The works of both these composers have a distinct and pronounced pedagogic value, but in wholly different directions, and both appeal principally to American pianists. The Gottschalk pieces now are mainly used in the earlier stages of instruction for forming good melody habits. They appeal to the poetic sensibility of the players who as yet are hardly ready for Chopin or any of the more elaborate composers. Dr. Mason's works, especially those I have here mentioned, appeal upon the opposite side to the harmonic sense, and to the sense of working out a theme with good consistency and persistency. While the Gottschalk pieces improve the style of melody and the sparkle of the playing, the Mason pieces conduce to system and regularity in study and to a serious and careful treatment of the left-hand part as well as the right, and they have in them some of that quality which belongs to nearly all the works of Bach, when undertaken by students: they promote seriousness and musical feeling.
Hence I propose the following program as on the whole affording a good idea of the works of these composers:
Gottschalk-Weber: Overture to "Oberon." Four hands. Mason: Amitie pour Amitie. (Available for four hands if preferred.) Air and Variations Grotesques. "Ah Vous Dirais-je Maman." Spring Dawn Mazurka. Reverie Poetique. Gottschalk: Marche de Nuit. The Banjo. (Negro Sketch.) Song, "Slumber On." Mason: Eight Duets for Teacher and Pupil. (Ditson Co.) Four hands. March and Waltz for Teacher and Pupil. Four hands. Gottschalk: Aeolian Murmurs. The Last Hope. Mason: The Tocctina. Reverie, "Au Matin." "The Silver Spring." Gottschalk-Rossini: The Overture to "William Tell." Four hands.
By general consent of music lovers and connoisseurs, Mr. Edward Alexander MacDowell, or Prof. MacDowell as he should now be called, is the most finished and accomplished writer for the pianoforte that we have. Mr. MacDowell was born in New York on the 18th of December, 1861, and after having some instruction from his mother, who was a good musician, he received lessons for a while from Teresa Carreno. In 1877 he went to Paris and became a pupil of Marmontel and Savard. Later on he went to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he studied composition with the late Joachim Raff and piano playing with Carl Heymann. In this manner five years of European student-life passed, and in 1888 he was made piano teacher at the Darmstadt Conservatory; he remained there only one year, in 1882 going to Weisbaden, where his position was a very distinguished one. In 1888 he returned to America and located in Boston, where he immediately succeeded to an extremely fine clientele. In Boston Mr. MacDowell naturally found very congenial surroundings. He lived on West Cedar Street, a few doors from Arthur Foote, well down on the slopes of Beacon Hill, a short distance from the Common and not very far from Charles Street. The aristocratic desirability of this particular location in Boston is measured by its remoteness from street cars and all means of public transit. This, however, is a mere detail. In 1896 Mr. MacDowell was appointed professor of music at Columbia University, after negotiations extending over several months.