Nor is the style marked by individuality, except in occasional passages.

There are traces of his peculiar quality in the first suite,--in the 6/8 passage of the Rhapsodie, for example,--in portions of the first piano concerto (the _a piacere_ passage toward the close of the first movement is particularly characteristic), in the _Erzaehlung_, and in No.

3 (_Traeumerei_) of the _Wald-Idyllen_; but the prevailing note of his style at this time was, quite naturally, strongly Teutonic: one encounters in it the trail of Liszt, of Schumann, of Raff, of Wagner.
Not until one reaches the "Hamlet and Ophelia" is it apparent that he is beginning to find himself.

This work was written before he had completed his twenty-fourth year; yet the music is curiously ripe in feeling and accomplishment.

There is breadth and steadiness of view in the conception, passion and sensitiveness in its embodiment: It is mellower, of a deeper and finer beauty, than anything he had previously done, though nowhere has it the inspiration of his later works.
The second piano concerto (op.