(Alexander), greatly significant American composer; b. N.Y., Dec. 18, 1860; d. there, Jan. 23, 1908. MacDowell's father was a Scotch-Irish tradesman, his mother an artistically inclined woman who encouraged his musical studies. He took piano lessons privately with several keyboard virtuosi, including supplementary work with Teresa Carreño, who later championed his works.

In 1876, after traveling in Europe with his mother, MacDowell enrolled as an auditor in the elementary class at the Paris Conservatory. In 1877 he was admitted as a regular student. He also studied piano with the well-known French teacher A.-F. Marmontel and SOLFÈGE with Marmontel's son, Antonin. Somewhat disappointed with his progress, he withdrew from the conservatory in 1878 and went to Wiesbaden for further study with the German composer/music critic Louis Ehlert.

In 1879 MacDowell enrolled at the newly founded but already prestigious Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, studying piano, composition, and COUNTERPOINT and FUGUE. During MacDowell's stay there, his composition class was visited by FRANZ LISZT. MacDowell performed the piano part in ROBERT SCHUMANN'S Quintet, op.44, in Liszt's presence. At another visit, MacDowell played Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 14 for him.

Two years later, MacDowell visited Liszt in Weimar and played his own first piano Concerto for him, accompanied by Eugène d'Albert at the second piano. Encouraged by Liszt's interest, MacDowell sent him the manuscript of his Modern Suite, op. 10, for piano solo. Liszt recommended the piece for performance at the meeting of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein in Zurich in 1882. He also recommended MacDowell to the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel, who subsequently brought out the first works of MacDowell to appear in print, the Modern Suites for piano, opp. 10 and 14.

Despite his youth, MacDowell was given a teaching position at the Darmstadt Conservatory. He also accepted private pupils, among them Marian Nevins of Connecticut, to whom he was secretly married on July 9, 1884, in N.Y., followed by a public ceremony in Waterford, Connecticut, on July 21. During the early years of their marriage, the MacDowells made their second home in Wiesbaden, where MacDowell composed industriously. His works were performed in neighboring communities, and Carreño put several of his piano pieces on her concert programs. There were also performances in the U.S.

However, the MacDowells were beset by financial difficulties. His mother proposed that he and his wife live on the family property, but MacDowell declined. He also declined an offer to teach at the National Conservatory in N.Y. at the at-the-time generous fee of $5 an hour. Similarly, he rejected an offer to take a clerical position at the U.S. consulate in Krefeld, Germany.

In 1888 MacDowell finally returned to the U.S., where he was welcomed in artistic circles as a famous composer and pianist. Musical America at the time was virtually a German colony, and MacDowell's German training was a certificate of his worth. The Boston Symphony Orchestra conductors Wilhelm Gericke, Arthur Nikisch, and Emil Paur, all Austro-Germans, played his works. In late 1888 MacDowell made his U.S. debut as a composer and pianist at a Boston concert of the Kneisel String Quartet, featuring his Modern Suite, op. 10. In 1889 he was soloist in the premiere performance of his second piano Concerto with the N.Y. Philharmonic, under the direction of Theodore Thomas. Frank van der Stücken invited MacDowell to play his concerto at the spectacular Paris Exposition in 1889.

In 1896 Columbia University invited MacDowell to become its first professor of music, "to elevate the standard of musical instruction in the U.S., and to afford the most favorable opportunity for acquiring instruction of the highest order." MacDowell interpreted this statement to its fullest. By 1899 two assistants had been employed, but students received no credit for the courses. At the same time, MacDowell continued to compose and to teach piano privately. He also conducted the Mendelssohn Glee Club from 1896 to 1898 and served as president of the Society of American Musicians and Composers in 1899-1900.

In the academic year 1902-03, MacDowell took a sabbatical. He played concerts throughout the U.S. and in Europe, giving a performance of his second piano Concerto in London in 1903. During his sabbatical, Columbia University replaced its president, Seth Low, with Nicholas Murray Butler, whose ideas about the role of music in the university were diametrically opposed to those of MacDowell. MacDowell resigned in 1904, creating a scandal in the music world. It was not until some time later that the Robert Center Chair that MacDowell had held at Columbia University was renamed the Edward MacDowell Chair of Music to honor its first recipient.

Through the combination of the trauma resulting from this episode, an accident with a hansom cab, and the development of what appears to have been syphilis, MacDowell rapidly deteriorated mentally. He showed signs of depression, extreme irritability, and a gradual loss of vital functions. He eventually lapsed into total insanity and spent the last two years of his life in a childlike state, unaware of his surroundings. In 1906 a public appeal was launched to raise funds for his care. MacDowell was only 47 years old when he died.

The sum of $50,000 was raised for the organization of the MacDowell Memorial Association. Marian MacDowell, who outlived her husband by nearly half a century (she died in Los Angeles in 1956, at the age of 98), deeded to the association her husband's summer residence at Peterborough,N.H. This property became an artists' retreat under the name of the MacDowell Colony, for American composers and writers, who could spend summers working undisturbed in separate cottages, paying a minimum rent for lodging and food.

During the summer of 1910, Mrs. MacDowell arranged an elaborate pageant with music from MacDowell's works. The success of this project led to the establishment of a series of MacDowell Festivals in Peterborough, N.H.

MacDowell received several awards during his lifetime, including two honorary doctorates (Princeton University, 1896, and University of Pennsylvania, 1902) and election into the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1904). In 1940 a five-cent U.S. postage stamp with his likeness was issued. In 1960 he was the second composer elected to the Hall of Fame at New York University, where, in 1964, a bust was unveiled.

Among American composers, MacDowell occupies a historically important place as the first American whose works were accepted as comparable in quality and technique with those of the average German composers of his time. His music adhered to the prevalent representative ROMANTIC art. Virtually all of his works bear titles borrowed from mythical history, literature, or painting. Even his piano sonatas, set in classical forms, carry descriptive titles, indicative of the mood of melodic resources, or as an ethnic reference.

Because MacDowell lived in Germany during his formative years, German musical culture was decisive in shaping his development. Even the American rhythms and melodies in his music seem to be European reflections of an exotic art. Some critics have drawn a parallel to the works of EDVARD GRIEG, because Grieg was also a regional composer trained in Germany. But Grieg possessed a much more vigorous personality and succeeded in communicating the true spirit of Norwegian song modalities in his works.

A lack of musical strength and originality accounts for MacDowell's gradual decline in the estimation of succeeding generations. The frequency of performance of his works in concert (he never wrote for the stage) declined in the decades following his death, and his influence on succeeding generations of American composers receded to a faint recognition.