a peculiar beauty which quite escapes analysis. As we come to the more mature work we find the mere animal spirits less frequently in the foreground. We feel more and more the qualities of control and dominant intellectuality. Not that these songs are better than their predecessors, for some of the earliest ones are finished masterpieces which could hardly be improved. Nor (let it be repeated) does Brahms’ fund of musical ideas become less fresh or less charming. But the composer had begun to show at their best the qualities which have chiefly given him a place in modern music. The second song of opus 32 is a triumphant justification of this mature Brahms. The song is entitled only with a number, but it can be known by its first line, _Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen!_ Here is intellectuality in song writing at its best. Brahms never wrote a finer song; few composers, if any, have done so. Its popularity may always be limited, but it is surely one of the great songs of musical literature. Here, as nowhere else, Brahms has observed the rhythmic and quantitative values of his text to the last letter. The words, which are in a moody, reflective vein, are treated almost in declamatory fashion. Every rise or fall of the voice finds its expression in the melodic line of the voice part. The tempo is a slow 3/2, and through this winds the melody, now breaking off suddenly, as though gasping for breath, now rising sharply, as though choked with pain. If it were pure declamation, it could not be more faithful to the words; if it were pure melody, it could not be more faithful to the spirit. The accompaniment, answering the voice part simply but intensely, and providing a noble bass for the musical texture to be woven upon, shows Brahms’ finest qualities of restraint and perfect fitness. Here is a song which is never exhausted. Let the student play and sing it every day, it will still have something to teach him. Hardly less noble is another song in the same group, _So steh’n wir, ich und meine Weide_. Its theme has all the dignity of a great andante fugue subject by Bach. The treatment of the piano part, with its definite melody in the bass forming an answer and a sort of canon with the voice, is superb. We may also mention in this opus number the much overrated song, _Wie bist du meine Königin_, a piece which has doubtless gained its popularity by its passionate fervor, but which in musical beauty and artistic fitness is far inferior to Brahms’ best work. [Illustration: Famous Modern Singers. Top: Nellie Melba and Marcella Sembrich Bottom: Lilli Lehmann and Ernestine Schumann-Heink]