ace of ideal expression. Since
then he has changed in appearance, until now he looks the very image
of health, being stout and muscular, the noble manly face surrounded
by a full gray beard. The writer well remembers singing under his
direction, watching him conduct orchestra rehearsals, hearing him play
alone or with orchestra, listening to an after-dinner speech or
private conversation, observing him when attentively listening to
other works, and seeing the modest smile with which he accepted, or
rather declined, expressions of admiration."

The most important works of Brahms, aside from his "German Requiem,"
are four symphonies for orchestra, two concertos for pianoforte, a
concerto for violin and 'cello with orchestra, a violin concerto, many
songs, a variety of compositions for chamber, embracing a number for
unusual combinations of instruments (such as clarinet and horn with
piano), sonatas for piano solo, etc. In the songs he attains a simple
and direct expression, not surpassed in musical quality since
Schubert and Schumann; in the concertos he is more for music than for
display, which is merely to say that in conceiving the display of his
solo instrument, he has sought rather to display it at its best in a
musical sense than to exhibit its peculiar tricks of dexterity. As a
symphonist he follows classic form, and is more successful than any
other writer in the slow movements, a department in which most of the
later writers are distinctly weak, since in an idealized folk song
(which is the essential ideal of the symphonic slow movement) poverty
of imagination cannot be concealed by dexterity of thematic treatment
and modulation. As a writer for the pianoforte he has made important
enlargements of the technique, not alone in his arrangement of easier
compositions by earlier writers, but still more by original demands
upon the fingers, as illustrated in his great sets of variations.

Distinguished among German composers is Max Bruch (1838- ) who was
born at Cologne, and educated there and almost everywhere else in
Germany. Bruch is best known by his works for chorus with orchestra,
of which "Frithjof," "A Roman Song of Triumph," "The Song of the Three
Kings," "Odysseus," "Arminius" are best known. His concerto for violin
is also played in all parts of the world, but his opera of "Hermione"
made but a moderate success at Berlin in 1872. Riemann considers his
greatest works for mixed chorus to be "Odysseus," "Armin