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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
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