I. Legend
II. Love Song
III. In War Time
IV. Dirge
V. Village Festival
The music has the characteristic force and tenderness of this composer
when he was writing for himself and not directly for the general public.
It is not necessary to lug in any question of whether this be
distinctively American music, for the best pages of the suite are not
parochial—they are not national.
They are universal in their appeal to sensitive hearers of any land. The
movements that are the most poetically imaginative, that have the
greatest distinction, are the “Legend,” “In War Time,” and above all the
“Dirge.” Music like this would honor any composer of whatever race he
might be.
This lamentation might be that of the dying race. There is nothing of
the luxury of woe; there is no conventional music for “threadbare crape
and tears.” There is the dignity of man who has been familiar with
nature, who has known the voices of the day and of the night on lonely
prairie and in somber forest. There is serene yielding to fate.
* * *
This suite was composed in 1891-92. The first performance in public was
by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Metropolitan Opera House, New
York, January 23, 1896.
The Indian themes used in the suite are as follows: