vision--of the vision which prompted the issue of such things as the
"Woodland Sketches," the "Sea Pieces," and the "New England Idyls." In
these earlier works one feels that the romantic view has been assumed
somewhat vicariously--one can imagine the favourite pupil of Raff
producing a group of "Wald-Idyllen" quite as a matter of course, and
without interior conviction. Nor is the style marked by individuality,
except in occasional passages. There are traces of his peculiar
quality in the first suite,--in the 6/8 passage of the Rhapsodie, for
example,--in portions of the first piano concerto (the _a piacere_
passage toward the close of the first movement is particularly
characteristic), in the _Erzählung_, and in No. 3 (_Träumerei_) of the
_Wald-Idyllen_; but the prevailing note of his style at this time was,
quite naturally, strongly Teutonic: one encounters in it the trail of
Liszt, of Schumann, of Raff, of Wagner.

Not until one reaches the "Hamlet and Ophelia" is it apparent that he
is beginning to find himself. This work was written before he had
completed his twenty-fourth year; yet the music is curiously ripe in
feeling and accomplishment. There is breadth and steadiness of view in
the conception, passion and sensitiveness in its embodiment: It is
mellower, of a deeper and finer beauty, than anything he had
previously done, though nowhere has it the inspiration of his later
works.

The second piano concerto (op. 23), completed a year later, is fairly
within the class of that order of music which it has been generally
agreed to describe as "absolute." It is innocent of any programme,
save for the fact that some of the ideas prompted by "Much Ado About
Nothing," which were to form a "Beatrice and Benedick" symphonic poem,
were, as I have related in a previous chapter, incorporated in the