He wished "to heighten the darkness of tragedy by making it follow closely on the heels of triumph.

Therefore, he attempted to make the last movement a steadily progressive triumph, which, at its close, is utterly broken and shattered, thinking that the most poignant tragedy is that of catastrophe in the hour of triumph....

In doing this he has tried to epitomise the whole work." The meaning of the _coda_ is thus made clear: a climax approached with the utmost pomp and brilliancy, and cut short by a _precipitato_ descent in octaves, _fff_, ending with a reminiscence of the portentous subject of the introduction.

It is a profoundly moving conclusion to a noble work--a work which Mr.
James Huneker has not extravagantly called "the most marked contribution to solo sonata literature since Brahms' F-minor piano sonata"; yet it is not so fine a work as any one of the three sonatas which MacDowell afterward wrote.

The style evinces, for the first time in his piano music, the striking orchestral character of his thought--yet the writing is not, paradoxical as it may seem, unpianistic.