. One of
these, Miss Marian Nevins, he afterwards married. He must have been a
rather striking looking youth at this time. He was nineteen. Tall and
vigorous, with blue eyes, fair skin, rosy cheeks, very dark hair and
reddish mustache, he was called "the handsome American." He seemed
from the start, to have success in teaching, though he was painfully
shy, and always remained so.

In 1881, when he was twenty, he applied for the position of head piano
teacher in the Darmstadt Conservatory, and was accepted. It meant
forty hours a week of drudgery, and as he preferred to live in
Frankfort, he made the trip each day between the two towns. Besides
this he went once a week to a castle about three hours away, and
taught some little counts and countesses, really dull and sleepy
children, who cared but little if anything for music. However the
twelve hours spent in the train each week, were not lost, as he
composed the greater part of his Second Modern Suite for piano, Op.
14; the First Modern Suite had been written in Frankfort the year
before. He was reading at this period a great deal of poetry, both
German and English, and delving into the folk and fairy lore of
romantic Germany. All these imaginative studies exerted great
influence on his subsequent compositions, both as to subject and
content.

MacDowell found that the confining labors at Darmstadt were telling
on his strength, so he gave up the position and remained in Frankfort,
dividing his time between private teaching and composing. He hoped
to secure a few paying concert engagements, as those he had already
filled had brought in no money.

One day, as he sat dreaming before his piano, some one knocked at
the door, and the next instant in walked his master Raff, of whom the
young American stood in great awe. In the course of a few moments,
Raff suddenly asked what he had been writing. In his confusion the boy
stammered he had been working on a concerto. When Raff started to go,
he turned back and told the boy to bring the concerto to him the next
Sunday. As even the first movement was not finished, its author set to
work with vigor. When Sunday came only the first movement was ready.
Postponing the visit a week or two, he had time to complete the work,
which stands today, as he wrote it then, with scarcely a correction.

At Raff's suggestion, MacDowell visited Liszt in the spring of 1882.
The dreaded encounter with the master proved to be a delightful
surprise,