John Wilson and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s second volume of works by Edward MacDowell features the tone poem Hamlet & Ophelia; the First Orchestral Suite; the Romanze for cello and orchestra featuring cellist Peter Dixon; and the virtuosic Second Piano Concerto featuring Xiayin Wang as soloist. In 1884, MacDowell and his wife, Marian, spent their honeymoon in England, and were both captivated by Shakespeare plays at London’s Lyceum Theatre. MacDowell immediately began to compose sketches based on six characters, but completed only Hamlet and Ophelia, which were published the following year. Parts of the sketch for Benedick, from Much Ado about Nothing, found their way into the second movement of MacDowell’s Second Piano Concerto. When MacDowell reactivated his career as a concert pianist, he used the Second Concerto as a vehicle for his own performances, playing the premiere in New York in 1889. The Romanze was written at Wiesbaden in 1887, and MacDowell dedicated it to the virtuoso Bohemian cellist and composer David Popper. The Suite in A minor, reflecting the composer’s lifelong love of nature, was the first work he composed after they moved to Boston. Set in five movements, it received its first performance in 1895 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.