The writer of these pages was present at a supper-party given in Vienna in January, 1890, after a concert of the Joachim Quartet, at which Brahms with Joachim and his colleagues were the chief guests. 'What shall we have next?' said Joachim to Brahms in the course of supper; 'a quintet; we have one, a very fine one; we will have another.' A second string quintet, with two violas, composed during the summer at Ischl, was the next work produced by Brahms, and was heard for the first time in public from the manuscript in Vienna at the Rosé Quartet concert of November 11 (Rosé, Bachrich, Hummer, Jenek, and Siebert). An anecdote which appears to the author worth preserving, as expressive of Brahms' appreciation of his friend's incomparable playing, may find a place here. At a period when the two men had not met for a couple of years an occasion came when Brahms heard Joachim play. 'Now,' he said afterwards to the lady who related the story to the author, 'now I know what it is that has been wanting in my life during the past two years. I felt something was missing, but could not tell what. It was the sound of Joachim's violin. How he plays!' Brahms' Quintet in G major is, in the opinion of most competent judges, one of the most powerful and fascinating of his works of chamber music for strings. If there is, in one or two of his late compositions for pianoforte and other instruments, something that suggests the feeling that in this domain the elasticity of his imagination was approaching its limits, nothing of the sort can be said of either of the works for strings only, and the Quintet in G is certainly second to none of them in wealth of spontaneous melody, in vigour and variety of inventive power, in all, in short, that is included in the word 'vitality.' To the present writer it appears quite clear and easy to follow, but that there may be two impressions on this point is proved in a remarkable way by two letters written by Billroth, the first to Brahms himself after the work had been performed for the first time from the manuscript at a party at Billroth's house, the second a few months later to Hanslick. In the letter to Brahms, dated November 6, the famous surgeon, writing evidently under the influence of the great artistic excitement of the day, tells the master that he cannot rest without sending him word of his delight. 'Lately I have been silent, for I know not what more to say than, wonderfully fine and now clear to me at first hearing, clear as the blue sky!... Could one compare the various works of Michael Angelo, Raphael, Beethoven, Mozart when they were at the height of their powers? Only in the sense of a limited personal sympathy.... I have often wondered what human happiness is--now I was happy to-day when listening to your music. That is quite clear to me.' The following March, however, Billroth wrote to Hanslick that he found the quintet one of the most difficult of Brahms' works.