When he is loud, he is very, very loud,
and in the same composition will have a passage marked with four p's.
He likes contrasts and uses them very effectively. His music has the
charm of infinite variety, but there is an insistent note of
sombreness pervading most of it that is heard even above the majesty
of the "Sea Pieces," the beauty of the "Woodland Sketches" and the
humor of the "Marionettes." In the "New England Idyls" there is a
plaintive little wail, "From a Log Cabin," the rustic retreat in the
woods at Peterboro, his "house of dreams untold," where MacDowell did
most of his later composition. It speaks of solitude, isolation and a
moan of the wind is heard in the tree tops, with an answering moan
from the heart of a man who may have had some premonition of his fate.
He is the first composer of world-note since Brahms who did his best
work for the piano. Others have used that instrument as a means
merely, reserving their crowning efforts for the orchestra, where it
is, of course, far less difficult to achieve fine effects. While he
wrote successful orchestral suites, he dignified the single instrument
by devoting his first thought to piano literature.
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