Boston, by the Symphony
Orchestra under Mr. Nikisch; but a more important event was the first
performance[6] two months later of the "Sonata Tragica," which
MacDowell played at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering Hall.
Concerning the sonata Mr. Apthorp wrote: "One feels genius in it
throughout--and we are perfectly aware that _genius_ is not a term to
be used lightly. The composer," he added, "played it superbly,
magnificently." MacDowell achieved one of the conspicuous triumphs of
his career on December 14, 1894, when he played his second concerto
with the Philharmonic Society of New York, under the direction of
Anton Seidl. He won on this occasion, recorded Mr. Finck in the
_Evening Post_, "a success, both as pianist and composer, such as no
American musician has ever won before a metropolitan concert audience.
A Philharmonic audience can be cold when it does not like a piece or a
player; but Mr. MacDowell ... had an ovation such as is accorded only
to a popular prima donna at the opera. Again and again he had to get
up and bow after every movement of his concerto; again and again was
he recalled at the close ... For once a prophet has had great honour
in his own country ... He played with that splendid kind of virtuosity
which makes one forget the technique." Concerning the concerto, Mr.
W.J. Henderson wrote (in the _Times_) that it was difficult to speak
of it "in terms of judicial calmness, for it is made of the stuff that
calls for enthusiasm. There need be no hesitation," he continued, "in
saying that Mr. MacDowell in this work fairly claims the position of
an American master. We may have no distinctive school of music, but
here is one young man who has placed himself on a level with the men
owned by the world. This D-minor concerto is a strong, wholesome,
beautiful work of art, vital with imagination, and made with masterly
skill." And Mr. James Huneker observed that "it easily ranks with any
modern work in this form. Dramatic in feeling, moulded largely, and
its themes musically eloquent, it sounds a model of its kind--the kind
which Johannes Brahms gave the world over thirty years ago in his
D-minor concerto." In March of the following year MacDowell gave two
piano recitals in the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall, New York,
playing, beside a number of his smaller pieces, his "Tragica" sonata,
which made, if anything, an even profounder impression than it had
made in Boston two years before. Probably the