Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:01:41.895Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Edward MacDowell's Original Program for the Sonata Eroica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2015

Abstract

Manuscript sources for Edward MacDowell's Sonata Eroica (1895) divulge a radically different, notably more sinister program than the commentary that the composer imparted to Lawrence Gilman, his first biographer. Gilman's widely promulgated account, merely comprising four character sketches based on Tennyson's Arthurian epic, Idylls of the King, maintains that the score's movements respectively depict the coming of Arthur, Doré's engraving of a knight surrounded by elves, MacDowell's idea of Guinevere, and the passing of Arthur.

Inscriptions in a continuity draft preserved at the Library of Congress, however, reveal that the first movement was initially conceived as an independent ballade (an intrinsically programmatic genre) and was originally inspired by Tennyson's portrayal of Vivien seducing Merlin. Another inscription discloses that MacDowell envisioned the third movement as Lancelot's adulterous serenade to Guinevere. Additional manuscript variants and close correlations between the score's vibrant musical topics and Tennyson's literary contexts demonstrate that the entire sonata, including the elfin scherzo and war-like finale, embodies a tale of seduction and its dire consequences.

Although the Eroica's vivid, newly discovered program remains compatible with MacDowell's professed aesthetics, he suppressed the inscriptions. Speculative reasons for his doing so include formal considerations, critical opinions on programmaticism, and his attitudes toward sex.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bellman, Jonathan D.Chopin's Polish Ballade: Op. 38 as Narrative of National Martyrdom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Bomberger, E. Douglas. “A Tidal Wave of Encouragement”: American Composers’ Concerts in the Gilded Age. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.Google Scholar
Bomberger, E. Douglas. MacDowell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Brittan, Francesca. “On Microscopic Hearing: Fairy Magic, Natural Science, and the Scherzo fantastique.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 61/3 (Fall 2011): 527600.Google Scholar
Brower, Edith. “New Figures in Literature and Art.” Atlantic Monthly 77/461 (March 1896): 394402.Google Scholar
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 2nd ed.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Chase, Gilbert. America's Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present. 3rd ed.Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Clark, J. Bunker. The Dawning of American Keyboard Music. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Currier, T. P.Edward MacDowell as I Knew Him.” Musical Quarterly 1/1 (January 1915): 1751.Google Scholar
Dahlhaus, Carl. The Idea of Absolute Music. Translated by Lustig, Roger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Dwight, John S.Music in Boston.” Dwight's Journal of Music 39/1008 (6 December 1879): 197–98.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Arthur. Celebrated Pianists of the Past and Present: A Collection of One Hundred and Thirty-Nine Biographies, with Portraits. Philadelphia: Theodore Presser, 1894.Google Scholar
Fay, Amy. Music Study in Germany: From the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay. Edited by Peirce, Fay. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg, 1881.Google Scholar
Finck, Henry T.MacDowell's Songs and Piano Pieces.” The Musician 11/3 (March 1906): 115–16.Google Scholar
Finck, Henry T.Musical Notes.” The Looker-on, Musical, Dramatic, Literary 2 (1896): 817–23.Google Scholar
“Fourth Concert, Thursday Afternoon, September 24th.” Programs of Concerts and Matinees of the Annual Festival of the Worcester County Musical Association 39 (1893): 4551.Google Scholar
Frey, Martin. “Edward MacDowell.” Musikalisches Wochenblatt 40/47 (24 February 1910): 669–71.Google Scholar
Grabócz, Márta. Morphologie des œuvres pour piano de Liszt: Influence du programme sur l’évolution des formes. Budapest: MTA Zenetudományi Intézet, 1986.Google Scholar
Gilman, Lawrence. Edward MacDowell. New York: John Lane Company, 1906.Google Scholar
Gilman, Lawrence. Edward MacDowell: A Study. 1908. Reprint, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1938.Google Scholar
Gilman, Lawrence. “The Music of Edward MacDowell.” North American Review 178/6 (June 1904): 927–32.Google Scholar
Hepokoski, James A.Sibelius: Symphony No. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Hoeckner, Berthold. Programming the Absolute: Nineteenth-Century German Music and the Hermeneutics of the Moment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Horton, Charles Allison. “Serious Art and Concert Music for Piano in America in the 100 Years from Alexander Reinagle to Edward MacDowell.” Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1966.Google Scholar
Howard, John Tasker. Our American Music: A Comprehensive History from 1620 to the Present. 4th ed.New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1965.Google Scholar
