He considered that the music deserved repetition during the course of
the season, and pronounced it "a finer work in every respect than the
majority of the novelties which have come to us this season with
French and English labels." Mr. Henry T. Finck, writing in the
_Evening Post_, characterised the work as "an exquisitely conceived
tone-poem, charmingly orchestrated and full of striking harmonic
progressions." A year after the performance of the "Ophelia" in New
York Mr. Van der Stucken produced its companion piece, "Hamlet." In
April, 1888, at the first of a course of "pianoforte-concerto
concerts" given by Mr. B.J. Lang at Chickering Hall, Boston,
MacDowell's first concerto was played by Mr. B.L. Whelpley. "The
effect upon all present," wrote Mr. W.F. Apthorp in the _Transcript_,
"was simply electric." The concerto "was a surprise, if ever there was
one. We can hardly," he declared, "recall a composition so full of
astonishing and unprecedented effects [it will be recalled that this
concerto was composed in 1882, when MacDowell was nineteen years old].
The work was evidently written at white heat; its brilliancy and
vigour are astounding. The impression it made upon us, in other
respects, is as yet rather undigested... But its fire and forcibleness
are unmistakable." These opinions are of interest, for they testify to
the prompt and ungrudging recognition which was accorded to
MacDowell's work, from the first, by responsible critics in his own
country.

He might well have felt some pride in the sum of his achievements at
this time. He had not completed his twenty-seventh year; yet he had
published a concerto and two orchestral works of important
dimensions--"Hamlet and Ophelia" and "Lancelot and Elaine"; most of
the music that he had so far written had been publicly performed, and
almost invariably praised with warmth; and he was becoming known in