ks are set to his own verses, as he could seldom
satisfy himself that words ally themselves naturally with music.

Poetry furnishes a composer with inspiration for expression
which, MacDowell felt, could not be clearly demonstrated in a
small space, and that the music therefore is apt to distort the
words if they are harnessed to it in song form. Most of
MacDowell's finest pianoforte pieces bear verses in addition to
titles, thus definitely indicating what the music is intended to
suggest. His verses are of an uncommon and gifted order, for he
was a true poet in both the literary and the musical sense. His
poems were collected some years after his death and published
under the title of _Book of Verses, by Edward MacDowell_. They
are valuable for their own sake, quite apart from their
connection with his music, and make very beautiful reading. A
number of his wonderfully illuminating Columbia University
lectures, to which we have referred more fully in the preceding
chapter, were collected and edited by W.J. Baltzell and published
in 1912 under the title of _Critical and Historical Essays
(Lectures delivered at Columbia University) by Edward MacDowell_.

MacDowell's work is of the kind that appeals intimately to those
only who understand and feel the significance of things musical.
His compositions are seldom mentioned in those terms of effusive
adoration so often applied to the works of many well-known
composers, neither do they figure largely in the recitals of
popular pianists, for minds saturated with sensuous sentiment and
the worship of tradition cannot easily follow his pure idealism
and the significance of the things which he loved and expressed
in his music. His compositions are "modern" in outlook, but
remarkably free in spirit and never savour of the type of
modernism that is little more than gilded pedanticism.

Mention must be made of MacDowell as a pianist. He was capable of
playing with remarkable swiftness of finger action, and his tone
production ranged from the most delicate refinement to overwhelming
floods of orchestral-like strength. In playing his larger works, he
loved to make his music sweep in great waves, and to introduce the
most wonderful contrasts and varieties of tone colour. At his
recitals he played other music besides his own, and became
distinguished as a pianist, although his interpretations were
always more personal than traditional.

MACDOWELL THE MAN

The whole nature