the Etude in F-sharp (op. 36), the Prelude from the first suite, and the fourth of the “Idyls” after Goethe.  He followed this with a second recital in January, 1892, at which he played, among other things, the “Winter,” “Moonshine,” and “The Brook,” from the “Four Little Poems” (op. 32).  Discussing the first of these recitals, Mr. Philip Hale (in the Boston Post) wrote these words, which have a larger application than their reference to MacDowell:  “No doubt, as a composer, he has studied and mastered form and knows its value; but he prefers suggestions and hints and dream pictures and sleep-chasings to all attempts to be original in an approved and conventional fashion....  They [his compositions] are interesting, and more than that:  they are extremely characteristic in harmonic colouring.  Their size has nothing to do with their merits.  A few lines by Gautier stuffed with prismatic words and yet as vague as mist-wreaths may in artistic worth surpass whole cantos of more famous poets; and Mr. MacDowell has Gautier’s sense of colour and knowledge of the power of suggestion.”  His performance “was worthy of the warmest praise ... seeing gorgeous or delicate colours and hearing the voices of orchestral instruments, it is no wonder that Mr. MacDowell is a pianist of rare fascination.”  On January 28, 1893, the “Hamlet and Ophelia” was played, for the first time in Boston, by the Symphony Orchestra under Mr. Nikisch; but a more important event was the first performance[6] two months later of the “Sonata Tragica,” which MacDowell played at a Kneisel Quartet concert in Chickering Hall.  Concerning the sonata Mr. Apthorp wrote:  “One feels genius in it throughout—­and we are perfectly aware that genius is not a term to be used lightly.  The composer,” he added, “played it superbly, magnificently.”  MacDowell achieved one of the conspicuous triumphs of his career on December 14, 1894, when he played his second concerto with the Philharmonic Society of New York, under the direction of Anton Seidl.  He won on this occasion, recorded Mr. Finck in the Evening Post, “a success, both as pianist and composer, such as no American musician has ever won before a metropolitan concert audience.  A Philharmonic audience can be cold when it does not like a piece or a player; but Mr. MacDowell ... had an ovation such as is accorded only to a popular prima donna at the opera.  Again and again he had to get up and bow after every movement of his concerto; again and again was he recalled at the close ...  For once a prophet has had great honour in his own country ...  He played with that splendid kind of virtuosity which makes one forget the technique.”  Concerning the concerto, Mr. W.J.  Henderson wrote (in the Times) that it was difficult to speak of it “in terms of judicial calmness, for it is made of the stuff that calls for enthusiasm.  There need be no hesitation,” he continued, “in saying that Mr. MacDowell in this work fairly claims