MacDowell found in Boston a considerable field for his activity as pianist and teacher.  He took many private pupils, and he made, during the eight years that he remained there, many public appearances in concert.  In composition, these years were the most fruitful of his life.  He wrote during this period the Concert Study for piano (op. 36); the set of pieces after Victor Hugo’s “Les Orientales” (op. 37)—­“Clair de lune,” “Dans le Hamac,” “Danse Andalouse”; the “Marionettes” (op. 38); the “Twelve Studies” of op. 39; the “Six Love Songs” (op. 40); the two songs for male chorus (op. 41)—­“Cradle Song” and “Dance of the Gnomes”; the orchestral suite in A-minor (op. 42) and its supplement, “In October” (op. 42-A);[5] the “Two Northern Songs” and “Barcarolle” (op. 43 and op. 44) for mixed voices; the “Sonata Tragica” (op. 45); the 12 “Virtuoso Studies” of op. 46; the “Eight Songs” (op. 47); the second ("Indian”) suite for orchestra; the “Air” and “Rigaudon” (op. 49) for piano; the “Sonata Eroica” (op. 50); and the “Woodland Sketches” (op. 51).  This output did not contain his most mature and characteristic works—­those were to come later, during the last six years of his creative activity; yet the product was in many ways a notable one, and some of it—­the two sonatas, the “Indian” suite, the songs of op. 47, the “Woodland Sketches”—­was, if not consistently of his very best, markedly fine and characteristic in quality.  This decade (from 1887 to 1897) saw also the publication of all his work contained between his op. 22 ("Hamlet and Ophelia”) and op. 51 (the “Woodland Sketches”) with the exception of the symphonic poem “Lamia,” which was not published until after his death.

[5] This episode formed part of the suite in its original form, but was not printed until several years after the publication of the rest of the music.  The earlier portion, comprising four parts ("In a Haunted Forest,” “Summer Idyll,” “The Shepherdess’ Song,” “Forest Spirits"), was published in 1891, the supplement in 1893.

Meanwhile his prestige grew steadily.  Each new work that he put forth met with a remarkable measure of success, both among the general public and at the hands of many not over-complacent critical appraisers.  On January 10, 1890, his “Lancelot and Elaine” was played at a Boston Symphony concert under Mr. Nikisch.  In September, 1891, his orchestral suite in A-minor (op. 42) was performed for the first time at the Worcester Festival, and a month later it was played in Boston at a Symphony concert under Mr. Nikisch.  In November of the same year the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, under Bernhard Listemann, performed for the first time, at the Tremont Theatre, his “Roland” pieces, “The Saracens” and “The Lovely Alda.”  On the following day—­November 6, 1891—­he gave his first piano recital, playing, in addition to pieces by Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Templeton Strong, P. Geisler, Alabieff, and Liszt, his own “Witches’ Dance,” “Shadow Dance” (op. 39), “The Eagle,”