indication of his purpose which is declared in the title of
the work, though it is known that in composing the music MacDowell was
moved by the memory of his grief over the death of his master Raff (it
might stand even more appropriately as a commentary on the tragedy of
his own life). The tragic note is sounded, with impressive authority
and force, in the brief introduction, _largo maestoso_. The music,
from the first, drives to the very heart of the subject: there is
neither pose nor bombast in the presentation of the thought; and this
attitude is maintained throughout--in the ingratiating loveliness of
the second subject, in the fierce striving of the middle section, in
the noble and sombre slow movement,--a _largo_ of profound pathos and
dignity,--and in the dramatic and impassioned close (the scherzo is, I
think, less good). Of this final _allegro_ an exposition has been
vouchsafed. While in the preceding movements, it is said, he aimed at
expressing tragic details, in the last he has tried to generalise. He
wished "to heighten the darkness of tragedy by making it follow
closely on the heels of triumph. Therefore, he attempted to make the
last movement a steadily progressive triumph, which, at its close, is
utterly broken and shattered, thinking that the most poignant tragedy
is that of catastrophe in the hour of triumph.... In doing this he has
tried to epitomise the whole work." The meaning of the _coda_ is thus
made clear: a climax approached with the utmost pomp and brilliancy,
and cut short by a _precipitato_ descent in octaves, _fff_, ending
with a reminiscence of the portentous subject of the introduction. It
is a profoundly moving conclusion to a noble work--a work which Mr.
James Huneker has not extravagantly called "the most marked
contribution to solo sonata literature since Brahms' F-minor piano
sonata"; yet it is not so fine a work as any one of the three sonatas
which MacDowell afterward wrote. The style evinces, for the first time
in his piano music, the striking orchestral character of his
thought--yet the writing is not, paradoxical as it may seem,
unpianistic. The suggestion of orchestral relationships is contained
in the massiveness of the harmonic texture, and in the cumulative
effect of the climaxes and crescendi. He conveys an impression of
extended tone-spaces, of a largeness, complexity, and solidity of
structure, which are peculiar to his own music, and which presuppose a
rather disdainful v