Large-scale works by minor masters can be something of a trial, especially when marketed in bulk on disc. Edward MacDowell's first three piano sonatas do not deserve the fervent advocacy of today's recitalists—MacDowell probably was best as a miniaturist. But they are of some historical interest, bringing the gospel of Liszt and Raff to New England in the 1 890s; and one of them, the Eroica, indicates that had MacDowell lived beyond his mid forties he might not have been such a minor master in the end.
The Eroica occupies its four-movement scheme with material of some freshness and distinction, the forms something more than the dutiful filing-out of conventional moulds. The first movement is concise and well balanced, the elf-dance scherzo a perfectly-turned genre piece, hardly heroic but great fun. The slow movement just manages to keep late-romantic mawkishness at bay, and the finale has an appealing energy that opens out naturally into a grandly expansive coda—not too dignified, despite MacDowell's marking. By contrast the earlier Tragica is a routine effort, with unmemorable ideas, and the Norse offers a very salon-like response to its saga-inspired subject-matter.
'Dutiful' is a word that fits James Tocco's performances. He is an accomplished technician, but has not reached the stage of being able to throw away the scores and play the sonatas with the fiery spontaneity and rapt intensity that could disarm criticism. With his tendency to initiate unmarked accelerandos in transitions, and to scale down some of MacDowell's more extreme dynamic markings, Tocco is as much apologist as interpreter. The ending of the Tragica is particularly tame: fff grandioso is what MacDowell asks for, and we get something rather less than that. True, the recording may have trimmed what Tocco actually played to some extent, yet the sound is generally satisfactory in tone and atmosphere.'