So Bach's works were once spoken of, so Beethoven's in their day. So, it may almost be said, must be criticised all musical creative achievement that adequately expresses an original individuality. The composer of genius has to go through a long apprenticeship before he acquires a language of his own really capable of conveying his thoughts to the world. By the time he is master of it, he has, by the nature of things, placed himself outside the immediate comprehension of all but a few specially qualified listeners, and must be willing to wait for his reward until some of those to whom he speaks have had time to follow him a certain distance along his appointed path, and opportunity to become familiarized with his manner of utterance. Brahms was content to wait, and he waited almost with equanimity of spirit, never losing faith in the future, though he had something more pronounced to encounter than indifference. Hirsch, of the _Wiener Zeitung_, wrote apropos of the sextet: 'We are always seized with a kind of oppression when the new John in the wilderness, Herr Johannes Brahms, announces himself. This prophet, proclaimed by Robert Schumann in his darkening hours, who, for the rest, has his energetic admirers in Vienna--we mention this in our position, from pure love of truth--makes us quite disconsolate with his impalpable, dizzy tone-vexations that have neither body nor soul and can only be products of the most desperate effort. Such manifest, glaring, artificiality is quite peculiar to this gentleman. How many drops of perspiration may adhere to these note-heads?' On the 25th of this same month of February, the earlier B flat Sextet, by this time almost popular in more than one Continental city, and long known in New York through Mason's concerts, was performed for the first time in England at the Monday Popular Concerts, St. James's Hall, London, by Joachim, Louis Ries, Henry Blagrove, Zerbini, Paque, and Piatti. The director, S. Arthur Chappell, printed a notice in the programme-books to the effect that he introduced the work by Joachim's desire. It made no impression, and the composer was not again heard at the Popular Concerts for five years. If the recognition of Brahms' exact claims as a composer, even by his Austrian public, long remained dubious, his qualities as a pianist seldom failed to evoke unmistakable signs of their warm approval. With the arrival of March he prevailed upon himself this year to announce concerts in Vienna, Graz, Klagenfurth, and Pesth, and the success of his performances was unequivocal, in spite of the approach of spring and the unusual warmth of the season.