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Focuses on musical poetry related to trash art. Emphasis on poetry 'The Stuffed Owl,' edited by D.B. Wyndham; Expression of painful sentiments in poetry; Efforts taken by composers in writing trash music; Connection of trashiness in music with symphonies of art music; Opinion of the author on their, substantial vehicles for singers; Emphasis on merit of a composer that is often shown by the extent to which he is able to control his own conventions, as opposed to the way he is controlled by them; Report on Cesar Franck, a composer; Importance of the works of Franck; Focus on the music literature of Western Civilization.

Presents letters to the editor referencing article and topics published in previous issues. Wastage of energy during conversion of energy; Controversy regarding Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini's compositions; Financial support provided by New Haven, Connecticut-based Yale University to its students; Information regarding the use of the drug chloromycetin.

Presents information on the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., which opened September 8, 1971. Information on the world premiers presented by the center during the opening week; Disadvantages overlooked by the founding fathers of the Kennedy Center; Release of the schedule for the first three months.

Discusses appreciation of classical music in the United States since the death of Bela Bartok in September 1945. Type of revolutionary composer indifferent to pressure to conform and alienated from bourgeois listeners; League of Composers sponsored a concert in his memory in New York; First String Quartet played by the Budapest Quarter; Best-educated American musicians were not familiar with the repertory or idiomatic characteristics of Bartok's music.

Focuses on concerts to be initiated by the National Gallery of Art to be held at the East Garden Court of the gallery in Washington, D.C. Existence of musical life in the city; Role of Richard Bales as director of the concert; Training of Bales as a composer; View that the East Garden Court is not designed and suitable for concerts; Role of the gallery in opening the scene of an annual festival in the American music; Nationwide broadcasting of the concerts.

Discusses the life and work of composer Paul Hindemith. Reaction to a remark in the previous issue of the periodical, in which John H. Baron refers to the composer as the fast fading Hindemith; Career highlights; Musical instruments used by Hindemith in his compositions; Reason for the rejection of Hindemith's opera, "Mathis de Maler," by national socialists; Recent recording of all seven of those concertos for various instruments that Hindemith called "Kemmermusiken".

Comments on the emerging trend in electronic music in the U.S. as of April 1967. Concept of atonality; Criticisms against the technique used for producing electronic music; Characteristics of electronic music.

Discusses the career of composer Alberto Ginastera of Argentina. Leading composer of Latin America; Observation that he has led a whole continent of composers away from the nationalistic style represented by the late Heitor Villa-Lobos and into the kinds of post-Schoenbergian writing so common now in North America and Europe; Idiosyncrasies in his orchestration; Tendency to ignore the ordinary limitations of the symphony orchestra and to ask for whatever he pleases; Ginastera's "Sinfonia de Don Rodrigo," which was drawn from the opera.

Focuses on the music compositions of American composer, Paul Hindemith. Performance of the ballet, "The Demon"; Artistic content of the opera, "The Long Christmas Dinner"; Description of the brilliant choreography for the ballet "Herodiade"; Reason for Hindemith's neglect by operatic theaters is explained by his position in the modernist movement; Information on his career as a composer.

Focuses on the works of composer Olivier Messiaen. Characteristics of the music of Messiaen; Avoidance of Messiaen to liturgical texts; Use of thematic material.

Presents an article on pretentiousness in art. Insight for what goes into the teaching of the arts; Misfortunes of the modern dance movement; Assessment on the creative arts and the mixed media.

Focuses on music critics and the need for taking into consideration every aspect of a music show while writing newspaper reviews. Details of the newspaper 'Herald-Traveler' and its music critic George Gelles; Differences in the job of a critic writing for an academic journal and a metropolitan daily; Importance of criticism for the performance of musicians.

Comments on harpsichord music. Comparison of composition played via harpsichord with other musical instruments; Views on the Great Harpsichord Revival of the twentieth century; Opinion on the importance of the harpsichord in baroque music; Cost of harpsichords, as of 1970 and information on the harpsichord building industry.

Deals with issues related to the music recording industry and music performances in the U.S. as of 1970. Information on the audience for the standard repertory; Effect of the economic situation in the country on music performances; Discussion on the standards of excellence in music performance.

Reviews three music recordings. 'Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship,' by Robert Craft; 'And Music at the Close,' by Lillian Libman; 'Encounters With Stravinsky,' by Paul Horgan.

The article focuses on the book "The Meddlesome Friar and the Wayward Pope," by Michael de la Bedoyere. Few victims of medieval and renaissance ecclesiastical courts have been posthumously rehabilitated. Joan of Arc is one of those who come to mind. There is, however, considerable activity in the Roman communion to procure this same honor for Fra Girolamo Savonarola, and it is evidently towards this end that De Ia Bedoyere has written his book. Savonarola was the deadly enemy of all forms of worldly pleasure. By the eloquence of his preaching, he contrived to get hold of the political power in Florence in Italy. Since his death, many people have continued to regard Savonarola as a saint. That he is being championed for rehabilitation at this time is an indication of the prevailing moral tenor of the Roman church.

