f this new personality which had appeared in music.

William Mason, the New York teacher and pianist, was at Weimar at the
time, and when he came back to New York and, with the young Theodore
Thomas, opened the celebrated series of chamber concerts,--modeled, as
the prospectus said, "after those of Mr. Liszt at Weimar,"--the first
program included the Brahms Trio in B-flat. From that time until now,
for nearly forty years, Mr. Thomas has paid his tribute to the genius
of Brahms, introducing the new works as fast as they have appeared, and
repeating the older ones many times.

Johannes Brahms was born at Hamburg, May 7, 1833, the son of a fine
musician who was player upon the double bass in the orchestra there.
The boy was always intended for a musician, and his instruction was
taken in hand with so much success that at the age of fourteen he
played in public pieces by Bach and Beethoven, and a set of original
variations. At the age of twenty he was a master, and it was in this
year that he accompanied Remenyi, made the acquaintance of Joachim and
Liszt, and had a rarely appreciative notice from a master no less than
Robert Schumann himself, who, in his "New Journal of Music," said:

"He has come--a youth at whose cradle graces and heroes kept watch.
Sitting at the piano, he began to unveil wonderful regions. We were
drawn into more and more magical circles by his playing, full of
genius, which made of the piano an orchestra of lamenting and jubilant
voices. There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies; songs whose
poetry might be understood without words; piano pieces both of a
demonaic nature and of the most graceful form; sonatas for piano and
violin; string quartets, each so different from every other that they
seemed to flow from many different springs. Whenever he bends his
magic wand, there, when the powers of the orchestra and chorus lend him
their aid, further glimpses of the magic world will be revealed to us.
May the highest genius strengthen him! Meanwhile the spirit of modesty
dwells within him. His comrades greet him at his first entrance into
the world of art, where wounds may perhaps await him, but bay and
laurel also; we welcome him as a valiant warrior."

The next few years were spent by Brahms in directing orchestra and
chorus at Detmold and elsewhere, and in Switzerland, which always had
great attraction for him. In 1859 he played in Leipsic his first great
pianoforte concerto; most of t