European Music in the Twentieth Century

First published in 1957, European Music in the Twentieth Century includes chapters by Everett Helm on Bartók, Eric Walter White on Stravinsky, Norman del Mar on Hindemith, and Walter Goehr on Schönberg; followed by various critics on musical development during the twentieth century in Austria, the Scandinavian countries, England, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Russia, France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Greece. The plan has therefore been to take as starting point the four key composers, the pioneers of a revolution―Bartók, Stravinsky, Hindemith and Schönberg―and follow the history of new works and experiments through half a century.

All these chapters have been written for this book, none has appeared before. Nothing of this kind has hitherto been attempted, and the result is an impressive summary of achievement in a period of immense vitality and experiment, which can now be viewed in reasonable perspective.