Edward MacDowell and Indian Motives

Abstract

The lore and music of the American Indian proved to be a significant source of musical inspiration for Edward MacDowell.' In 1891 he requested that Henry E Gilbert provide him with materials on Indian melodies. Gilbert brought him a German dissertation by Theodore Baker, Uber die Musik der nordamerikanischen Wilden.2 When he received the dissertation, MacDowell commented to Gilbert that he had been acquainted with the book before but had forgotten it. It appears that MacDowell's interest in American Indian music had begun at least four years earlier: Margery Lowens reports that in 1887 MacDowell made notes in a sketchbook of plans for a symphonic poem to be called Hiawatha and Minnehaha.3 For MacDowell, the use of Indian melodies did not constitute the creation of a national music. In conversation with the writer Hamlin Garland he addressed the difficulty of defining and producing such a music. I do not believe in 'lifting' a Navajo theme and furbishing it into some kind of a musical composition and calling it American music. Our problem is not so simple as all that.'4 MacDowell demonstrated that, even in a piece that so obviously includes native elements, he thought in more universal terms. The Dirge of the Indian Suite to tell of a world sorrow. In it an Indian woman laments the death of her son. The 'Indian Suit' [sic] is the result of my studies of the Indians, their dances and their songs.5 This motive, which MacDowell incorporated into several subsequent compositions, seems to occur when his creative impulse was inspired by his emotional response to man's