The words seemed to hamper the bold wing strokes of his inspiration. He did not go far enough in his orchestral work to warrant our saying: "Here is something new!" He shows the influence of Wagner slightly, of Grieg, of Raff, of Liszt, in his first Orchestral Suite, his Hamlet and Ophelia, Launcelot and Elaine; The Saracens and Lovely Alda, the Indian Suite, and in the two concertos. The form is still struggling to emerge from the bonds of the Romantics--of classic influence there is little trace. But the general effect is fragmentary. It is not the real MacDowell, notwithstanding the mastery of technical material, the genuine feeling for orchestral colour, which is natural, not studied. There are poetic moods--MacDowell is always a poet--yet no path-breaker. Indeed, he seemed as if hesitating. I remember how we discussed Brahms, Tschaikovsky, and Richard Strauss. The former he admired as a master builder; the latter piqued his curiosity tremendously, particularly Also Sprach Zarathustra. I think that Tschaikovsky made the deepest appeal, though he said that the Russian's music sounded better than it was. Grieg he admired, but Grieg could never have drawn the long musical line we find in the MacDowell sonatas. The fate of intermediate types is inevitable. Music is an art of specialisation: the Wagner music-drama, Chopin piano music, Schubert songs, Beethoven symphony, Liszt symphonic poems, and Richard Strauss tone-poems, all these are unique. MacDowell has invented many lovely melodies. That the Indian duet for orchestra, the Woodland Sketches, New England Idyls, the Sea Pieces--To the Sea is a wonderful transcription of the mystery, and the salt and savour of the ocean--will have a long life, but not as long as the piano sonatas. By them he will stand or fall. MacDowell never goes chromatically mad on his harmonic tripod, nor does he tear passion to tatters in his search of the dramatic. If he recalls any English poet it is Keats, and like Keats he is simple and sensuous in his imagery, and a lover of true romance; not the sham ecstasies of mock mediæval romance, but that deep and tender sentiment which we encounter in the poetry of Keats--in the magic of a moon half veiled by flying clouds; in the mystery and scent of old and tangled gardens. I should call MacDowell a landscape-painter had I not heard his sonata music. Those sonatas, the Tragica, Eroica, Norse, and Keltic, with their broad, coloured narrative, ballad-like tone, their heroic and chivalric accents, epic passion, and feminine tenderness. The psychology is simple if you set this music against that of Strauss, of Loeffler, or of Debussy.