‘Edward MacDowell may have been a musical conservative but, in spite of the European flavour of his music, he thought himself a true “American” composer, favouring the influences of “the manly and free rudeness of the American Indian” rather than jazz, which he thought had too strong an eastern European, Bohemian inheritance.

The Indian Suite opens with a dramatic horn call and its first movement (“Legend”) is a grandiose evocation of the “once great past of a dying race” and draws on folk themes from Iowas and Kiowas. The closing “Village Festival” expands energetically in the brass, finally returning to the mood of the opening movement. The First Suite (actually the second in order of composition) is a comparable series of genre evocations, and the suite ends with a winning dance of the “Forest Spirits”.

The brooding atmosphere of the portrait of Hamlet and Ophelia soon gives way to melodrama in the manner of a Lisztian symphonic poem. The music has a rich lyrical strain and later a doom-laden ambience, although it is Ophelia rather than Hamlet who dominates the touchingly lyrical close. The performances here are outstanding in every way, full of colour, warmth and vitality, and the recording is state of the art.’

Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music