out that I had a concerto. He walked out on the landing and turned
back, telling me to bring it to him the next Sunday. In desperation,
not having the remotest idea how I was to accomplish such a task, I
worked like a beaver, evolving the music from some ideas upon which I
had planned at some time to base a concerto. Sunday came, and I had
only the first movement composed. I wrote him a note making some
wretched excuse, and he put it off until the Sunday after. Something
happened then, and he put it off two days more; by that time I had
the concerto ready." Except for three lines of passage work in the
first part, the concerto remains to-day precisely as MacDowell
finished it then.

In the event, the visit to Liszt, which he had dreaded, was a
gratifying surprise. That beneficent but formidable personage
received him with kindly courtesy, and had Eugen D'Albert, who was
present, play the orchestral part of the concerto which MacDowell had
brought with him in manuscript, arranged for two pianos. Liszt
listened attentively as the two young musicians played it
through,--not too effectively,--and when they had finished he
commended it in warm terms. "You must bestir yourself," he warned
D'Albert, "if you do not wish to be outdone by our young American";
and he praised the boldness and originality of certain passages in
the music, especially their harmonic treatment.

What was at that time even more cheering to MacDowell, who had not
yet come to regard himself as paramountly a composer, was Liszt's
praise of his piano playing. He returned to Frankfort greatly
encouraged, and he was still further elated to receive soon after a
letter from Liszt in which, referring to the first "Modern Suite,"
which MacDowell had sent to him, the Abbé wrote: