E. Douglas Bomberger is a pianist and musicologist specializing in American music of the nineteenth century. The author of three previous books and numerous articles, he also served as senior editor for nineteenth-century concert music for the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, second edition. He has taught at Goshen College, Ithaca College, the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and Elizabethtown College, where he currently serves as chair of Fine and Performing Arts.

"[A] major achievement." --International Piano Magazine

"Bomberger's brilliant sleuthing has uncovered new information that illuminates even the most familiar facts of MacDowell's life. . . . This is an important book, a significant achievement, and highly recommended."--Notes

"Professor Bomberger's book will be an essential addition to the existing scholarship on this remarkable man."--American Music Teacher

"This book is an exciting, often captivating read with well-chosen musical examples and well-written analyses."--Journal of the Society for American Music

"MacDowell fulfills a sore need for a reliable modern biography that will doubtless support and stimulate future inquiries into the achievements of one of the most eminent yet enigmatic figures in the annals of American music."--Journal of Musicological Research

"Bomberger has written a well-researched, eminently readable biography that makes excellent use of primary documents. Highly recommended."--Choice

"Bomberger has done a good job explaining the composer's innovations and urging us to hear his music 'for what it is rather than what it is not.'"--Columbia Magazine

"Bomberger's monograph is the new reference book onMacDowell. If one were to look for flaws, one would find hardly any. This book is an exciting, often captivating read with well-chosen musical examples and well-written analyses ... The 'extras' of this book, which comprise an extended timeline, a works list, and short biographies of its more important (and sometimes lesser known) 'dramatis personae,' increase its value. It is fascinating reading and a useful book for study purposes, if not, by design, a textbook. Bomberger succeeds in making a strong argument for the study of a U.S.-born composer of nineteenth-century music as an indispensable part of global music history." -- Journal of the Society for American Music