The Sonata Eroica is perhaps the most beautiful and noble, although not the grandest or most stirring, of MacDowell’s four pianoforte sonatas.  It has not the weight and power of the Sonata Tragica, Op. 45, but in its beauty and noble dignity it is infinitely more impressive.  The whole work was inspired by the Arthurian legends that MacDowell, with his love of ancient chivalry and romance, loved to idealise.  In the sonata he has illuminated his subject with compelling nobleness of thought and beauty of effect, freely adapting the traditional musical form to the needs of his poetic purpose.  The work requires a considerable amount of study for its finished performance, as well as a knowledge and understanding of its source of inspiration.  Heard at its best it is a magnificent solo piece, only surpassed by the composer’s own two later sonatas, the Norse, Op. 57, and the Keltic, Op. 59.

1.  The first movement is notable for its variety of tempo and expression, every page containing new indications as to these in the illuminating and characteristic English of the composer.  He has told us that the movement as a whole typifies the coming of Arthur, and as such we may leave it.  The traditional sonata form is freely adapted to the poetic requirements of the movement, but the result is rather ragged.  The music itself, however, is deeply inspired and full of fire.  The simple, yet pathetic second subject is recalled again in the slow movement.

2.  The fanciful and “elf-like” scherzo movement was suggested to the composer by Dore’s picture of a knight in a wood, surrounded by mythological forest folk.  The music is imaginative and cleverly written, but MacDowell afterwards considered the movement as a whole to be “an aside” from the general content of the sonata.  The present writer thinks that this scherzo may be omitted by a performer who satisfies himself that it is not an essential part of the Arthurian concept of the whole.  If the sonata is played simply as programme music, however, it benefits by the inclusion of this movement.

3.  This movement is headed, Tenderly, longingly, yet with passion, and is considered by many of the composer’s admirers to be one of his most beautiful inspirations.  It is, according to MacDowell himself, a musical representation of Guinevere, Arthur’s lovely queen.  Quite independent of the rest of the sonata, the movement is a tone poem of rare beauty, expressiveness and passion, although the melody entering at its eleventh bar connects it with the preceding movement.