1916
World War I continues: the Battle of Verdun rages for ten months; Romania enters the war against the Germans, who take Bucharest; British and German fleets fight indecisive Battle of Jutland • Britain’s war minister Lord Kitchener is drowned when the Hampshire is sunk • Battle of the Somme: British tanks used for first time; over one million British, French and German soldiers killed or wounded • Sinn Fein’s ‘Easter Rising’ in Dublin is suppressed by British troops • US troops quell disorders in the Dominican Republic • Gustav Klimt (Aus) paints Friederike Maria Beer • The Disquieting Muses is a painting by the Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico • James Joyce (Ire): Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
1917
USA declares war on Germany; US troops arrive in Europe • Revolution in Russia; Nicholas II abdicates; Allies Eastern Front collapses and German-Russian armistice is signed • German submarine warfare intensifies • In the Middle East, the Allies win the Battle of Gaza and capture Jerusalem from the Turks • Britain’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour announces that the British favour a national home for Jews in Palestine • Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrows Provisional Russian Government and seizes power • Finland declares its independence from Russia • Marcel Duchamp (Fr/Amer) anticipates conceptual art with Fountain (a urinal) • Paul Valery (Fr): poem La Jeune Parque
1918
World War I ends after Allied victories; Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates and a so-called ‘Popular’ government assumes power • The Austrian emperor Karl abdicates; Austria becomes a republic • Lithuania and Latvia proclaim their independence from Russia • Poland is declared a republic • Turkey and Austria-Hungary surrender • Yugoslavia andCzechoslovakia become independent • Iceland becomes a sovereign state • Tsar Nicholas II and his family are executed in Russia • Women over 30 get the vote in Britain • Artist Paul Nash (Eng) brings back his paintings of the Western Front • First Tarzan film: Tarzan of the Apes (US) • Egon Schiele (Austria) paints Portrait of Albert Paris von Gutersloh
1919
The Treaty of Versailles imposes reparations and demilitarisation on Germany • The USA begins period of isolationism • The National Socialist (Nazi) Party is formed in Germany • Start of Irish war of Independence (until 1921) • Anti-British demonstrations occur in India: at Amritsar, troops fire on a mob, killing 379 people • Amendment 18 to the USconstitution is ratified; it prohibits the manufacture or sale of alcoholic liquor • Theo van Doesburg (Neth) paints Composition in gray (Rag-time) • Walter Gropius (Ger) founds the Bauhaus design school in Weimar • Vicente Ibanez (Sp): The Four Fiorsemen of the Apocalypse • Felix the Cat becomes the first popular cartoon film star
1920
The League of Nations, brainchild of Woodrow Wilson, comes into being, but the US Senate votes against joining • Estonia becomes independent of Russia • Russia goes to war with Poland • Britain annexes Kenya • The International Court of Justice is established at The Hague, Netherlands • Prohibition (of alcoholic liquor) comes into force in USA •Public radio broadcasting begins in Britain • Film: The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks • Stanisiaw Witkiewicz (Pol) paints Laughing boy • F. Scott Fitzgerald (US): This Side of Paradise • Edith Wharton (US): Age of Innocence • Agatha Christie (Eng) introduces Hercule Poirot in The Mysterious Affair at Styles

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, most famously stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939).
1916
Bela Bartok composes his Piano Suite, Op. 14.
Béla Bartók - Suite Op. 14
Piano: Alvin Devonas
Henry Cowell, aged 19, composes Dynamic Motion for piano, his first important work incorporating tone-clusters.to.
Dynamic Motion - Henry Cowell
Stacey Barelos, piano
In between teaching commitments at St Pauls School for Girls, Gustav Holst completes The Planets.
Gustav Holst - The Planets, Op. 32
0:35 Mars, the Bringer of War
8:13 Venus, the Bringer of Peace
17:57 Mercury, the Winged Messenger
22:33 Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
31:20 Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
41:11 Uranus, the Magician
47:08 Neptune, the Mystic
Maciej TARNOWSKI - conductor
Henryk WOJNAROWSKI - choir director
Orkiestra i Chór Żeński Filharmonii Narodowej
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra & Female Choir, 2015
Hubert Parry composes his choral setting of William Blake’s poem Jerusalem.
Jerusalem - Sir Hubert Parry
Sir Andrew Davis - Royal Choral Society - London Philharmonic Orches
5 March
Eugen d'Albert - Die toten Augen.
