Music: MacDowell Colony

Thirty years ago the most eminent of all U. S. composers, Edward Alexander MacDowell, died in Manhattan's Westminster Hotel. Known most widely for his piano piece, To a Wild Rose, courtly, affable MacDowell was internationally famed for an imposing list of orchestral suites, symphonic poems, piano concertos, songs and instrumental solo pieces. Sensitive and nervous by temperament (a mental breakdown hastened his death at 46), MacDowell loved the country, drew inspiration and titles for his music from nature. Eventually he bought himself a strip of wooded land near Peterboro in southern...