nfluences: of that there was no question;
yet it was strikingly rich in personal accent. Gradually his art came
to find, through various forms, a constantly finer and weightier
expression. For orchestra he wrote the "Indian" suite--music of superb
vigour, fantastically and deeply imaginative, wholly personal in
quality; for the piano he wrote four sonatas of heroic and passionate
content--indisputable masterworks--and various shorter pieces, free in
form and poetic in inspiration; and he wrote many songs, some of them
quite flawless in their loveliness and their emotional veracity.

It will thus be seen why the potent and aromatic art of MacDowell
impressed those who were able to feel its charm and estimate its
value. It is mere justice to him, now that he has definitely passed
beyond the reach of our praise, to say that he gave to the art of
creative music in this country (I am thinking now only of music-makers
of native birth) its single impressive and vital figure. His is the
one name in our music which, for instance, one would venture to pair
with that of Whitman in poetry.

An abundance of pregnant, beautiful, and novel ideas was his chief
possession, and he fashioned them into musical designs with great
skill and unflagging art. That he did not undertake adventures in all
of the forms of music, has been said. There is no symphony in the list
of his published works, no large choral composition. Yet he was far
from being a miniaturist,--he was, in fact, anything but that. His
four sonatas for the piano are planned upon truly heroic lines; they
are large in scope and of epical sweep and breadth; and his "Indian"
suite is the most impressive orchestral work composed by an American.
He wrote two piano concertos,--early works, not of his best
inspiration,--a large number of poetically descriptive smaller works,
and almost half a hundred songs of frequent loveliness and character.
The three symphonic poems, "Hamlet and Ophelia," "Lancelot and
Elaine," and "Lamia"; the two "fragments," "The Saracens," and "The
Lovely Alda," and the first orchestral suite, op. 42--which he might
have entitled "Sylvan"--complete the record of his output, save for
some spirited but not very important part-songs for male voices. The
list comprises sixty-two opus numbers and one hundred and eighty-six
separate compositions,--not a remarkable accomplishment, in point of
quantity, yet notable and rare in quality.

He suggested, at his best, n