Intermediate
6 Fancies, Op.7
0:51
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Browse piano sheets by Edward MacDowell on Zen Virtual Piano. Edward Alexander MacDowell, born on 18 December 1860 and died on 23 January 1908, was an American pianist and composer of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and for his piano suites Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces and New England Idylls, and Woodland Sketches includes his most popular short piece, To a Wild Rose. In 1904 he was among the first seven Americans admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. To a Wild Rose being named his most popular short piece suggests that part of his reputation rests on small pieces. He received his first piano lessons from Juan Buitrago, a Colombian violinist living with the MacDowell family, and further lessons from friends of Buitrago, including the Cuban pianist Pablo Desverine and the Venezuelan pianist and composer Teresa Carreño. After two years of studies under Antoine François Marmontel, at the top of his class, he continued at Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he studied piano with Carl Heymann and composition with Joachim Raff. After finishing his studies in 1881 he remained for a while in Germany, composing, performing and giving piano lessons. Early lessons from a Colombian violinist, a Cuban pianist and a Venezuelan pianist can be read as a reminder of how many different hands guided his first years at the keyboard. From 1885 to 1888 MacDowell devoted himself almost exclusively to composition, which brought financial difficulties, and he decided to return to the United States in the autumn of 1888. His early symphonic poems include Hamlet and Ophelia (1885), Lancelot and Elaine (1888), Lamia (1889) and The Saracens (1891), and Britannica also names the Indian Suite (1892), an orchestral suite based on Indian tunes. According to Britannica, his music is thought to derive from the contemporary Romantic movements in Europe, with a lyrical style suggesting Grieg, a harmony suggesting Schumann and sometimes Liszt, and that almost all his works have literary or pictorial associations. Symphonic poems with literary or pictorial associations, beside an orchestral suite built on Indian tunes, can be read as a composer whose music drew on images and stories as well as on tunes. Britannica considers him at his best in his piano music, particularly in small pieces, where he shows the gifts of a sensitive miniaturist. In 1907 the composer and his wife founded the MacDowell artists’ residency by deeding Hillcrest Farm to the newly established Edward MacDowell Association, and after his death in 1908 in New York City he was buried at his beloved Hillcrest Farm. A composer known for miniatures who left behind a place for other artists to work suggests a legacy measured in space as well as in music.
Browse piano sheets by Edward MacDowell on Zen Virtual Piano.
Edward Alexander MacDowell, born on 18 December 1860 and died on 23 January 1908, was an American pianist and composer of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and for his piano suites Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces and New England Idylls, and Woodland Sketches includes his most popular short piece, To a Wild Rose. In 1904 he was among the first seven Americans admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. To a Wild Rose being named his most popular short piece suggests that part of his reputation rests on small pieces.
He received his first piano lessons from Juan Buitrago, a Colombian violinist living with the MacDowell family, and further lessons from friends of Buitrago, including the Cuban pianist Pablo Desverine and the Venezuelan pianist and composer Teresa Carreño. After two years of studies under Antoine François Marmontel, at the top of his class, he continued at Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he studied piano with Carl Heymann and composition with Joachim Raff. After finishing his studies in 1881 he remained for a while in Germany, composing, performing and giving piano lessons. Early lessons from a Colombian violinist, a Cuban pianist and a Venezuelan pianist can be read as a reminder of how many different hands guided his first years at the keyboard.
From 1885 to 1888 MacDowell devoted himself almost exclusively to composition, which brought financial difficulties, and he decided to return to the United States in the autumn of 1888. His early symphonic poems include Hamlet and Ophelia (1885), Lancelot and Elaine (1888), Lamia (1889) and The Saracens (1891), and Britannica also names the Indian Suite (1892), an orchestral suite based on Indian tunes. According to Britannica, his music is thought to derive from the contemporary Romantic movements in Europe, with a lyrical style suggesting Grieg, a harmony suggesting Schumann and sometimes Liszt, and that almost all his works have literary or pictorial associations. Symphonic poems with literary or pictorial associations, beside an orchestral suite built on Indian tunes, can be read as a composer whose music drew on images and stories as well as on tunes.
Britannica considers him at his best in his piano music, particularly in small pieces, where he shows the gifts of a sensitive miniaturist. In 1907 the composer and his wife founded the MacDowell artists’ residency by deeding Hillcrest Farm to the newly established Edward MacDowell Association, and after his death in 1908 in New York City he was buried at his beloved Hillcrest Farm. A composer known for miniatures who left behind a place for other artists to work suggests a legacy measured in space as well as in music.
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Common questions
Edward Alexander MacDowell (1860–1908) was an American composer and pianist of the late Romantic period, best known for his second piano concerto and suites such as Woodland Sketches.
It is his most popular short piece, from the suite Woodland Sketches.
After lessons from Juan Buitrago and friends, he studied under Antoine François Marmontel and then at Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfurt with Carl Heymann and Joachim Raff.
In 1907 MacDowell and his wife founded the artists’ residency by deeding Hillcrest Farm to the newly established Edward MacDowell Association.