CHAPTER IV

EARLY EXPERIMENTS


MacDowell's impulse toward significant expression was not slow in
declaring itself. The first "modern suite" (op. 10), the earliest of
his listed works, which at first glance seems to be merely a group of
contrasted movements of innocently traditional aspect, with the
expected Præludium, Presto, Intermezzo, Fugue, etc., contains,
nevertheless, the germ of the programmatic principle; for at the head
of the third movement (Andantino and Allegretto) one comes upon a
motto from Virgil--"Per amica silentia lunæ," and the Rhapsodic is
introduced with the

"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate"

of Dante. The Præludium of the second piano suite, op. 14, is also
annotated, having been suggested by lines from Byron's "Manfred."
In the "Zwei Fantasiestücke", op. 17--"Erzählung" and "Hexentanz"--but
more particularly in the "Wald-Idyllen" of op. 19--"Waldesstille,"
"Spiel der Nymphen," "Träumerei," and "Driadentanz,"--a definite
poetic concept is implied. Here the formative influence of Raff is
evident. The works which follow--"Drei Poesien" ("Nachts am Meere,"
"Erzählung aus der Ritterzeit," "Ballade"), and the "Mondbilder,"
after Hans Christian Andersen--are of a similar kind. The romanticism
which pervades them is not of a very finely distilled quality: they are
not, that is to say, the product of a clarified and wholly personal