This symphonic poem was composed at Wiesbaden in 1886. The published score contains no indication of the specific moods, scenes, or incidents which gave rise to the music; there is merely the brief line: "After Tennyson," printed beneath the title. Yet it is known that MacDowell conceived his music to correspond, point by point, with certain definite happenings in the story of Lancelot and the Lily Maid of Astolat, as narrated by Tennyson; and this correspondence between the poem and the music it is possible to indicate here in some detail.

These are the incidents which are successively illustrated in the music:

I. "LANCELOT AND GUINEVERE.
THE QUEEN INDUCES LANCELOT TO ENTER THE LISTS AT CAMELOT." [101]

[An expressive theme for the strings, suggestive of the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, afterwards repeated by the wood-wind.]

II. "LANCELOT RIDES SADLY TO THE TOURNAMENT"—

[A knightly theme (the Lancelot motive) for the horns, against an opposing figure in the basses.]

III. —"AND, COMING TO THE CASTLE OF ELAINE'S FATHER"—

IV. —"SEES ELAINE"—

[An oboe solo, gentle and pensive, is heard against an exceedingly delicate accompaniment figure in the strings.]

V. —"AND GOES TO THE TOURNAMENT WEARING HER TOKEN."

VI. "THE HERALDS."

[Martial phrases (an expansion of the opening theme) for horns, trumpets, and trombones, declaimed "very forcibly, almost roughly.">[

VII. "THE TOURNAMENT."

[An energetic figure in the violins (the Tournament theme), increasing in speed and force, brings a climax in which the Lancelot theme is heard fortissimo in the brass.]

VIII. "LANCELOT'S VICTORY"—

[The Lancelot theme is proclaimed, furioso, by horns and wood-wind.]

IX. —"AND DOWNFALL."

[A precipitous descent of the violins, followed by a dramatic pause. Clarinets and bassoons have a mournful reminiscence of Lancelot's motive.]

X. "THE COMING OF ELAINE."

("What matter, so I help him back to life?")

[Lancelot's theme, in the wood-wind and horns, is heard, diminuendo, against trills and tremolos, pianissimo, in the strings.]

XI. "THE SADNESS OF ELAINE."

("I fain would follow love, if that could be:
I needs must follow death, who calls for me.")

[The theme of the opening (the love-theme of Lancelot and Guinevere) recurs significantly in the muted[102] strings.]

XII. "LANCELOT GOES BACK TO THE COURT."

[The Lancelot theme is heard in the strings and wood-wind.]

XIII. "LANCELOT AND THE QUEEN."

("Take ...
These jewels, and make me happy, making them
An armlet for the roundest arm on earth.")

[An impassioned episode. Trumpets and trombones sound an imperious phrase, fortissimo, against tempestuous passages in the strings.]

XIV. "GUINEVERE THROWS THE TROPHIES INTO THE RIVER."

[A tumultuous orchestral outburst, followed by a sudden descent of the strings through three octaves.]

XV. "LANCELOT SEES THE BLACK BARGE BEARING ELAINE DOWN THE RIVER."

("In her right hand the lily, in her left
The letter—all her bright hair streaming down—
And all the coverlet was cloth of gold
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white
All but her face, and that clear-featured face
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead,
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled.")

[A solemn episode for wood-wind, horns, and strings; the violins have a persistent tremolo.]

XVI. "ELAINE'S MESSAGE."

("I loved you, and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.

"Pray for my soul, thou too. Sir Lancelot,
As thou art a knight peerless.")

[The Elaine theme is dolorously recalled, pianissimo, by the oboe, under a trill in the violins.]

XVII. "AND LANCELOT SITS BY THE RIVER-BANK"—

[Under a weaving accompaniment figure in the violins, ppp, two horns intone, very softly and tenderly, a variant of the Lancelot theme.]

XVIII. "—NEVER DREAMING THAT HE SHOULD DIE 'A HOLY MAN'"

[Long-sustained chords, pianissimo, for full orchestra.]

TWO FRAGMENTS (AFTER THE "SONG OF ROLAND"): Op. 30

  1. THE SARACENS (Die Sarazenen)
  2. THE LOVELY ALDÂ (Die schöne Aldâ)

MacDowell, while living in Wiesbaden, Germany (from 1885 to 1888), projected a symphony on the subject of the Song of Roland, and a portion of it was composed; but the plan was afterwards abandoned, and the music which was to have formed part of the symphony was published, in 1891, in the form of two short tone-poems founded upon episodes in the poem, and entitled: Die Sarazenen; Die schöne Aldâ: Zwei Fragmente (nach dem Rolandslied) für grosses Orchester. MacDowell has quoted on the fly-leaf of the score those portions of the poem from which the conception of his music sprang.

"The Saracens," a tempestuous Allegretto feroce, is a sombre portrayal of the scene in which Ganelon swears to commit treason against Roland, while the Saracens feast amid the flaring of pagan fires and the wailing of sinister music. It is based on these lines from the Song (printed in the score in old German):

THE SARACENS

"With blasts of trumpets and amid festal and warlike scenes, tumultuously rushed forward the heathen hordes and all their high chiefs. Quoth Ganelon: 'I swear to you that of Roland I shall make an end.'" [103]

The second "fragment," "The Lovely Aldâ," an Andantino teneramente of grave tenderness, depicts the loveliness and the grieving of Aldâ, Roland's wife. [104] MacDowell uses as a preface lines from the German version, which, in translation, read thus: