1939

1937 1938 << >> 1940 1941

Exhibition: Dali's Dream of Venus, the artist's very own pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in Queens, N.Y., "a populist Surrealist environment complete with racy mermaids cavorting in huge tanks of water".

John Cage composes Imaginary Landscape 1, possibly the first composition to employ record players as instruments. It consisted of a quartet using "a muted piano, a suspended cymbal, and two variable-speed turntables on which single-frequency radio test records were played at various steady speeds and also sliding between speeds in siren-like glissandos.

Béla Bartók composes Divertimento for string orchestra (Sz 113). Bartók wrote his Divertimento during just 15 days in August 1939, when he was guest of the Sachers in Saanen, Switzerland. - "Un esprit joyeux s'y mêle à l'angoisse générale ressentie à la veille de la guerre qui devait éclater deux semaines plus tard".

1937 1938 << >> 1940 1941

---