in the two sonatas that followed, strengthened my opinion in regard to
this. I questioned him in regard to it later when I saw him in New
York, and he replied that it was a matter over which he had pondered
considerably, and one which had influenced him in the composition of
the last two sonatas, as the insertion of a scherzo in such a scheme
did seem something like an interruption, or 'aside.'"

[14] It must be confessed that this qualification is a little
difficult to grasp. Is not the sonata dependent for its complete
understanding upon a knowledge of its literary basis? MacDowell
exhibits here the half-heartedness which I have elsewhere remarked
in his attitude toward representative music.

In this sonata MacDowell has been not only faithful to his text, he
has illuminated it. Indeed, I think it would not be extravagant to say
that he has given us here the noblest musical incarnation of the
Arthurian legend which we have. It is singular, by the way, how
frequently one is impelled to use the epithet "noble" in praising
MacDowell's work; in reference to the "Sonata Eroica" it has an
emphatic aptness, for nobility is the keynote of this music. If the
work, as a whole, has not the dynamic power of the "Tragica," the
weight and gravity of substance, it is both a lovelier and a more
lovable work, and it is everywhere more significantly accented. He has
written few things more luxuriantly beautiful than the "Guinevere"
movement, nothing more elevated and ecstatic than the apotheosis which
ends the work. The diction throughout is richer and more variously
contrasted than in the earlier work, and his manipulation of the form
is more elastic.

Apparent as is the advance of the "Eroica" over its predecessor, the