Yet it is the weakest of his orchestral works--the weakest and the least characteristic.

There is much Liszt in the score, and a good deal of Wagner.

Only occasionally--as in the _pianissimo_ passage for flutes, clarinets, and divided strings, following the first outburst of the full orchestra--does his own individuality emerge with any positiveness.

MacDowell withheld the score from publication, at the time of its composition, because of his uncertainty as to its effect.

He had not had an opportunity to secure a reading of it by one of the _Cur-Orchester_ which had accommodatingly tried over his preceding scores at their rehearsals; and such a thing was of course out of the question in America.