MacDowell - To a Wild Rose

Piano Classics, Book No. 1 - Page 252 & 253 Edward Alexander MacDowell (1860 - 1908) was an American composer and pianist from the Romantic period, best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites 'Woodland Sketches', 'Sea Pieces', and 'New England Idylls'. 'Woodland Sketches' includes his most popular short piece, 'To a Wild Rose'. In 1884, MacDowell married Marian Griswold Nevins, who had been one of his piano students. About the time that MacDowell composed a piano piece titled 'Cradle Song', Marian suffered an illness that left her unable to bear children. Besides his own compositions, which include two piano concertos, two orchestral suites, four symphonic poems, four piano sonatas, piano suites, and songs, MacDowell published dozens of piano transcriptions of mostly 18th century pre-piano keyboard pieces. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a short piece of music, the first of a series in the Piano Suite 'Woodland Sketches'. This piece was believed to have been composed in 1896 and is in a basic Ternary form with the first melody 'A' played twice, seperated by a 'B' melody which seems a bit ambiguous in tonality with the Major 7th chords appearing in places - As if the composer was using the 'B' section to explore different harmonies.

Author: reaperman2004
Keywords: Piano Classics Handel To wild Rose Woodland Sketches Late Romantic
Added: December 29, 2008