April 13, 1882." [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM LISZT TO MACDOWELL (SEE PAGE 18)] The nineteenth annual convention of the _Allgemeiner Deutscher Musik-Verein_ was held that year at Zuerich, from the 9th to the 12th of July; and at the fifth concert of the series, on July 11, MacDowell played his first piano suite.

Both the music and his performance of it were praised.

A contemporaneous account speaks of the composer as "an earnest and modest musician, free from all mannerisms," who "carried his modesty so far that he played with his notes before him, though he cannot have felt any particular necessity for having them there." He "was recalled enthusiastically, and with many bravos, and may be proud of the success he has achieved." Until then, as MacDowell confessed, with engaging candour, to Mr.Henry T.Finck, he "had never waked up to the idea" that his music could be worth actual study or memorising.
"I would not have changed a note in one of them for untold gold, and _inside_ I had the greatest love for them; but the idea that any one else might take them seriously had never occurred to me." A year later, upon Liszt's recommendation, the suite and its successor, the "Second Modern Suite," op.

14, were published at Leipzig by the famous house of Breitkopf and Haertel.

"Your two pianoforte suites," wrote Liszt from Budapest, in February of that year, "are admirable.