Brahms' leisure was considerably curtailed this summer. Of the numerous engagements fulfilled by him after the close of the Vienna concert-season three may be particularly mentioned. He conducted the Triumphlied at the first concert of the Rhine Festival (Cologne, May 24-27), at the Jubilee anniversary concert of the Basle Choral Society, and at a concert of the Zürich Music Festival (July), and on each occasion the great song was received with acclamation. With this work we may, perhaps, especially associate the honour of the Prussian Ordre pour le Mérite which was conferred later on the composer by the Emperor William I. He was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Arts, Berlin, in the course of the summer. 'Brahms is becoming so popular,' writes Billroth on June 2, 'and is everywhere made so much of, that he could easily become a rich man with his composition if he could take it lightly. Fortunately this is not the case.' The Triumphlied was performed in the German imperial capital on December 17, 1874, under Stockhausen. It was given under Levi at the great Bismarck Festival in Munich, and was heard in London at a concert given in St. James's Hall by George Henschel, December 2, 1880, for the benefit of the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea. The magnificent work is now but seldom performed: partly, no doubt, because it was composed to celebrate a particular series of events in history, partly because of the difficulty of securing the large chorus necessary for its due effect, partly, perhaps, on account of the demands it makes on the attention of the listener. Whatever be the cause, the fact itself is to be deeply regretted. The work has sometimes been criticised as wanting in contrast of mood. Undoubtedly it is, from beginning to end, a song of passionate exultation which scarcely makes pause from the first note to the last, and the listener requires time and repeated hearings to become familiarized with its brilliancy before he can follow it with pleasure; but it is full of varied features of interest to lay hearers, and especially to those who will devote a little time to its study before listening to its performance. To the musician it appeals as a marvel of polyphonic art, though it contains no elaborated features of harmonic or contrapuntal learning that might have been prejudicial to its character as a national strain. It is literally 'a sound of many voices saying Alleluia.'