Eugene List, Van Cliburn - Edward MacDowell: Piano Concertos 1-2 (1961/2014) Hi-Res

Edward MacDowell MacDowell's ancestry was English on his mother's side and Scottish-Irish on his father's. Though his father's family had been Quakers, there is little indication that MacDowell practised this or any other religion. He showed skill in drawing and music at an early age, and when he was eight began piano lessons with the Colombian violinist Juan Buitrago. Buitrago introduced him as a boy to Teresa Carreño, who encouraged him and later became a promoter of his music in the USA and abroad. In April 1876 his mother took him to Paris to attend the Conservatoire, where he studied the piano with Marmontel. Dissatisfied with the instruction he was receiving, he went on to Germany in 1878, and studied in turn in Stuttgart, Wiesbaden and Frankfurt (at the Hoch Konservatorium with Carl Heymann for piano and Raff for composition). On several occasions in 1879 and 1880 he played for Liszt at conservatory concerts, and this helped further his career. By August 1880 he had left the conservatory and begun to support himself by giving private piano lessons, which he did until 1885, except for a year spent teaching at the Städtische Akademie für Tonkunst, Darmstadt (1881–2). His first seven opus numbers, works either for piano or male chorus, were published under the pseudonym of Edgar Thorn(e). Meanwhile he continued his association with Raff, who encouraged him to send his Erste moderne Suite op.10 to Liszt on its completion in 1881; Liszt recommended the work for performance at a meeting of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein in 1882 and for publication by Breitkopf & Härtel. This was the beginning of his success as a composer, and other German firms were to publish his music within the next few years. In 1883 Teresa Carreño began playing his (by then) two Moderne Suiten in concerts throughout the USA. The next year he married Marian Nevins, a fellow American. They settled first in Frankfurt, then Wiesbaden, and from 1885 to 1888 MacDowell devoted himself almost exclusively to composition. In part because of financial difficulties he decided to return to America in the autumn of 1888. MacDowell and his wife lived in Boston from 1888 to 1896, and during that period he composed his opp.37–51, which include his ‘Indian’ Suite and Woodland Sketches. These years also saw his rise to public attention as a result of concerts in which he played his own music. In March 1889 he gave the première of his Second Concerto under the direction of Theodore Thomas in New York; the next month he played it again with the Boston SO. There followed performances of his symphonic poems and orchestral suites, as well as of his solo piano pieces. A performance by the Boston SO of his First Piano Concerto
and ‘Indian’ Suite at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, in January 1896, was a high point in his career; he was critically acclaimed as both performer and composer, and within months was offered an appointment as Columbia University's first professor of music. He lived in New York from 1896 until his death, working enthusiastically and devotedly at the task of building Columbia's music department, in which he was the sole teacher for two years. He also continued to teach the piano privately, gave concerts during the winter vacations, conducted the Mendelssohn Glee Club (1896–8) and served as president of the Society of American Musicians and Composers (1899–1900). Though he found time to compose only during summer vacations, his works from this time include several important sets of piano pieces, as well as partsongs and solo songs. After his return from a sabbatical year (1902–3), during which he toured the USA and Canada giving concerts, he fell out with Nicholas Murray Butler, the new president of Columbia, and resigned his position in mid-1904. After this he remained active as a private piano teacher and as a member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters (to which he was elected in 1898), the American Academy of Arts and Letters (he was one of its founders in 1904) and the American Academy in Rome. His health began to deteriorate in 1904, perhaps as a result of a traffic accident he had that year and by the autumn of 1905 he was almost completely helpless, mentally and physically. For the remaining three years of his life he and his wife spent winters in New York and summers at their home in Peterborough, New Hampshire.


Tracks:

Piano Concerto No.1,
1. Maestoso - Allegro con fuoco
2. Andante tranquillo
3. Presto Van Cliburn

Piano Concerto No.2,
4. First Movement: Larghetto calmato
5. Second Movement: presto giocoso
6. Third Movement: Largo

Personnel:

Eugene List - piano
Van Cliburn - piano
Carlos Chavez conductor - Vienna State Opera Orchestra
Walter Hendl conductor - Chicago Symphony Orchestra