The article presents information about the book "Music in American Life," by Jacques Barzun. Barzun affirms all this and much more. Barzun is an acute social historian and his case would not be complete if he suppressed the other picture, the picture of a country so surfeited with sound that at times it seems to be one great captive audience, a country in which the listener is often so overwhelmed by a proliferation of styles that he is unsure of his own taste in which critical standards are subject to change.

Comments on the lack of aid provided by the U.S. federal government to the arts. Agreement to the contention of impresario Sol Hurok that foundation money is, indirectly, taxpayers' money; Problems common to all artists in supplying aid to the arts via philanthropy; Hierarchy of preferment for artists in the middle of their careers.

Reviews the music recording "The Inspector General," by Werner Egk.

The article presents information on books written about composer Domenico Scarlatti. For twelve years, Ralph Kirkpatrick has been working on Scarlatti with a view to presenting him not in his familiar guise as an elegant, rather frivolous stylist, but as a formidable, almost revolutionary artist. Kirkpatrick has produced, almost simultaneously, an anthology of sixty Sonatas and a book "Domenico Scarlatti." He has recorded the sixty Sonatas for Columbia, and the records will be issued in the spring.

Reviews several music recordings. "The Marriage of Figaro," by Bruno Walter; "Pines," by Ottorino Respighi; "Fantasia," by Vaughan Williams.

The article focuses on the work of various music composers like Wystan Hugh Auden. Eclectic composers, like Paul Hindemith and Béla Bartok, may be considered progressive in that they have adopted the techniques of the past but developed personal styles from those techniques. During the past thirty years, Igor Stravinsky has worked in several distinct styles, most of them dearly appropriated from the eighteenth century. But Stravinsky never sounds like an eighteenth century composer. Yet the dryness of the scoring, the slight alterations of harmonic and rhythmic usages produce a sound which is peculiarly, recognizably Stravinskian and of the present century.

The article discusses the book "Life and Music of Bela Bartok," by Halsey Stevens. It reports that the book has wisely dealt with the life and the work of Bela Bartok, a musician, separately. Except for a few early pieces, the body of Bartok's work is ava

The article focuses on the history of American music. For some twenty-five years, it has been intimately connected with that of Yaddo, an institution at Saratoga Springs, New York which acts as an impersonal and generous patron to the several arts. At the festival Ben Weber's "Two Pieces for String Orchestra," show his own special approach to techniques and traditions of Viennese moderns. Only a few new works were introduced at the festival. Some, such as Howard Boatwright's orchestral "Variations," show that an overdose of the modern academy can hamper what may well be a considerable talent.

The article presents information about the musician Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg was always proud of his intimate collaboration with the Almighty, who, it seems, provided him with inspiration, stayed his hand when he had "taken the red pencil of the censor," ordered him on the hard but royal path, from time to time presented him with gifts "subconsciously received" and finally landed him in space where, "as in Swedenborg's heaven . . . there is no absolute down, no right or left, forward or backward." Schoenberg's beatific vision has come to be known as atonality.

The article presents information on Baroque music and its influence on performers and audiences. The performers and audiences in the Twentieth Century have found an increasing satisfaction in Baroque music and have demanded it in purer forms. The composers, too, have been influenced by the styles and attitudes of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries. The formal methods of the Baroque have become part of the equipment of those composers who desire more freedom and at the same time more precision than Classicism admits.

This article focuses on the chamber music in the United States. In the U.S. chamber music has had the useless and rather unflattering reputation of being esoteric until recent years. A composer can profit from such a reputation, because originality and incomprehensibility seem to be hopelessly confused in the public mind; a performing medium, especially when it offers very little novelty, is described as inaccessible only when it seems dull. One exceptional group, the Paganini Quartet, introduced such vitality into its playing that it constituted a real threat to the stuffy standard during the middle forties. The high standard of the Paganini Quartet has been met and sometimes surpassed by several recently organized American quartets. The Juilliard Quartet has been the most successful of the new groups, and its success is largely deserved, as the quartet sounds very good.

The article focuses on academic festivals that are being organized by schools and colleges. Schools and colleges, which have been so notorious in the past for their stultifying effect on the arts, have shown an increasingly far-sighted attitude toward new work during the past few years. Their annual festivals frequently introduce music of the greatest importance which is not to be heard anywhere else, least of all in the metropolitan centers. Too often, these festivals have only a local or regional significance, because their scope or their publicity is not sufficient to attract general attention.

The article discusses the meaning of music in the light of the book "The Meaning of Music," by Paul Hindemith. This subject has been relatively taboo for a long time. The notion that music could represent physical objects and literary or historical events had a great vogue during the Romantic era. Most modern composers are still embarrassed by the more grandiose aspects of romanticism. They like to talk about technique and style--aspects of music that are subject to more or less objective evaluation, but they avoid discussion of musical content. Music is not compounded of symbols which have a semantic meaning, it is hard to determine the causes of the sensual, emotional and moral aspects of the music. Memory patterns provide the basis for musical understanding.