There are passages of impressive tenderness,--as in the incident of the approaching barge; of climactic force,--as in the passage portraying the casting away of the trophies; and there are admirable details of workmanship.

The scoring is full and adroit, though not very elaborate.

As always with him, the instrumental texture is richly woven, although his utilisation of the possibilities of the orchestra is far from exhaustive.

One misses, for example, the colouring of available harp effects, for which he appeared to have a distaste, since the instrument is not required in any of his orchestral works.
That he was not satisfied with the scoring of the work is known.

He remarked to Mr.Philip Hale that it was "too full of horns"; and in his own copy of the score, which I possess, he has made in pencil numerous changes in the instrumentation, much to its improvement; he has, for instance, in accord with his expressed feeling, reduced the prominence of the horns, allotting their parts, in certain important instances, to the wood-wind, trombones, or trumpets.
The "Six Idyls after Goethe," for piano (op.