CONTEMPORARY biography has its obvious disadvantages, more especially when its subject is still living, and in the possession of fullest vigour of work; but it has its own advantages to compensate for these. That it should take the form of personal reminiscences is greatly to be desired, since the peculiar merit of a contemporary account is more likely to be brought out by this than by any other method. Dr. Deiters has adopted this style in the short account which he prefixes to his critical review of all the works of Brahms, and there is no doubt that when the time comes for writing the composer's life—long may it be before the materials for such a work are completed by the master's death!—his biographer will find one of his most valuable sources of information in the book which is here presented in an English dress. The biographical part of the work is of necessity short, for not one of the giants of music has had so uneventful a career as has fallen to the lot of Brahms, if we except Sebastian Bach, with whom, in this and many other respects, our master may be fitly compared.