pieces under the influence of music.

In some compositions combining both words and music, one will be very
much the inferior of the other, and the thoughtful student or listener
can but regret the discrepancy. Perhaps the words will be imposing and
the musical setting trivial, or the music rich and full of color, but
the words meaningless and inadequate. MacDowell's songs are
satisfying. In his work he reminds one very forcibly of Sidney Lanier,
whose genius was perfectly balanced. His music was full of poetry and
his poetry ran over with music. His was an harmonious nature and no
amount of external discord could cause him to lose his keynote.
Applying his own beautiful words to himself:

"His song was only living aloud,
His work a singing with his hands."

Lanier played beautifully upon a silver flute, which he lovingly
describes as "a petal on a harmony." He was a member of the Peabody
Symphony orchestra of Baltimore, and Asger Hamerik, his director for
six years, says of him: "In his hands the flute no longer remained a
mere material instrument, but was transformed into a voice that set
heavenly harmonies into vibration. Its tones developed colors, warmth
and a low sweetness of unspeakable poetry. His conception of music was
not reached by an analytic study of note by note, but was intuitive
and spontaneous, like a woman's reason." In 1878 he played a flute
concerto at a symphony concert, and the director said of him: "His
tall, handsome, manly presence, his flute breathing noble sorrows,
noble joys, the orchestra softly responding. The audience was
spellbound. Such distinction, such refinement! He stood the master,
the genius."

In studying MacDowell, one is reminded at every turn of this dual
genius. Like Lanier, his message is being better understood every
year, and now that he is gone, "fulfillment is dropping on a come-true
dream."

MacDowell had great advantages over Lanier in his early life in
freedom from financial worry. In his youth he was privileged to travel
and search until he found his own real masters, in the Frankfort
Conservatory, where he studied piano with Heymann and composition with
Raff. At Weimar he met Liszt, who recognized his ability and accorded
him such unstinted praise that he was invited to play his first piano
suite before the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik-Verein at its nineteenth
annual convention, held at Zurich in July, 1882. Both the composition
and his rendition of it won