far-reaching significance. I spoke in an
earlier chapter, in this connection, of the first of these pieces, "To
the Sea." I must repeat that this tone-poem seems to me one of the
most entirely admirable things in the literature of the piano; and it
is typical, in the main, of the volume. MacDowell is one of the
comparatively few composers who have been thrall to the spell of the
sea; none, I think, has felt that spell more irresistibly or has
communicated it with more conquering an eloquence. This music is full
of the glamour, the awe, the mystery, of the sea; of its sinister and
terrible beauty, but also of its tonic charm, its secret allurement.
Here is sea poetry to match with that of Whitman and Swinburne. The
music is drenched in salt-spray, wind-swept, exhilarating. There are
pages in it through which rings the thunderous laughter of the sea in
its mood of cosmic and terrifying elation, and there are pages through
which drift sun-painted mists--mists that both conceal and disclose
enchanted vistas and apparitions. There is an exhilaration even in his
titles (which he has supplemented with mottos): as "To the Sea," "From
a Wandering Iceberg," "Starlight," "From the Depths," "In Mid-Ocean."
I make no concealment of my unqualified admiration for these pieces:
with the sonatas, the "Dirge" from the "Indian" suite, and certain of
the "Woodland Sketches," they record, I think, his high-water mark. He
has carried them through with superb gusto, with unwearying
imaginative fervour. In "To the Sea," "From the Depths," and "In
Mid-Ocean," it is the sea of Whitman's magnificent apostrophe that he
celebrates--the sea of

"brooding scowl and murk,"

of

"unloosed hurricanes,"

speaking, imperiously,

"with husky-haughty lips";

while elsewhere, as in the "Wandering Iceberg" and "Nautilus" studies,
the pervading tone is of Swinburne's

"deep divine dark dayshine of the sea."

"Starlight" is of a brooding and solemn tenderness. The "Song" and
"A.D. MDCXX." (a memoir of the notorious galleon of the Pilgrims) are
in a lighter vein. The tonal plangency, the epic quality, of these
studies is extraordinary,--exposing a tendency toward an orchestral
fulness and breadth of style that will offer a more pertinent theme
for comment in a consideration of the sonatas. Their littleness is
wholly a quantitative matter; their spiritual and imaginative
substance is not only of rare quality, but of striking amplitude.

We c