1. An Old Love Story.
2. Of Br'er Rabbit.
3. Of Salamanders.
4. A Haunted House.
5. By Smouldering Embers.
These pieces show a significant change in the voice of MacDowell. A certain strange, farawayness of thought is apparent, and a grave tenderness that is not quite like anything he had previously written. The fine beauty of the previous short pieces here gives way to a new kind of serious and even sombre aspect, and indeed the composer seems to have entered on a new period. Unfortunately the next work after these Fireside Tales is the last music he published, and so the certainty of the commencement of a new period cannot definitely be established. The writing is much more masterly than in any of the earlier short pieces, including the Sea Pieces, even though these have greater spirit.
1. An Old Love Story (Simply and tenderly). This opens with the familiar flowing type of MacDowell melody, but with the succeeding section in D flat major, marked ppp, comes in a new and earnest expressiveness. After this the opening theme returns and the piece ends tenderly and subdued. An Old Love Story is, on the whole, quite characteristic, and certainly very beautiful. It seems to bring with it an atmosphere of fading, but still cherished, bygone happiness, and its thought is tender and wistful.
2. Of Br'er Rabbit (With much spirit and humour—lightly). This opens with a roguish and catching tune which is brilliantly worked out with much variety, droll humour, and masterly skill. The piece has, of course, an affinity with From Uncle Remus (Woodland Sketches, Op. 51), since Br'er Rabbit is Uncle Remus' chief hero; but the maturity and masterly handling of the material in Of Br'er Rabbit is unquestionably finer than anything in the earlier piece. MacDowell had much affection for his Br'er Rabbit creation, and it is certainly one of the most delightful of all his brighter compositions; the humour is so droll and so characteristic of himself.
3. Of Salamanders (As delicately as possible). This is a fanciful, intricate piece, but very delicate in effect. It is technically difficult to play, requiring an absolute control of finger work. It was rather a favourite with the composer. 4. A Haunted House (Mysteriously). This is one of the most imaginative and realistic of MacDowell's smaller pianoforte pieces. It opens very dark and sombre, developing into a wild and eerie fortissimo. The middle section requires swiftness of finger work to suggest the nervous expectancy aroused by the preceding mysteriousness. The ghost-like effect returns, then gradually recedes again into impenetrable gloom.
6. By Smouldering Embers (Musingly). This opens with a quiet, tender theme after the style of An Old Love Story. The piece is quite short, but displays a mastery both of harmony and counterpoint. The music is grave and deep, but very tender. The little middle section stands out in its almost passionate, but sonorous and controlled emotion. Toward the end, the music becomes very moving and subdued, dying away with careful and sensitive tone reduction. The impression left by this piece, and by the Fireside Tales as a whole, is that the composer was conscious of a heavy responsibility in his work; that he felt, as Elgar has explained, that "the creative artist suffers in creating, or in contemplating the unending influence of his creation … for even the highest ecstacy of 'Making' is mixed with the consciousness of the sombre dignity of the eternity of the artist's responsibility."