 The Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont. The story that will be told in music and drama this evening on the Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont is the story of a pioneer in American music, Edward McDowell. We're privileged to have with us this evening Mrs. McDowell, widow of the composer-musician who has given us much valuable assistance in the preparation of our story. Mrs. McDowell, won't you say a word to our audience? Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure to be here to see the dramatization of the life of my husband and my own unimportant life, and I know I'm going to watch it with a very great interest. Thank you all. Thank you, Mrs. McDowell. Even in the latter years of the 19th century, the standing of musicians in America was still very doubtful. It remained for a quiet, retiring man to help the American artist achieve proper recognition in his own country. His name was Edward McDowell, and he was born in New York City in 1861. We meet him first, a sensitive boy of 12, practicing on his piano. He is interrupted by his grandfather, a hard-fisted old school Quaker who in his gruff way is genuinely fond of the boy. Miss Practicing. Well, that's good. It's time I had a talk with you. Edward, what do you intend to do when you grow up? I know what I'd like to be if I'm ever good enough. Well, what is it you'd like? I want to be a musician. Oh, my boy, that's not a life. You must do some useful work in the world. Yes, friend, father. Musician. I was afraid of it when your mother let that woman, that Teresa Carina, in here to teach you to play the piano. Oh, but you were young. You forget such nonsense. But, grandfather, why isn't it all right to be a musician? Edward, you come of God-fearing people who work. People who do things with their hands. That's what made this a great country. But, grandfather... No real man with red blood in his veins would spend his time doing parlor tricks at the piano or sawing on a fiddle in the park. But, grandfather, that isn't what I want. I want to write music. Music like Beethoven's or Brahms. Only the way an American would write. Well, I'm going to speak to your mother. Oh, you can't change my mind, grandfather. Why, it's scandalous. Listen, grandfather, there's an organ grinder outside. Do you suppose he made up the tune he's playing? Oh, look, the monkey's holding a cup in his hand. There's your musician's life, Edward, a monkey's life. But the man is happy. He's smiling. Well, at least he works, grinding that organ to earn his living. Boy, Edward bursting with talent grows older, outstrips his teachers, and with the help of his mother goes to Europe to study with the great masters. At 14, he wins a full scholarship to National Conservatory at Paris, the first American to be so honored. For three years, he undergoes the most intensive training. Later, he travels to Germany for more study. And there, Joachim Roth arranges a meeting for the young lad of 19 with Europe's greatest piano virtuoso, Franz Liszt, who agrees listen to something quite unheard of. A concerto by an American. You understand, sir, I'm ashamed to play on a piano with your fingers attached. My playing is over. I like your play. You have really studied the piano, but you play like a composer. That is a fitting review. Nine, nine, it is a compliment. McDowell, I am learning. I see first an American, shy, timid. Then my ears hear a talent that is like Chopin, Schumann. And it is a new talent. I do not quite understand. I hear strains of this that I know, and that, what is it, American music? No, not yet. Many of those strains are borrowed from the masters I admire most. Honest young man. My boy, when you go home, I think you will write some very great music. He used his influence to have Edward McDowell play his concerto in Zurich, and it achieved a great success. Now his path crosses that of another young American, Marion Nevins. A Connecticut girl come to Europe to study with Clara Schumann, wife of the great musician Robert Schumann. Madame Schumann accepted her as a pupil, but was suddenly taken ill. Joaquin Rapp, interested in the talented young girl, insisted upon her taking lessons from McDowell. He sends Marion to see the young pianist composer. Oh, please sit down, Miss Nevins. Thank you, Mr. McDowell. Now, tell me, why did you come to Europe to study music and then by asking lessons of an American? Madame Schumann was taken ill, and Herr Rapp sent me to you. He said you were young and that you spoke English, that you'd make a good teacher for me. In fact, he insisted that I study with you for a time. Well, if Herr Rapp insists, I suppose we must make the best of it, both of us. I suppose so. You understand, Miss Nevins, that I'm a very busy man. I have lately been appointed Professor of the Piano at the Darmstadt Conservatory. Tell me, just what does that mean? Well, it means most of my pupils are young girls. They are receiving a complete education, you see, so they take a piano lesson from me and then they rush off to take a lesson in cooking. Oh, I see. And then to change my social standing, I have to go each week to teach some young counts and countesses who usually go to sleep when I try to explain counterpoint. Oh. There's some sort of relationship to Queen Victoria, just what I don't know. That must be fun. Well, the best part of it is the fine dinner I always have there, but not with a family, of course. I understand. Perhaps you wonder why I'm here when there are plenty of good musicians at home under whom I might study. You see, there's something about Europe that draws many who hope to be artists. I know. That's why I'm here, too. To study in these surroundings, to study with... That poor ignorant American. Oh. But, you know, Ms. Nevins, I'm going back to America as soon as I think I've learned enough. So? I'm going back to make America see that there's a place for a serious musician, that musicians are neither fools nor idlers, that they have a high task, to make more people alive to beauty. But what of your own talent? Well, what there is will thrive by hard work. A musician mustn't be a monk. I will write better American music if I work and teach and know the people at home and write music when I can. Yes, but there must be times free of people and worries for you to write your music. Yes. But that would be enshrined. Perhaps it will happen, too. You think so? Yes. I... Well, um, really, Ms. Nevins, I suppose it's time to begin your first lesson. Uh, suppose first you play for me. In combination of circumstances that when Marion Nevins first visited Edward McDowell, she did not want to study the piano with him. Neither did he wish to teach her. He listened while she played. She thought she played