380 Thomas Quigley absolute music; the craft of composing, the achievement of musical discipline was paramount for him throughout his musical works. Brahms’s symphonies, for example, clearly stand as examples of absolute music. Their combination of ex-pressive themes and clearly articulated musical structure allows them to achieve a coherence akin to narrative, but without the specific details that lie in a libretto or extra-musical programme. Indeed, it was Brahms's sense of order and structure, that was to influence twentieth century composers like Arnold Schönberg as they took a quest to find a new means of musical organization.4 This writing is also not an attempt to present Brahms and trains in a scholastic, definitive manner. As example, this article does not include an in-depth analysis of individual trips that Brahms took, to ascertain how often Brahms used the train and the purposes of each individual trip. Most of the sources I have consulted are, in my opinion, too general in their nature to be able to attempt such an analysis. My comments are primarily based on a personal review of selected published Brahms correspondence and biographical works on the composer; a selection of titles on Brahms’s circle of friends, nineteenth century social history, the history of train travel and railways; and inquiries to other Brahms scholars and specialists. As a result this article is more anecdotal than analytical in content. While Brahms didn’t allude to trains in his music, other nineteenth century composers certainly did. It’s important to remember the significance of the loco-motive; it was the most developed industrial product of its time, a technological wonder that functioned in a way hardly to be understood by emperors and princes, let alone by ordinary people. It is not surprising, therefore, that the locomotive, with its rhythmical engine driven by steam, should have become a source of inspiration for many compositions, although not all ›railway music‹ is descriptive in character. The inauguration of railways, railway balls and railway banquets called for cheerful music which did not necessarily have to sound like a steam train.5 An interesting example of programmatic train music is Gioachino Rossini’s » Un petit train de plaisir comico-imitatif « in Volume 6 — entitled » Album pour les enfants dégourdis « — of the work » Péchés de vieillesse « (1857—1868). In addition to an extra-musical programme, an autobiographical element also appears, and Rossini supplied short prose comments throughout the work. As Keith Anderson explains, train journeys had not always proved congenial to Rossini, and here in this piece a bell summons the passengers, who climb on board before the train starts its journey. The satanic whistle blows, the brakes are gently applied, and the train 4 See Denis Arnold and Anthony Pople: The Symphony. The Symphony After Beethoven, in: The Ox-ford Companion to Music, in: Oxford Music Online, <www.oxfordmusiconline.com>, 27.6.2011; Ab-solute Music, in: The Columbia Encyclopedia, New York 62008, <http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/absolute_ music.aspx#2>, 27.6.2011; Michael Musgrave: » Section II. Brahms the Composer « [5 chapters], in: Musgrave. A Brahms Reader, New Haven CT and London 2000, p. 59–120. 5 Berth Vestergård: Railway Music, Johannes Olde, transl. [music CD booklet], in: Locomotiv-Musik 1. A Musical Train Ride; Mika Eichenholz, Conductor; Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice; Marco Polo, 1993, <http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=1155>, 27.6.2011.