This is at odds with the 'rigorously autonomous' approach to Brahms's works for which Floros would have Hanslick remembered. Moreover, it is entirely out of step with his description of the critic as one who 'simply ignores the considerable share of the poetic and autobiographic in the work of this great composer'. (p. 202) One could make the case that Floros's hermeneutic approach to Brahms's music seems all the more striking and original when set against the background of Hanslick's alleged formalism. A number of technical musical details have been lost in translation. Throughout the book, odd nomenclature is used for time signatures: 'twofourths' time rather than , for instance. 19 More seriously, pieces such as Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major are labelled as being in B Major (a mistranslation from B-Dur, here at page 25). Apart from such musical details, the book would have profited from one further round of proofreading. The range of topics covered in this book is rich and impressive, spanning from biographical insights to formal observations, to explorations of the poetic in Brahms's music, and issues of reception. Newcomers to Brahms studies will find much of great interest in this volume, which is to be further valued for the abundance of illustrative material it contains. Those intimately familiar with Brahms's compositions will find the discussion of the music to be basic and cursory. And Brahms scholars, finally, will likely find some of the claims to originality to be out of touch with developments in the field in recent decades. Despite its many merits, this book betrays an identity crisis both in terms of the audience for whom it is intended, and the aims it sets out to achieve.