Europe and at home. His material affairs, however, were far from being
in a satisfactory or promising condition; for there was little more
than a precarious income to be counted upon from his compositions; and
he had given up teaching. Musicians from America began coming to the
little Wiesbaden retreat to visit the composer and his wife, and he
was repeatedly urged to return to America and assume his share in the
development of the musical art of his country. It was finally decided
that, all things considered, conditions would be more favorable in the
United States; and in September, 1888, the MacDowells sold their
Wiesbaden cottage, not without many pangs, and sailed for their own
shores.

[Illustration: MACDOWELL AND TEMPLETON STRONG
From a photograph taken at Wiesbaden in 1888]

They settled in Boston, as being less huge and tumultuous than New
York, and took lodgings in Mount Vernon Street. In later years they
lived successively at 13 West Cedar Street and at 38 Chestnut Street.
Though all of his more important music was as yet unwritten, MacDowell
found himself already established in the view of the musical public as
a composer abundantly worthy of honour at the hands of his countrymen.
He made his first public appearance in America, in the double capacity
of pianist and composer, at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering
Hall, Boston, on November 19, 1888, playing the Prelude, Intermezzo,
and Presto from his first piano suite, and, with Kneisel and his
associates, the piano part in Goldmark's B-flat Quintet. He was
cordially received, and Mr. Apthorp, writing in the _Transcript_ of
his piano playing, praised his technique as "ample and brilliant," and
as being especially admirable "in the higher phases of playing"; "he
plays," wrote this critic, "with admirable truth of sentiment and