very well, but McDowell said, you have a fine talent, but you can't play the piano yet. Someday you will. And that was the beginning of their friendship. In 1884, whenever McDowell went back to America, he and Ms. Nevins were married at her old home near New London, Connecticut. Through the years, he carried out his ideal, giving concerts, teaching, composing, and as his position became more secure, pointing the way for all American artists to win the faith and respect of their country. Among his writings shortly after his return was a short piece called Scotch Poems, which Don Borges and our Dupont Cavalcade Orchestra will play now. In 1896, the McDowells bought a deserted farmhouse situated on a 100-acre tract of land at Peterborough, New Hampshire. To help her husband with his composing, Mrs. McDowell had a small log cabin erected on the property at some distance from the main farmhouse in the woods. In it were a piano, a fireplace, a table, a chair. It was plain with nothing to distract his attention, a place for work. The building of this first cabin was to have far-reaching results, not only upon McDowell himself, but upon all Americans, in every line of art. In it, McDowell did much of his best work. His place of relaxation was the music room of the remodeled farmhouse Hillcrest. Mrs. McDowell sits at the piano in this music room. We're talking the two or three of the Peterborough men. Good golfers, all of them. If it aren't you teaching them to waste their time, they're all businessmen, you know. Waste their time at golf? Why do you think I gave that land to the town or golf length so that a lot of people would get out in the open air and forget the daily drudgery of life? Well, I hope you'll forgive one of those golfers for what he said last week about your music. Well, what was that? He said that when he heard music, he wanted to hear a tune. And that when he heard your music, he knew it was yours because it didn't have any tune. I suppose that's true to some extent. And the things I'm really trying to do, there isn't always a dominant melody. But tell me, what were you playing when I came in? This. I did. I found it on a couple of pieces of paper that you'd thrown into the fireplace. I was just about to light it with a match. Merrin, you know you're not supposed to rescue those scraps of paper from the fire. My theory still holds that a man must keep up this technique of writing just as a musician must practice at his instrument. I know. But I haven't a glance at this one before I burned it. I like the melody, so I kept it to show you. Well, let me see it. It's not bad at all. Then am I forgiven for rescuing it? I'm sorry if I sounded cross. You know what gave me the idea for this? Something you saw, as usual? The first thing I noticed this morning outside the door. A wild rose. Yes. It sounds like a wild rose. Just as the tool water lily sounds like those water lilies looked growing in that muddy pond. Well, I wish others understood my inspiration as you do. The perfume of flowers and pictures like Ross Turner's Golden Galleon, the roar of the ocean. They all suggest music to me. Edward, speaking of the ocean, reminds me, have you had any words from the publishers of the sea pieces? Oh, didn't I tell you I had leather this morning? No. I guess you were rescuing that music, took it right out of my head. Marion, they've accepted my sea pieces. Oh, Edward. Isn't that splendid? Oh, I'm glad. Oh, I'm really a very lucky man. And lucky to have a place like this to work in. Come over here to the door. Look at that forest of ours. I can't imagine a finer place to work. What a pity that other artists live in a place like this. No, Marion. I've been thinking about that. There's plenty of room here for more cabins like the one that you had built for me, a place to get away from the outside world and concentrate and work. Now, you want to fill our woods more grumpy artists? Many more. My pupils and the young, eager people following the arts, they should come here. They should feel the night and the dawn here. They should from time to time be free from strain, live near the smell of pine trees growing in the soil of their own land. And then, then they'll compose and write and paint, and no one will dare laugh at them as artists and Americans. That was Nautilus, one of McDowell's sea pieces. The orchestra will now play another selection from the same suite to the sea. Play American music, but the sum of American art was enriched when the name of Edward McDowell was added to the leaders of the Cavalcade of America, used in a tireless search for better products. This work involved many activities which at first glance might seem a far cry from the popular notion of what the chemist does. Take, for example, a major do-pont activity. Test control research. Chemists, entomologists, and pathologists all are engaged in the task of finding ways to control destructive insects, spongy, bacteria, weeds, and marine growths such as the barnacle. One phase of this do-pont research program which has produced results all of us can see is the recently developed treatment of lumber. Freshly cut lumber, as you know, is bright and clean. But stack this lumber in the yard, and soon it may begin to lose its beauty. Frequently fungy or mold starts to look inside 36 hours. Before a week is over, you can see this growth in the form of blue streaks or blotches called sap stain or blue stain, which destroys the natural beauty of grain and color. This condition was of great concern to lumbermen everywhere. But chemistry went to work and found ways to solve this problem. Montt perfected the chemical product now sold under the trademark Ligna sand. Freshly cut boards are dipped in it, and the result is lumber protected from the discoloring ravages of fungi, lumber that retains its bright attractiveness, whether it be boards or large planks for building or the thin cuts used for strawberry boxes and crates. Another important contribution of the chemist to the life and usefulness of lumber is the development of a product called chromated zinc chloride. Wood impregnated under pressure with this chemical does not catch fire so easily. It is decay and rot, and offers considerable resistance to the destructive appetite of the termite. This wood treatment research is a good example of how the work of the chemist touches the daily lives of all of us as he improves existing products and creates new ones. A constant effort to produce better things for better living through chemistry. Continental Journeys, a story comparing modern travel with the days of the covered wagon, will be heard next week at this same time when DuPont again presents the Cavalcade of America. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.