Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXIII, no. 1 (Spring 1997)
Grieg and MacDowell: A Tale of Two Edwards
by William H. Halverson
In December, 1905, as American composer Edward MacDowell lay gravely ill with the sickness that was
soon to take his life, Edvard Grieg wrote a touching letter to Mrs. MacDowell expressing "my own and my
wife's heartfelt compassion" to the MacDowells in their hour of trial. "I am a great admirer of
MacDowell's muse," he wrote, "and I would regard it as a severe blow if his best creative period
should have to be terminated so abruptly."
That Grieg should have written such a letter when he did (December 14, 1905) is quite remarkable, for he
himself was a very sick man at this time. He had confided to his diary just a few days earlier his concern that
his rapidly ebbing strength might well mark "the beginning of the end" for him, and a week after writing the
letter he was admitted to the hospital in Christiania (now Oslo). In addition to expressions of
sympathy for the MacDowells, the letter contains important observations about the artistic
temperament -- observations that Grieg no doubt felt applied as much to himself as to MacDowell. The
1905 letter adds a touching coda to a brief correspondence between Grieg and MacDowell that occurred
during the years 1899-1902.
Mrs. MacDowell wrote in 1950 that her husband Grieg "never saw each other, but they corresponded
constantly." Only six letters are extant, however -- three from MacDowell to Grieg, three from
Grieg to MacDowell -- and the internal evidence seems to indicate that they are the only letters
the two men ever exchanged. Though both write in the elegant style characteristic of the time, MacDowell's
letters also express the awed respect of a younger man for his world-famous Norwegian colleague.
In the earliest extant letter, dated October 10, 1899, MacDowell requested Grieg's permission "to
dedicate to you my third sonata for piano, about to be published." The letter then continues:
A number of years ago a critic in the Musikalisches Wochenblatt said taht my music itself was
a dedication to you ... I will confess that the critic was right to some extent, for your music lies
closer to my heard than I can well say. I have dedicated much to you in my thoughts...
Grieg apparently was unawared that MacDowell was fluent in German, for his brief reply of October
26 is in what he himself describes as "bad English." He thanked MacDowell for his letter and his kind
words and added, "it will be a great honor and pleasure for me to accept your dedication."
The sonata was not published as quickly as MacDowell had expected, and he evidently felt obliged
to explain the delay to his celebrated dedicatee. On December 13, 1899, he sent Grieg a second
letter telling him of the delay and, among other things, thanking him "for your good words, which have
the same sincere ring as yoru music. You of course must realize what it means to me to receive
encouragement from you, and how your friendly interest will inspire me to do better things." He
requested that when Grieg received the music he "tell me squarely what you disagree with the most in
it." He concluded by saying, "The name of Grieg is adored from one end of this country to the other."
MacDowell's so-called "Norse sonata for piano, Op. 57, was finally published in early 1900. The "motto"
attached to this work is one of the composers's finest literary creations:
Night has fallen on a day of deeds.
The great rafters in the red-ribbed hall
Flashed crimson in the fitful flame
Of smouldering logs;
And from the stealthy shadows
That crept 'round Harald's throne
Rang out a Skald's strong voice
With tales of battles won;
Of Gudrun's love
and Sigurd, Siegmund's son.
On June 30, 1900, Grieg sent MacDowell a letter (in German) containing substantive and highly
complimentary comments on the sonata:
In the handling of your Nordic material you are only partly under Wagner's influence. And that is
good ... Not infrequently in the sonata, your imagination was in the far north. Higher praise I could not
give. For the motto you have chosen is not just an external adornment. Far more, it obliges the
musician to visit in imagination the very pieces where the poet has dwelt.
MacDowell also dedicated his Fourth Piano Sonata -- the "Keltic," op. 59 -- to Grieg, and the story of
how he happened to do so is amusing. According to Mrs. MacDowell, her husband had intended to
dedicate this work to Fiona McLeod, whose writings had largely inspired the work. The composer wrote
to McLeod requesting permission to do so, but recieving no answer he decided to dedicate it to
Grieg. Some years later Mrs. MacDowell learned that "Fiona McLeod" was a pseudonym for the writer
William Sharpe. She further learned that Sharpe had in fact received the request while travelling in
Italy and had written to MacDowell giving his enthusiastic approval for the dedication. He had given
the letter and money for postage to an Italian boy, who apparently pocketed the money and destroyed
the letter; in any case MacDowell never received it. Fortunately, Grieg was unaware of the circumstances
that led to his being "accidentally" honored by MacDowell for a second time.
