n 6/8 time, runs in dotted
quarters and eighths.

Another very famous piece, which comes in this volume, is, "Like a
Blossoming Lilac My Love Is Fair," here written in the fearfully
uninviting key of D-sharp minor. It is poetic and lyric in the
extreme, and a more charming selection can not be found.

The next song is "The Old Love," on a poem by Candidus. This is a
moderate movement:

"The dusky swallow flieth toward her northern home,
The songsters build and flutter beneath the leafy dome;
The morn is warm and cloudy, the sky bedimmed with rains,
My heart awakes from slumber to old forgotten pains."

Then comes "To a Nightingale," and, last of all, "In Summer Fields."

In closing this somewhat extended discussion of the works of Brahms the
writer desires to emphasize the importance of this music and its
inherent beauty. In consequence of the entire absence of show passages
in the Brahms works, and his uniform adherence to lofty and poetic
ideals, together with his fondness for deep and somewhat mystical and
meditative effects, his nature has been misunderstood by the greater
part of the musical world. It has been charged against him that his
music is purely mechanical in its construction, and that he took
delight in putting together forbidding and repelling figures without
regard for the convenience of players or the pleasure of the hearers.
The tone of the previous discussion is perhaps sufficiently clear to
define the position of the present writer in regard to this notion.
Nevertheless, it is perhaps well to say something a little more
definite, and this I will do presently.

It is to be observed, further, that the Brahms symphonies have at
length made their way, and are heard now with pleasure in all parts of
the world where enlightened audiences listen to orchestral music. Even
the Fourth, which in some respects is less attractive at first sight
than the others, awakened very great popular applause when it was last
played by the Chicago Orchestra, and the Second Symphony is universally
recognized throughout the world as a very beautiful masterpiece.
However, Brahms has written about 100 songs which have more or less
entered into the current of concert appearance, and there are not two
opinions concerning their general melodiousness, rare musical quality,
and exquisitely poetical effect. But they require beautiful and true
voices, finished art of the singer, and, from the accompanist, a real