difficult to believe that Brahms' would not have persevered and conquered--conquered in the sense of producing something appropriate to his time--in the one case as in the other if he had felt a real impulse to do so, and it may possibly be true that his genius was better suited for the forms in which he worked than for those which he avoided. The two books of Pianoforte Pieces, which, with the two Motets, Op. 74, dedicated to Philipp Spitta, the Violin Concerto, and the three Pianoforte Studies after Bach without opus number, formed the publications of the year 1879, contain, in all, eight numbers. Some of them, written with simplicity of style and pervaded by a spirit of dreamy content or graceful happiness, have become familiar to music-lovers; others present difficulties both to listener and performer which have hindered their popularity. Several contain interesting examples of the composer's facility in the art of rhythmic and contrapuntal device. The Sonata for pianoforte and violin in G major, performed from the manuscript by Brahms and Hellmesberger at the Quartet concert of November 20, is a pearl of pure and delicate imagination. The vivacity of the first movement is painted in pale moonbeam tints, and must, as one fancies, vanish before the first warm ray of sunshine. There is more substantiality about the gentle melancholy of the adagio, though this movement, again, is haunted by a strain of mystery. The last movement, written in rondo form, has for its first subject that of the beautiful 'Rain-Song' already alluded to, and is a very dream of wistful charm. Brahms' very original treatment of the pianoforte arpeggio, which is one of the distinctive features of his style of writing for the instrument, is well illustrated in the first movement of this work, in which the arpeggio is raised from the mere position of a brilliant passage to that of an essential part of the entire conception. A particularly clear light is thrown also upon the composer's relation to Bach by the study of the sonata, the methods of which are inherited from those of the early giant-musician, as exemplified in his sonatas for clavier and violin; and whilst Bach's methods flow as easily within the forms of the Austrian masters as though they had always been an inseparable part of them, the association is animated by the distinctive individuality of our Brahms. Not, however, as it impressed itself upon us in his first great series of works for pianoforte and strings. The spirit of the Sonata in G is essentially that of the master's later period of maturity. In it we feel that he has not only his powers, but his emotions, well in hand, and has reached a period of life when he can afford to look back calmly to the conflicts of the past. This no mere fancy; we find as we proceed in the study of Brahms' art, not that the nature of the man changed as he grew older, but that, whilst the sunshine of complete recognition which brightened his later path through