As with the Third Sonata, MacDowell prefaced this one with some lines of original poetry:
Who minds now Keltic tales of yore,
Dark Druid rhymes that thrall,
Deirdre's song and wizard lore
Of great Cuchillin's fall.
This time, however, MacDowell did not ask Grieg's permission for hte dedication: he just assumed
it. On February 25, 1901, he wrote to Grieg (in German) telling him what he had done:
I have dared to embellish yet a fourth sonata with your name. This fourth sonata is to me of Nordic
character, and you were so often in my mind that I could not forego attaching your name to it as a kind
of motto. The thing is wild Irish (Deirdre -- Naesi and Cuchillin's Druiden battle) and perhaps
you can take pleasure in thinking of it as from a comrade who seeks his ideals in Scandinavia."
Grieg's reply (in German) is dated January 11, 1902. Once again he is highly complimentary, characterizing
the work as "very powerful, often daring -- yes, thank goodness, even reckless." He went on:
Perhaps you are familiar with a remark by the late [Moritz] Hauptmann regarding [Niels] gade's first
orchestral works: 'Sea gulls hover over his scores.' That was very beautifully said, and I would like
to say something equally beautiful to you -- for example: "The tones of the Skald resound in your
sonata!" Hauptmann's picture is as superior, however, as is an original to a copy.
Although MacDowell derived his inspiration from many sources, it is evident that Grieg was an
imporant model for his work as a composer, especially in his earliest works. His Piano Concerto,
Op. 15, written when he was just 24 years old, is reminiscent of Grieg's much more famous concerto
with respect to key (A minor), tonal language, and lyrical character. This work probably more than
any other led the German critic to say of MacDowell's music that it was "itself a dedication to
Grieg." It is a fine work that deserves to be performed more frequently than it is.
Grieg's Lyric Pieces probably also were the model for the many fine collections of short
piano pieces that MacDowell published at various times throughout his career. One should of course
not expect to hear in MacDowell's piano works the folkish melodies and modal harmonies that characterize
so much of Grieg's music, but the musical language in these pieces is very similar to that of the
more cosmopolitan Grieg. MacDowell's most successful works in this genre include Woodland Sketches,
op. 51, Sea Pieces, op. 55, Fireside Tales, op. 61, and New England Idyls, op. 62.
Interestingly, the two sonatas dedicated to Grieg do not appear to have been modelled after Grieg's
piano sonata in any identifiable way. Both are mature works, written near the end of MacDowell's
tragically short life, and by this time his craft had presumably matured to the pont where he no
longer required models. Nonetheless, the dedications seem entirely appropriate by virtue of the deep
interest in Nordic and Keltic heroic tales that he shared with Grieg. The dedications were perhaps the
composer's way of thanking his Norwegian friend for being the example that so inspired him in his younger
days.
Be that as it may, these two sonatas are without doubt the choicest fruits of MacDowell's creative genius.
No. 3 immediately transports us to the world of the Sagas, a vanished world in which skalds sing of heroic
deeds and great loves and battles won. The atmosphere in No. 4 is equally heroic, but the
heroism in this case is that of the Gaelic legends recounted in a series of epic tales known
collectively as the Cycle of the Red Branch. Both sonatas place considerable demands on
the performer, but they are a joy to listen to.
Like many composers of the late Romantic period, MacDowell has bene neglected and almost forgotten in
recent years. His splendid piano sonatas, including the two dedicated to Grieg, are almost never
performed, and most record stores do not stock the handful of recordings that have been made of his
most important compositions. It is time for Americans to rediscover this native son who was
one of the fisrt composers to secure a place of respect for American music in the wider musical world.
NOTES
1. MacDowell, Marian, Random Notes on Edward MacDowell and his Music (Boston: Arthur
P. Schmidt, 1950), 19.
2. The correspondence between Grieg and MacDowell has not yet been published. It will be included in
a three-volume edition of Grieg's letters currently being prepared under the editorship of Professor Finn
Benestad of the University of Oslo, who kindly sent photostats of the Grieg-MacDowell letters to me.
3. MacDowell, 20.
Updated 4/20/98