Edward MacDowell wrote his only two concertos in the early 1880s when he was himself in his early twenties. They are astonishingly accomplished, far more so than any concertos known to me by British composers of the time. The piano writing has the brilliance and facility of Liszt's, the orchestration the expertise and variety of Raff's, and MacDowell did indeed study with both these composers. Liszt himself played the A minor, and one hopes he admired the orchestration, much more effective than anything he himself achieved in this line. Our neglect of these concertos must to some extent be due to past British prejudice against American music, but a stronger reason must be the lack of a distinctive flavour in MacDowell's music.
The A minor starts with the piano alone playing slow, noble chords, as does Rachmaninov's slightly later C minor, but the latter's music has much more individuality; you recognize the composer immediately, whereas MacDowell's grand gestures, like his tunes and harmonies, are somehow anonymous. This does not make them uninteresting, but it does make them less interesting, and this judgement would seem to prevail in America as well as Britain. Why else did Donna Amato have to go to an enthusiast in West Sussex to get these concertos by her compatriot on to record?
The music is played with rare brilliance. Donna Amato (this is her first record) has unusually nimble fingers, for much of this music is very difficult, and she has been well served by the English orchestra. Moments of uncertainly are few and far between. The balance is good; one can clearly hear the two tunes in the A minor's first movement being ingeniously developed simultaneously. The surface is rough at the start of the D minor's finale, but this may be only on my copy. I enjoyed this record; it is quite a time since these concertos were in the British catalogue—Roberto Szidon recorded the D minor in 1971 (DG 2530 055, 4/71—nla) and their return should be welcomed by adventurous listeners.'