his second and side themes for its poetic fulfilment--he has not
composed a sonata movement, but a potpourri, which the form only
aggravates." There can be little question of the success which has
attended his application of this principle to his own performances in
this field, nor of the skill and tact with which he has reshaped the
form in accordance with his chosen poetic or dramatic scheme.

His four sonatas belong undeniably, though with a variously strict
allegiance, to the domain of programme-music. Neither the "Tragica,"
the "Eroica," the "Norse," nor the "Keltic," makes its appeal
exclusively to the tonal sense. If one looks to these works for the
particular kind of gratification which he is accustomed to derive, for
example, from a sonata by Brahms (to name the most extreme of
contrasts), he will not find it. It is impossible fully to appreciate
and enjoy the last page of the "Keltic," for instance, without some
knowledge of the dramatic crisis upon which the musician has
built--although its beauty and power, as sheer music, are immediately
perceptible.

With the exception of the "Tragica," the poetic substratum of the
sonatas has been avowed with more or less particularity. In the
"Tragica"--his first essay in the form--he has vouchsafed only the
general 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