An American composer known for his piano pieces in smaller forms. As one of the first to incorporate native materials into his works, he helped establish an independent American musical idiom.
MacDowell's music is said to derive from the contemporary Romantic movements in Europe, his charming melodic style suggesting perhaps Grieg, his harmony, Schumann and occasionally Liszt. Almost all his works have the concomitiant literary or pictorial associations of the romantic period. His early symphonic poems include Hamlet and Ophelia (1885), Lancelot and Elaine (1888), Lamia (1889), and The Saracens (1891).

More distinctive is his orchestral Indian Suite (1892), based on Indian tunes. His songs, though derivative, are lyrical; but he is considered at his best in his piano music, particularly in small pieces, when he shows the gifts of a sensitive miniaturist. The best of his piano works are thought to be the suites Sea Pieces (1898) and Fireside Tales (1902) and the imaginative evocations of the American scene in the albums Woodland Sketches (1896) and New England Idylls (1902). His four piano sonatas, Tragica (1893), Eroica (1895), Norse (1900), and Keltic (1901), are cited as ambitious attempts at programmatic music in classical forms.