these recitals, Mr. Philip Hale (in the _Boston Post_) wrote these
words, which have a larger application than their reference to
MacDowell: "No doubt, as a composer, he has studied and mastered form
and knows its value; but he prefers suggestions and hints and dream
pictures and sleep-chasings to all attempts to be original in an
approved and conventional fashion.... They [his compositions] are
interesting, and more than that: they are extremely characteristic in
harmonic colouring. Their size has nothing to do with their merits. A
few lines by Gautier stuffed with prismatic words and yet as vague as
mist-wreaths may in artistic worth surpass whole cantos of more famous
poets; and Mr. MacDowell has Gautier's sense of colour and knowledge
of the power of suggestion." His performance "was worthy of the
warmest praise ... seeing gorgeous or delicate colours and hearing the
voices of orchestral instruments, it is no wonder that Mr. MacDowell
is a pianist of rare fascination." On January 28, 1893, the "Hamlet
and Ophelia" was played, for the first time in Boston, by the Symphony
Orchestra under Mr. Nikisch; but a more important event was the first
performance[6] two months later of the "Sonata Tragica," which
MacDowell played at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering Hall.
Concerning the sonata Mr. Apthorp wrote: "One feels genius in it
throughout--and we are perfectly aware that _genius_ is not a term to
be used lightly. The composer," he added, "played it superbly,
magnificently." MacDowell achieved one of the conspicuous triumphs of
his career on December 14, 1894, when he played his second concerto
with the Philharmonic Society of New York, under the direction of
Anton Seidl. He won on this occasion, recorded Mr. Finck in the
_Evening Post_, "a success, both as pianist and composer, such as no
American musician has ever won before a metropolitan concert audience.
A Philharmonic audience can be cold when it does not like a piece or a
player; but Mr. MacDowell ... had an ovation such as is accorded only