The great demerit of the sonata, however, is its lack of cohesive thought.  As a whole it suggests the spectacle of a highly gifted poet, full of emotional ardour and desire for self expression, but lacking the requisite skill to bind long continued effort into a cohesive whole; and who makes the mistake of trying to cramp his undoubtedly beautiful ideas by compressing them into a set form.  The Sonata Tragica is more of a traditional sonata than its successors, the Eroica, Op. 50, the Norse, Op. 57, and the Keltic, Op. 59, but as a work of art is less successful.  Its subjects are quite fine, showing, individually, great strength of character and tender feeling, but they often appear to have no definite connection with each other.  In the first movement especially we find this defect, for the second subject, with its lovely tenderness, contrasts awkwardly with the boldness and strength of the first.  The cause of this would seem to be that a quieter second subject is demanded by the form of the sonata, but its effect on the movement as a whole is patchy and illogical.  MacDowell evidently made some efforts to effect cohesion, transferring ideas from one movement to another in the process, but the attempts generally are not successful.  He tries to write in the traditional form, and only succeeds in drawing the student’s attention to the futility of it.  Later, in the Norse and the Keltic sonatas, he threw form overboard when it suited him; and wrote far greater works in doing so.  There is no doubting the quality of the music in the Sonata Tragica, however, for it contains passages of dramatic fire, breadth and sweep of line, beauty of expression and a strength of character that can only be the work of a great tone poet.  The work was undoubtedly written at a white heat of inspiration, for at the time MacDowell was not only grieved over the death of his old master and friend, Joachim Raff, but was also harrassed by the drudgery and struggle of his own existence.  He poured out his passionate feelings into the sonata, which is largely a reflection of the hopeless outlook of his own care-laden life.

1.  The introductory Largo maestoso opens with a figure of striking aspect, like a clenched, upraised fist.  Immediately following this comes a quieter, more serious strain, but only to be succeeded by loud chords again, now punctuated by rushing ascents in scale and arpeggio figures, the whole culminating in a tremendous descent of double octaves bringing almost the whole range of the pianoforte keyboard into action.  After a pause, the Allegro risoluto enters ppp.  Its bearing is strong and proud and has much that is akin to the nervous, resolute martial energy of Elgar.  The second subject, Dolce con tenerezza, is exquisitely tender and contemplative, but it follows the first awkwardly, and the two as MacDowell left them are like detached scraps having no relation to one another.  As we