"Die Sarazenen" is a transcription of the scene in which Ganelon, the traitor in Charlemagne's camp through whose perfidy Roland met his death, swears to commit his crime.

It is a forceful conception, barbaric in colour and rhythm, and picturesquely scored.

The second fragment, "Die Schoene Alda," is, however, a more memorable work, depicting the loveliness and the grieving of Alda, Roland's betrothed.
In spite of its strong Wagnerian leanings, the music bears the impress of MacDowell's own style, and it has moments of rare loveliness.

Both pieces are programmatic in bent, and, with excellent wisdom, MacDowell has quoted upon the fly-leaf of the score those portions of the "Song of Roland" from which the conception of the music sprang.
Like the "Idyls" after Goethe, the "Six Poems" after Heine (op.

31), for piano, are devoted to the embodiment of a poetic subject,--with the difference that instead of the landscape impressionism of the Goethe studies we have a persistent impulse toward psychological suggestion.