15:30

MACDOWELL

Sun 18^th Dec 1927, 15:30 on 5GB Daventry (Experimental)

Born December 18, 1861
A Short Recital of Pianoforte Music by ETHEL WALKER
Second Movement (Keltic Sonata, Op. 59) March Wind, Op. 46, No. 10 A.D. 1620 (Sea Pieces)
Polonaise, Op. 4(i, No. 12
MACDOWELL'S mother was an American woman of English ancestrv, and his father was of Irish-Scottish descent, so that the Keltic, strain we find in much of his music is accounted for. Another influence, that of German romance, is also strongly felt. He was an authority on mythology, and loved fairy tales.
His last Piano Sonata bears the title ' Keltic,' and is dedicated to Grieg. . The composer prefaces it with a verse of his own â€” Who minds now Keltic tales of yore.
Dark Druid rhymes that thrall,
Deirdre's song and wizard lore,
Of great Cuehullin's fall. The atmosphere of the story of Deirdre and that of the life and death of Cuchullin, the great Irish hero, are woven into the substance of the Sonata.
In the Second Movement of the Sonata MacDowell dwells upon the lovely Deirdre. He puts at the head of the Movement the direction ' with naive tenderness.' It opens with a slow melody, whose sweeping supporting chords remind us of the harpers of old who sang their ballads to their own accompaniment. The theme is somewhat developed, with rapidly - increasing emotion, until the entry of the Second Main Time. Ever broader and more dignified becomes the music until, 'stately and sonorous,' the First Tune returns, to die away extremely softly at the end. The spirit of this and the other Movements, is. as MacDowell said, that of a ' bardic rhapsody.' He does not attempt a continuous story, delineating clear-cut adventures, but, having absorbed the spirit of the old heroic tales, he comments on them in music, making use,' as he put it, ' of all the suggestion of tone-painting in my power-just as the bard would have reinforced his speech with gesture and facial expression.'
A.D. 1620 suggests the indomitable spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers as they undertook their perilous journey to a new land. Some may find, too, a hint of the dangers they had to face on arriving there.