As a pianist I may only quote what Rafael Joseffy once said to me after a performance of the MacDowell D minor concerto by its composer: "What's the use of a poor pianist trying to compete with a fellow who writes his own music and then plays it the way MacDowell does?" It was said jestingly, but, as usual, when Joseffy opens his mouth there is a grain of wisdom in the speech. MacDowell's French training showed in his "pianism" in the velocity, clarity, and pearly quality of his scales and trills. He had the elegance of the salon player; he knew the traditions. But he was modern, German and Slavic in his combined musical interpretation and fiery attack. His tone was large; at times it was brutal. This pianist did not shine in a small hall. He needed space, as do his later compositions. There was something both noble and elemental in the performance of his own sonatas. At his instrument his air of preoccupation, his fine poetic head, the lines of which were admirably salient on the concert stage, and his passion in execution were notable details in the harmonious picture. Like Liszt, MacDowell and his Steinway were as the rider and his steed. They seemed inseparable. Under the batons of Nikisch, Gericke, Paur, and Seidl we heard him, and for once at least the critics were unanimous. When I first studied the MacDowell music I called the composer "a belated Romantic." A Romantic he is by temperament, while his training under Raff further accentuated that tendency. It is a dangerous matter to make predictions of a contemporary composer, yet a danger critically courted in these times of rapid-fire judgments. I have been a sinner myself, and am still unregenerate, for if it be sinful to judge hastily in the affirmative, by the same token it is quite as grave an error to judge hastily in the negative. So I shall dare the possible contempt of the succeeding critical generation, which I expect--and hope--will not calmly reverse our dearest predictions, and range myself on the side of MacDowell. And with this reservation; I called him the most poetic composer of America. He would be a poetic composer in any land; yet it seems to me that his greatest, because his most individual, work is to be found in his four piano sonatas. I am always subdued by the charm of his songs; but he did not find his fullest expression in his lyrics.