chord, _pppp_, all tend to increase the depth and mystery of the
piece. _From a Log Cabin_ is an inspired tone poem suggesting the
atmosphere of a quiet evening in the woods, with the slow setting
of the sun in the Golden West; a scene by which Nature often
creates the sense of the mysterious more impressively and truly
than any man-made attempts can equal. This view of declining day,
the gradual shutting off of light and life, was strangely
prophetic when MacDowell wrote it, for his own end came by a
similar process in the form of an ever deepening gloom fatalling
obscuring his mental light.

10. _The Joy of Autumn_ (_Allegro vivace_). This is a splendidly
exhilarating piece and the longest by far of the set. The music
leaps along with the sheer joy of living, the themes being
singularly fresh and bright. The whole number is written in a
brilliant and masterly manner, requiring a polished pianoforte
technique to secure its full effect, especially in the exultant
whirl and rush in the final page. A comparison of this piece with
the _In Autumn_ of the _Woodland Sketches_ (_Op_. 51) makes the
great advancement of MacDowell in the technique of composition
obvious even to the tyro. _The Joy of Autumn_ is one of the most
brilliant and spontaneous things in modern music; it is never
commonplace, it is always MacDowel-like in spirit and artistic
worth, and shows its author at the height of his maturity. With
this joyous and beautiful piece, MacDowell bade farewell to his
God-given creative art. Happily he did not know at the time that
_From a Log Cabin_ was to prove a truer-expression of his future;
a prophetic description of the tragic end of his life.