n for the
modern composer, and his only protection from falling into mere
rhapsody, is in having a poetic story in mind to which the music should
conform. Accordingly, in all these large works of Mr. MacDowell's,
especially in the two sonatas, and perhaps even more so in the second
than in the first, the transitions of mood in the music are very
noticeable indeed, and the work needs to be played with a great deal of
taste as well as mastership in order to prevent it from having a
certain fragmentary effect. This, in the production of a composer so
masterly in musical treatment as Mr. MacDowell, is rather curious, and
I have never been able fully to account for it. The disposition to
lean on poetic suggestion is very evident in the books of studies
already mentioned. For instance, in the opus 46 there are such titles
as "Wild Chase," "Elfin Dance," "March Wind"; and in the former book
the "Dance of the Gnomes," "The Shadow Dance," "In the Forest"; in the
opus 37, "By the Light of the Moon," "In the Hammock," "Dance
Andalusian "; in the opus 32,--entitled "Four Little Poems,"--"The
Eagle," "The Brook," "Moonshine," "Winter"; then, again, in the latest
of Mr. MacDowell's works which I have seen--the "Woodland Sketches,"
opus 51--there are ten little pieces, with such titles as "To a Wild
Rose," "Will o' the Wisp," "At an old Trysting Place," "In Autumn,"
"From an Indian Lodge," "To a Water Lily," "From 'Uncle Remus,'" "A
Deserted Farm," "By a Meadow Brook," "Told at Sunset." These titles
may or may not have been in the mind of the composer at the moment of
producing the work. It is quite possible that a significant musical
idea, upon being developed, suggested the name, and that the fanciful
name was taken for the sake of the student. These "Woodland Sketches"
in particular are very simple pieces indeed, rarely presenting
difficulties beyond the fourth grade, and all of them musical.

Mr. MacDowell has also shared the opinion of many writers that
something new is to be reached by the modern composer from the
suggestion of characteristic folk-songs, and in his "Indian" Suite he
has made use of themes derived from the North American Indians or
suggested by some of their melodies. The "Indian" Suite is undoubtedly
a very beautiful and poetic work for orchestra. I can not say that I
find it better by reason of its barbarous themes, but the treatment of
those themes has in it nothing that is barbarous, but, on the cont