characteristic English used in the works of MacDowell's mature
period instead of the conventional Italian musical terms. The
little comedy-drama is opened by a _Prologue_, in which jovial,
wistful and sardonic motives variously indicate the types of
characters in the play, and is rounded off by an _Epilogue_,
which is one of the most beautiful of MacDowell's smaller pieces,
being full of tender feeling, and indicating unmistakably the
deeper and human significance of the composer's Marionette
studies. The whole album comprises one of MacDowell's most
interesting portrayals of everyday human nature, standing quite
alone in its droll half-amusing, half-pathetic mode of expression.
It is something quite apart from the more specialised romantic
and heroic figures of the three symphonic poems, _Hamlet and
Ophelia, Op. 22_, _Lancelot and Elaine, Op. 25_, and _Lamia,
Op. 29_; the three last pianoforte sonatas, _Eroica, Op. 50_,
_Norse, Op. 57_, and _Keltic, Op. 59_; or of the noble _"Indian"
Suite, Op. 48_.



OPUS 39. TWELVE ETUDES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNIQUE AND
STYLE, FOR PIANOFORTE.

_Composed, about_ 1889-90. _First Published_, 1890 (Arthur P.
Schmidt).

BOOK I:

1. _Hunting Song_.