surpassed in any body of modern song-writing.

[Illustration: THE MUSIC-ROOM AT PETERSBORO]

In almost all of his songs the voice is predominant over the piano
part--although he is far, indeed, from writing mere accompaniments:
the support which he gives the voice is consistently important, for he
brings to bear upon it all his rich resources of harmonic expression.
But though he makes the voice the paramount element, he uses it, in
general, rather as a vehicle for the unconscious exposition of a
determined lyricism than as an instrument of precise emotional
utterance. When one thinks of how Hugo Wolf, for example, or Debussy,
would have treated the phrase, "to wake again the bitter joy of love,"
in "Fair Springtide," it will be felt, I think, that MacDowell's
setting leaves something to be desired on the score of emotional
verity, although the song, as a whole, is one of the loveliest and
most spontaneous he has written. I do not mean to say that he does not
often achieve an ideal correspondence between the significance of his
text and the effect of his music; but when he does--as in, for
instance, that superb tragedy in little, "The Sea,"[16] or in the
still finer "Sunrise"[17]--one's impression is that it is the
fortunate result of chance, rather than the outcome of deliberate
artistic purpose. It is in songs of an untrammelled lyricism that his
art finds its chief opportunity. In such he is both delightful and
satisfying--in, for instance, the six flower songs, "From an Old
Garden"; in "Confidence" and "In the Woods" (op. 47); in "The Swan
Bent Low to the Lily," "A Maid Sings Light," and "Long Ago" (op. 56);
and in the delectable "To the Golden Rod," from his last song group
(op. 60). This is music of blithe and captivating allurement, of grave
or riant tenderness, of compelling fascination; and in it, the word