Macdowell Piano Works
Dario Muller is a powerful advocate for a difficult-to-pin-down composer on this well-recorded disc
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Edward (Alexander) MacDowell
Label: Series 2000
Magazine Review Date: 4/2000
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 56
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: S2022
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Sea Pieces |
Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer
Dario Müller, Piano Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer |
Woodland Sketches |
Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer
Dario Müller, Piano Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer |
(4) Little Poems |
Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer
Dario Müller, Piano Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer |
Forgotten Fairy Tales, Movement: Sung outside the Prince's door |
Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer
Dario Müller, Piano Edward (Alexander) MacDowell, Composer |
Author: Bryce Morrison
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.'
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.'
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