mournfully_; the fifth, "Village Festival": _Swift and light_.

Here, certainly, is food for the imagination, the frankest of
invitations to the impressionable listener. There is no reason to
believe that the music is built throughout upon such a detailed and
specific plan as underlies, for example, the "Lancelot and Elaine";
the notable fact is that MacDowell has attained in this work to a
power and weight of utterance, an eloquence of communication, a
ripeness of style, and a security and strength of workmanship, which
he had not hitherto brought to the fulfilment of an avowedly
impressionistic scheme.[13] He has exposed the particular emotions and
the essential character of his subject with deep sympathy and
extraordinary imaginative force--at times with profoundly impressive
effect, as in the first movement, "Legend," and the third, "In
War-Time"; and in the overwhelmingly poignant "Dirge" he has achieved
the most profoundly affecting threnody in music since the
"Götterdämmerung" _Trauermarsch_. I am inclined to rank this movement,
with the sonatas and one or two of the "Woodland Sketches" and "Sea
Pieces," as the choicest emanation of MacDowell's genius; and of these
it is, I think, the most inspired and the most deeply felt. The
extreme pathos of the opening section, with the wailing phrase in the
muted strings under the reiterated G of the flutes (an inverted
organ-point of sixteen _adagio_ measures); the indescribable effect of
the muted horn heard from behind the scenes, over an accompaniment of
divided violas and 'cellos _con sordini_; the heart-shaking sadness
and beauty of the succeeding passage for all the muted strings; the
mysterious and solemn close: these are outstanding moments in a
masterpiece of the first rank: a page which would honour any
music-maker, living or dead.