be merely a group of contrasted movements of innocently traditional aspect, with the expected Pr?ludium, Presto, Intermezzo, Fugue, etc., contains, nevertheless, the germ of the progra

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Andersen-are of a similar kind. The romanticism which pervades them is not of a very finely distilled quality: they are not, that is to say, the product of a clarified and wholly personal vision-of the vision which prompted the issue of such things as the "Woodland Sketches," the "Sea Pieces," and the "New England Idyls." In these earlier works one feels that the romantic view has been assumed somewhat vicariously-one can imagine the favourite pupil of Raff producing a group of "Wald-Idyllen" quite as a matter of course, and without interior convi

urth year; yet the music is curiously ripe in feeling and accomplishment. There is breadth and steadiness of view in the conception, passion and sensitiveness

lo and orchestra; the concert study, op. 36, and such conventional morceaux as the early "Serenata" and "Barcarolle" (of which, it should be noted, there are extremely few among his productions), it represents the very limited body of his writing which does not, in some degree, propose and enforce a definite poetic concept. Not elsewhere in his earlier work has MacDowell marshalled the materials of his art with so confident an artistry as he exhibits in this concerto. In substance the work is not e

d musical equivalents are sought and found for such crucial incidents as the meeting with Elaine, the tournament, Lancelot's downfall, his return to the court and the interview with Guinevere, the apparition of the funeral barge, and the soliloquy of Lancelot by the river bank. The work is dramatically conceived. There are passages of impressive tenderness,-as in the incident of the approaching barge; of climactic force,-as in the passage portraying the casting away of the trophies; and there are admirable details of workmanship. The scoring is full and adroit, though not very elaborate. As always with him, the instrumental texture is richly woven, although his utilisation of the p

ne who has yielded his imagination to an intimate contemplation of the natural world, and who already has, in some degree, the faculty of uttering whatever revelation of its loveliness or majesty has been vouchsafed. At once, in studying these pieces, one observes a wide departure in method and accomplishment from the style of the "Wald-Idyllen." In those, it seemed, the poet had somehow failed to compose "with his eye on the object": the vision lacked steadiness, lacked penetration-or it may be that the vision was present, but not the power of

Begun during his last year in Wiesbaden (1888), and completed the following winter in Boston, it stands, in the order of MacDowell's orchestral pieces, between "La

nto a lovely maiden. Lycius meets her in the wood, is smitten with love for her, and goes with her to her enchanted palace, where the wedding is celebrated with great s

odatingly tried over his preceding scores at their rehearsals; and such a thing was of course out of the question in America. Not only was he reluctant to put it forth without such a test, but he lacked the funds to pay for its publication. He came to realise in later years, of course, that the music was immature and far from characteristic, though he still had a genuine affection for it. In a talk which I had with him a year before his collapse, he gave me the impression that he considered it at least as good a piece of work as its predecessors, "Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine," though he made sport, in his characteristic way, of its occasional juvenility and its Wagneristic allegiances. He intended ultimately to revise and publish the score, and he allowed it to remain on the li

on of the scene in which Ganelon, the traitor in Charlemagne's camp through whose perfidy Roland met his death, swears to commit his crime. It is a forceful conception, barbaric in colour and rhythm, and picturesquely scored. The second fragment, "Die Sch?ne Alda," is, however, a more memorable work, depicting the loveliness and the grieving of Alda, Ro

the Goethe studies we have a persistent impulse toward psychological suggestion. Each of the poems which he has selected for illustration has a burden of human emotion which the music reflects with

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e happiest phase of his lighter vein. The transition from F minor to major, after the fermata on the second page, is as typical as it is delectable; and the fifteen bars that follow are of a markedly personal tinge. "From Long Ago" and "From a Fisherman's Hut" are le

y: but "The Eagle" is a superb achievement. Its deliberate purpose is to realise in tone the imagery and atmosphere of Tennyson's lines-an object which it accomplishes with triumphant completeness. As a feat of sheer tone-painting one recalls few things, of a similar scope and purpose, that surpass it in fitness, concision, and felicity. It displays a power of imaginative transmutation hitherto undisclosed in MacDowell's writing. Here are precisely the severe and lonely

use to describe the creative impulse of which they are the ungrateful legacy-an impulse less spontaneous, there is reason to believe, than utilitarian. Perhaps they may most justly be characterised as almost the only instances in whic

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ely so in the "Prologue," and, in an irresistible degree, in the exceedingly poetic and deeply felt "Epilogue"-one of the most typical and beautiful of MacDowell's smaller works. The music of these pieces is, as with other of his earlier works that he has since revised, confusing to the observer who attempts to place it among his productions in the order suggested by its opus number. For although in the list of his published works the "Marionettes" follow immediately on the heels of the Concert Study and "Les Orientales" the form in which they are now most generally known represents the much later period of the "Keltic" sonata-a fact which will, however, be sufficiently evident to anyone who studies the two versions carefully enough to perceive the difference between more or less experimental craftsmanship and ripe and heedful artistry. The observer will notice in these pieces, incidentally, the abandonment

o often succeeded in embodying. The same thing is true, though in a less degree, of the suite for orchestra (op. 42). It is more Raff-like-not in effect but in conception-than anything he has done. There are four movements: "In a Haunted Forest," "Summer Idyl," "The Shepherdess' Song," and "Forest Spirits," together with a supplement, "In October," forming part of the original suite, but not publis

n" are most noteworthy), we come to a stage of MacDowell's development in which, for the first time, he presents himself