roduction (metronomed in the composer's copy,
[quarter-note]-50). The first subject is marked in the same copy,
though not in the printed book, [half-note]-69, and the appealingly
pathetic second subject is a little slower. The free fantasy is full
of storm and stress, with a fierce pedal-point on the trilled
leading-tone. In the reprise the second subject, which was at first in
the dominant major, is now in the tonic major, though the key of the
sonata is G minor. The allegro is metronomed [quarter-note]-138, and
it is very short and very wild. Throughout, the grief is the grief of
a strong soul; it never degenerates into whine. Its largo is like the
tread of an AEschylean _choros_, its allegro movements are wild with
anguish, and the occasional uplifting into the major only emphasizes
the sombre whole, like the little rifts of clearer harmony in
Beethoven's "Funeral March on the Death of a Hero."

The last movement begins with a ringing _pomposo_, and I cannot
explain its meaning better than by quoting Mrs. MacDowell's words:
"Mr. MacDowell's idea was, so to speak, as follows: 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 climax, is utterly broken
and shattered. In doing this he has tried to epitomize the whole work.
While in the other movements he aimed at expressing tragic details,
in the last he has tried to generalize; thinking that the most
poignant tragedy is that of catastrophe in the hour of triumph."

The third sonata (op. 57) is dedicated to Grieg and to the musical
exploitation of an old-time Skald reciting glorious battles, loves,
and deaths in an ancient castle. The atmosphere of mystery and
barbaric grandeur is obtained and sustained by means new to piano
literature and potent in color and vigor. The sonata formula is warped
to the purpose of the poet, but the themes have the classic ideal of
kinship. The battle-power of the work is tremendous. Huneker calls it
"an epic of rainbow and thunder," and Henry T. Finck, who has for many
years devoted a part of his large ardor to MacDowell's cause, says of
the work: "It is MacDowellish,--more MacDowellish than anything he has
yet written. It is the work of a musical thinker. There are harmonies
as novel as those we encounter in Schubert, Chopin, or Grieg, yet with
a stamp of their own."

The "Sonata Eroica" (op.