Lyrical Songs

The American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell (1860 1908) is rather unknown in Europe although he had his artistic roots there for he was trained as a pianist in Paris, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden and Frankfurt. After returning to his home country, he worked as a teacher while also being the director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for eight years. During his studies in Germany, the musician already began to compose songs (with German texts), still in the European tradition. From 1886 he used English lyricism as a basis and preferred a sparing, yet expressive accompaniment of the piano. In his last songs, he placed special emphasis on the declamatory aspect of the text and expanded the harmonic range of his tonal language. Of his 42 solo songs, the present volume contains six titles from three of his song collections: Composed or printed for the first time between 1890 and 1898, these songs are a representative selection from MacDowell's important middle creative period and, without doubt, a valuable addition to the song repertoire.