Hughes, Rupert. Famous American Composers, Being a Study of the Music of this Country, and of its Future, with Biographies of the Leading Composers of the Present Time. Boston: L. C. Page and Co., 1900.Google Scholar
Humiston, William H.MacDowell. New York: Breitkopf Publications, 1921.Google Scholar
Humiston, William H.MacDowell. “The Work of Edward MacDowell.” Papers and Proceedings of the Music Teachers’ National Association 4 (1909): 2645.Google Scholar
Huneker, James. Chopin: The Man and his Music. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1900.Google Scholar
Huneker, James. Mezzotints in Modern Music. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1899.Google Scholar
Huneker, James. “Raconteur.” The Musical Courier 16 (20 November 1895): 1819.Google Scholar
Jenks, Francis H.Boston Musical Composers.” New England Magazine (New Series) 1/5 (January 1890): 475–83.Google Scholar
Keeton, A. E.Edward MacDowell Today and Tomorrow.” Musical Opinion 68/738–739 (March–April 1938): 497–98, 598–99.Google Scholar
Leonard, Neil. “Edward MacDowell and the Realists.” American Quarterly 18/2 (Summer 1966): 175–82.Google Scholar
Levy, Alan H.Edward MacDowell: An American Master. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Liszt, Franz. “Berlioz und seine Harold-Symphonie.” In Aus den Annalen des Fortschritts. Vol. 4 of Gesammelte Schriften von Franz Liszt, ed. Ramann, Lina, 1102. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1882.Google Scholar
Loring, William C.An American Romantic-Realist Abroad: Templeton Strong and his Music. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Lowens, Irving. “Edward MacDowell.” HiFi/Stereo Review 19/6 (December 1962): 6172.Google Scholar
Lowens, Irving. “Edward MacDowell's ‘Critical and Historical Essays’ (1912).” Journal of Research in Music Education 19/1 (Spring 1971): 1734.Google Scholar
Lowens, Margery Morgan. “The New York Years of Edward MacDowell.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1971.Google Scholar
Lupack, Barbara Tepa, with Lupack, Alan. Illustrating Camelot. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2008.Google Scholar
MacDowell, Edward. Critical and Historical Essays. Edited by Baltzell, W. J.. Boston: Arthur P. Schmidt, 1912.Google Scholar
Mandel, Alan. Liner notes to Edward MacDowell: Piano Works. Phoenix PHCD 148, 2000, 2 CDs.Google Scholar
Mathews, John Lathrop. “Mr. E. A. MacDowell.” Music: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Art, Science, Technic and Literature of Music 10 (May 1896): 3136.Google Scholar
Mathews, W. S. B.Things Here and There.” Music: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Art, Science, Technic and Literature of Music 9 (March 1896): 564–70.Google Scholar
Mueller, Rena Charnin. “Liszt (and Wagner) in New York, 1840–1890.” In European Music and Musicians in New York City, 1840–1900, ed. Graziano, John, 5070. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Niecks, Frederick. Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician. 2 vols. 1902. Reprint, New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1973.Google Scholar
Newman, William S.The Sonata Since Beethoven. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Sanna. “Defining the Term ‘Absolute Music’ Historically.” Music & Letters 90/2 (May 2009): 240–62.Google Scholar
Pesce, Dolores. “MacDowell's Eroica Sonata and its Lisztian Legacy.” Music Review 49/3 (August 1988): 169–89.Google Scholar
Pesce, Dolores. “New Light on the Programmatic Aesthetic of MacDowell's Symphonic Poems.” American Music 4/4 (Winter 1986): 369–89.Google Scholar
Porte, John F.Edward MacDowell, A Great American Tone Poet: His Life and Music. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1922.Google Scholar
Rosen, Charles. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, Paul. An Hour with American Music. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1929.Google Scholar
Saloman, Ora Frishberg. Listening Well: On Beethoven, Berlioz, and Other Music Criticism in Paris, Boston, and New York, 1764–1890. New York: Peter Lang, 2009.Google Scholar
Samson, Jim. Chopin: The Four Ballades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Scholes, Percy A.Everyman and his Music: Simple Papers on Varied Subjects. 1917. Reprint, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Schulin, Karin. Musikalische Schlachtengemälde in der Zeit von 1756 bis 1815. Tutzing: H. Schneider, 1986.Google Scholar
Schwab, Arnold T.MacDowell's Mysterious Malady.” Musical Quarterly 89/1 (Spring 2006): 136–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smart, Mary Ann. Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Tennyson, Alfred Lord. Idylls of the King. Edited by Gray, J. M.. 1983. Reprint, London: Penguin Books, 2004.Google Scholar
Wagner, Günther. Die Klavierballade um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Munich: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler, 1976.Google Scholar
“What inspired the Scherzo of MacDowell's ‘Eroica’? A Dispute Ended.” Music Student 8/6 (February 1916): 153.Google Scholar
Will, Richard. The Characteristic Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Beethoven. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Youens, Susan. Retracing a Winter's Journey: Schubert's Winterreise. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.Google Scholar