1. An Old Garden (Semplice, teneramente).  This opens with an expressive and tender little theme.  In the middle part a beautifully formed lyricism appears.  The opening theme eventually reappears and the piece ends with quiet, but rich and sonorous chords.

2. Mid-Summer (Come in sogno).  This is a tone impression of a drowsy summer’s day:—­

  ... Above, the lazy cloudlets drift,
  Below, the swaying wheat....

It is exquisitely done, with the composer’s usual unerring instinct for creating atmosphere.  The technical mastery is finer than that shown in the Woodland Sketches, and the tonality ranges in the thirty-six bars of its length from fortissimo to softly breathed ppp, and at the end even pppp.

3. Mid-Winter (Lento).  Here we find a piece of dramatic significance and great power.  Its deeper meaning is expressed in the verses that head it:—­

In shrouded awe the world is wrapped, The sullen wind doth groan, ’Neath winding-sheet the earth is stone, The wraiths of snow have flown.

And lo! a thread of fate is snapped, A breaking heart makes moan; A virgin cold doth rule alone From old Mid-winter’s throne.

The piece opens with an impressive theme uttered ppp.  The whole atmosphere soon becomes one of vast and solemn content, rising to an intense short outburst.  Soon a new and rather bleak theme is heard with mournful, clashing harmonies; the whole effect is vividly recalled in From a Log Cabin, No. 9 of these idyls, the only piece in the set to equal this one in force.  After some commentary, a series of three rushing, ascending scale passages are introduced, beginning pppp, then gradually becoming louder until they culminate on high and powerful chords.  The opening theme reappears at the height of the climax and is expressed with passionate intensity.  Gradually the music dies solemnly away again.  The whole of this piece appears very different to anything of MacDowell’s earlier work; its deep and almost fateful significance, together with its problematical character, is a bid for something even greater than the Sea Pieces (Op. 55).

4. With Sweet Lavender (Molto tenero e delicato).  This piece opens with a tender and expressive theme, which is one of the most beautiful of the composer’s inspirations.  The passage marked la melodia con molto introduces that new and deeper note which is a feature in MacDowell’s last two pianoforte albums.  It breaks out presently into passionate longing, but the return of the sweet opening theme, ppp motto delicato, brings the feeling of quiet wistful contemplation back again.  The verses at the head of the piece attribute its mood to the reading of a packet of old love letters.

5. In Deep Woods (Largo impressivo).  This opens with loud and resounding chords, expressive of the majesty and beauty of American forests.  At the eleventh bar a lovely theme enters, and the music from now onwards is written on four staves, but is always clear and fresh.  As the full grandeur of the woods is felt, the theme takes on a splendid exultation, gradually sinking away as:—­