducted by Arthur Fagen
Details by Jeremy Nicholas
The concerto, so the story goes, was composed in just two weeks. It was Joachim Raff who frightened MacDowell into writing it. Calling on his American pupil one day, he asked MacDowell what work he had in hand. Standing rather in awe of Raff at that time, MacDowell without thinking blurted out that he was working on a concerto (in fact, he had no thought of doing so). Raff asked him to bring the work to him the following Sunday by which time MacDowell had just managed to write the first movement. Evading Raff until the following Sunday-still not finished!-he put him off again until the Tuesday by which time he had completed the concerto. Raff was so delighted with the results that he advised his pupil to travel to Weimar and show the work to Liszt. This MacDowell did, playing the work to the great man with Eugen d’Albert, no less, playing the orchestral part at the second piano.
After the opening maestoso chords (embellished in the otherwise unchanged edition posthumously issued in 1910), the soloist leads off into the fiery ‘Allegro con fuoco’ first movement. The end of the ‘Andante tranquillo’ second movement offers glimpses of the simple lyricism that was to be a trademark of MacDowell’s future miniatures. The confident finale (‘Presto’) in ABACA form recalls material from the first movement. Though influenced by the last movement of Grieg’s Concerto, MacDowell’s A minor has more in common with Anton Rubinstein’s showpiece concertos and, if the themes lack individuality and their handling is frequently rhetorical, it remains an effective work-one requiring a brilliant technique to bring it off convincingly.