Edward MacDowell (1861-1908) - whose brief life was dogged by tragedy - was understandably deferential to the European tradition. Indeed, he disliked even being considered an American composer. Yet to dismiss him as unoriginal, a poor man's Grieg or Schumann, is more cruel than apt. True, his love of the more intimate forms of expression, of a grateful retreat from life's harsher realities into a fantasy world coloured by romantic mythologies, dancing sunlight and flower-filled meadows, left him open to the charge of escapism. Indeed, the preface to 'The Brook' (Op 32 No 2), 'there I lay beguiling time - when I lived romances; dropping pebbles in the wave, fancies into fancies' (Bulmer) might well serve as his epitaph.
None the less, 'To a Wild Rose' and 'To a Water Lily', once popular, have hardly lost their bloom, particularly when played with such an ideal simplicity and affection by Dario Muller, an Italian pianist with a special love for MacDowell. His recital concentrates almost exclusively on introspection and unlike, say, the large-scale Piano Sonatas, the flamboyant Etude de concert or the Second Piano Concerto (a glittering and still attractive show-stopper) it is a sort of extended reverie in which even the busiest pages seem bathed in moonlight. There are a few frisky exceptions ('Uncle Remus', No 7 from Op 51) and an occasional touch of Lisztian rhetoric ('From the Depths' and 'In Mid Ocean', from Op 55), all the more surprising given such a restrained context. Music for late-night listening, this recital is excellently recorded, aptly illustrated with Andrew Wyeth's 'Afternoon Flight', and Dario Muller could hardly be more committed to his European-American cause.'