In contrast to the warm reception by concert audiences, professional music critics in the press gave the rhapsody decidedly mixed reviews. Pitts Sanborn declared that the rhapsody "begins with a promising theme well stated" yet "soon runs off into empty passage-work and meaningless repetition." A number of reviews were particularly negative. One opinionated music critic, Lawrence Gilman—a Richard Wagner enthusiast who would later write a devastating review of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess"—harshly criticized the rhapsody as "derivative," "stale," and "inexpressive" in "New-York Tribune" review on February 13, 1924.