Research On McDowell’s Piano Program Music

Edward Mc Dowell is the first American native composer with international reputation,and his music is full of creative artistic style.Mc Dowell created many profound and vivid piano title music."Fireside Stories" is a late piano title music composed of "On Old Love Story","Of Br’er Rabbit","From a German Forest","Of Salamanders","A Haunted House" and "By Smouldering Embers".This paper takes "Fireside Stories" as the research object to explore Mc Dowell’s piano title music and experience the musical image of this work.This paper is divided into three parts: introduction,text and conclusion.The introduction explains the reason for the topic selection and the significance of the research,and summarizes the relevant materials such as Mc Dowell,"Fireside Stories" and the title music.The text consists of four chapters,the first chapter introduces the concept and development of title music.The second chapter describes Mc Dowell’s life and the composition of the piano title music,and introduces the background of the creation of "Fireside Stories".The third chapter analyzes the musical creation of the works,including the musical structure,melody,rhythm and harmony.Mc Dowell uses these creative techniques to express the musical image in each piece of music.The fourth chapter combines music analysis with the author’s performance practice,and deals with the typical musical points in each work,so as to facilitate the performer to further understand the title of the six works.In the conclusion,the author summarizes Mc Dowell’s music creation style and the musical characteristics of the piano title,summarizes the creation method of "Fireside Stories" and performs the treatment.