As a tone poet MacDowell has none of the sensuous emotionalism that wins popularity in the drawing room and at the musical recitals of popular pianists. He is never sentimental and his strength and passion is always finely controlled, never feverish. His music is singularly free from the emotionalisms of sex, the love-impulse with him is always noble and restrained. In all his moods there is a human spirit and some definitely suggested content, the most notable purist exceptions being the two pianoforte concertos. His tone colourings are never used densely or oppressively, but only serve to heighten the suggestiveness of the whole. He loved the pianoforte as an instrument for personal melodic and harmonic expression, and understood the range of its tonal resources. His biggest music for it is written with very broad and extended chords, strong in character, but always wonderfully clear and ringing, and eminently suited for pianoforte sonority. His tone nuances range from a shadowy, mysterious _pppp_ to a virile, massive _ffff_. MacDowell's best orchestral composition is his _Second (Indian) Suite, Op_. 48. This is one of his most noble works, scored with masterly skill and vividly suggesting the great plains and forests, the wild and lonely retreats, the festivals, sorrows, rejoicings, and romances and also the stern, rude manliness of the North American Indians, whose pathetic annals form such a stirring page in American history. MacDowell also wrote three symphonic poems for orchestra, another suite, and some symphonic sketches. The songs of MacDowell make an important section of the catalogue of his works, and are chiefly notable for their beauty and tenderness of expression, and he was at his very best when writing in the pure lyric form. His efforts comprising Ops. 56, 58 and 60 are of a rare and expressive order. He also composed a number of fine part-songs for male-voice choruses. Most of his best vocal works are set to his own verses, as he could seldom satisfy himself that words ally themselves naturally with music.