A contemporary of Mahler, pupil of Raff and protégé of Liszt, the American-born MacDowell received his main musical education in France and Germany during the later nineteenth century. MacDowell was a Romantic by temperament, and his musical imagination was largely shaped by nature, literature, mythology and other extra musical stimuli. The music presented here is typical of these influences providing a highly evocative and atmospheric sound world full of melodic freshness and attractively colourful scoring.