Of all the composers of recent times, Brahms attracted the largest following of musicians, and with right, for the volume of his worthy creations is larger than that produced by any of his contemporaries. He wrote a vast number of songs, ensemble pieces for a great variety of instrumental combinations, accompanied and unaccompanied piano-forte pieces, and symphonies, overtures, etc., for the grand orchestra. His work is usually characterized by rich harmonies, melodic voice-leading, transparent form, and a varying amount of spontaneity that at times fails to conceal evident effort. This effort makes itself felt in peculiar and even grotesque harmonic successions and rhythms, and it is traceable through all periods of his career. These, which to me are forced methods, are the only features that individualize Brahms' music. He is greatest when self-forgetful, and these unnatural features bespeak self-consciousness. Schumann, who was, as I said in a previous chapter, Brahms' musical god-father, was a genius with a clearly defined individuality, the complete and natural expression of which obliged him to invent means to supplement those that he had inherited from his predecessors. These invented means were peculiar harmonic compounds and erratic accents. Schumann usually employed these devices with grateful results; for he makes us feel that they are essential to the development of full significance in his tonal schemes. Genius has a magical power over resources and modes, often transforming eccentricities into felicitous, expressive means, and endowing that which would be chaotic in other hands with logical import. Brahms seems to have been dazzled by these extreme manifestations of his great prototype's individuality. He not only adopted, but exaggerated these, and made them the distinguishing features of his style. He was a masterly contrapuntist, had a clear sense of form, handled the orchestra well, although he never exhausted its resources, and was always a logical thinker. His skill in the treatment of themes was so astounding that he often imparted significance to trivial motives (_vide_ the "Academic Overture" and his sets of variations), but he was not a great initial inventor (an originator of pregnant themes) nor was he a resourceful colorist. As I said before, Brahms was greatest when self-forgetful, for at such times the artificial element dropped out of his diction and he became a masterful musician, possessed of all the qualities but one that have characterized our priestly line. This missing quality is to my mind the most essential of all,--viz., a natural, distinguishing, and pervading individuality.