Detailed discussion of these works is superfluous; two of them, at all events, are amongst the best known of Brahms' compositions. The Sonata for pianoforte and violoncello in F is the least familiar of the group, but assuredly not because it is inferior to its companions. It is, indeed, one of the masterpieces of Brahms' later concise style. Each movement has a remarkable individuality of its own, whilst all are unmistakably characteristic of the composer. The first is broad and energetic, the second profoundly touching, the third vehemently passionate--in the Brahms' signification of the word, be it noted, which means that the emotions are reached through the intellectual imagination--the fourth written from beginning to end in a spirit of vivacity and fun. The work was tried in the first instance at Frau Fellinger's house. 'Are you expecting Hausmann?' Brahms inquired carelessly of this lady soon after his return in the autumn. Frau Fellinger, suspecting that something lay behind the question, telegraphed to the great violoncellist, who usually stayed at her house when in Vienna, to come as soon as possible, if only for a day. He duly appeared, and the new sonata was played by Brahms and himself on the evening of his arrival. They performed it again the day before the concert above recorded, at a large party at Billroth's. The last movement of the beautiful Sonata in A for pianoforte and violin is sometimes criticised as being almost too concise. The present writer confesses that she always feels it to be so, and one day confided this sentiment to Joachim, who did not agree with her, but said that the coda was originally considerably longer. 'Brahms told me he had cut a good deal away; he aimed always at condensation.' Dr. Widmann allows us to publish an English version of a poem written by him on this work, the original of which is published in the appendix to his 'Brahms Recollections.' We have desired to place it before our English-speaking readers, not only because it coincides remarkably with what we related in our early chapters of the delicate, fanciful tastes of the youthful Hannes, but because it gave pleasure to the Brahms of fifty-three, and even of sixty-three, and thus seems to illustrate the fact on which we have insisted, that if in any case then in our master's, the child was father to the man. Only a year before his death the great composer wrote to Widmann to beg for one or two more copies of the poem, which had been printed for private circulation. THE THUN SONATA. POEM ON THE SONATA IN A FOR PIANOFORTE AND VIOLIN, OP. 100, BY JOHANNES BRAHMS, WRITTEN BY J. V. WIDMANN.