Die toten Augen (or The Dead Eyes) is an opera (called a Bühnendichtung or 'stage poem' by the composer) with a prologue and one act by Eugen d'Albert to a libretto in German by Hanns Heinz Ewers and Marc Henry (Achille Georges d'Ailly-Vaucheret) after Henry's own 1897 play Les yeux morts.
Die toten Augen - Eugen d'Albert
Dagmar Schellenberger – Myrtocle
Hartmut Welker – Arcesius
Norbert Orth – Aurelius Galba
Margaret Chalker – Arsinoe
Anne Gjevang – Maria von Magdala
Lothar Odinius – Hirt
Olaf Bär – Schnitter / Die Stimme Jesu
Eberhard Büchner – Ktesiphar
Cornelia Wosnitza – Hirtenknabe / Rebecca / Zweite Stimme aus dem Brunnen
Angela Liebold – Ruth / Eine sieche Frau
Barbara Hoene – Esther / Erste Stimme aus dem Brunnen
Sabine Brohm – Sarah
Gerald Hupach – Ein Jude
John Maxham – Ein anderer Jude
Eberhard Bendel – Ein alter Jude
Philharmonischer Chor Dresden Dresdner Philharmonie,
Ralf Weikert, 1997
24 March
Two months after the premiere of Enrique Granados’s opera Goyescas in New York, the Spanish composer (aged 48) and his wife drown in the English Channel when their homebound ship is torpedoed by a German submarine.

Enrique Granados - Goyescas
Barcelona Symphony Orchestra
García Navarro, director
Ana María González, soprano
Alicia Nafé, mezzo
Manuel Cid, tenor
Pablo Elvira, barítono
Coral Càrmina (dir: Josep Vila)
Palau de la Música. Barcelona, 1992
Karol Szymanowski completes his Third Symphony (The Song of the Night) and his Violin Concerto No. 1.
Karol Szymanowski - Third Symphony "The Song of the Night (Piesn o Nocy)
performed by Antoni Wit and Ryszard Minkiewicz
Karol Szymanowski - Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35
Frank Peter Zimmermann, Wit, Orkiestra Filharmonii Narodowej w Warszawie
9 April
Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Garden of Spain, a symphonic impression for piano and orchestra, is performed for the first time, in Madrid.
Manuel De Falla - Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Alicia de Larrocha, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Sergiu Comissiona
0:00 En el Generalife
10:22 Danza lejana
15:41 En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba
1 February
Carl Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony, The Inextinguishable, is premiered with great successin Copenhagen. Conceived while most of Europe is embroiled in war, the symphony is published with the message: 'Music is life and, like it, inextinguishable. ’
Carl Nielsen - Symphony No. 4 "The Inextinguishable", Op. 29
Conductor: Herbert Blomstedt & San Francisco Symphony
27 April
Ruggero Leoncavallo - Goffredo Mameli.
Operetta Goffredo Mameli – 27 April 1916, Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa.
Ruggero Leoncavallo - MAMELI
Goffredo Mameli: Antonio De Palma,
Carlo Terzaghi: Lorenzo Battagion,
Delia: Natalia Margarit
Cristina Trivulzio: Barbara Vivian, EnricoDandolo/Emilio Dandolo
Primo e Secondo Ufficiale: Luciano Grassi, Luciano Manara
Un sergente austriaco e Terzo Ufficiale: Giampaolo Vessella
Orchestra Filarmonica Nazionale Ucraina di Donetsk
Direttore Silvano Frontalini
Sondalo, Palazzetto Comunale, 2011
1917
Sergei Prokofiev completes his Classical Symphony (1918), First Violin Concerto and the opera The Gambler (1929), based on the novel by Dostoevsky.
Sergei Prokofiev - Violin Concerto No.1 in D major, Op. 19
Hilary Hahn, violin
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Lorin Maazel, conductor
5 May
Claude Debussy performs in public for the last time, introducing his Violin Sonata No. 3 with the violinist Gaston Poulet, in Paris.
Claude Debussy - Violin Sonata
Shlomo Mintz (violin),
Yefim Bronfman (piano) - 1986
Josef Suk completes his autobiographical symphonic poem Zrani (Ripening), inspired by a poem of the same name by Antonin Sova.
"The Ripening""Lebensreife", Symphonic Poem for Large Orchestra, Op. 34 by Josef Suk
I. Erkenntnis (Recognition)
II. Jugend (Youth)
III. Liebe (Love)
IV. Schicksal (Fate)
V. Entschluβ (Resolve)
VI. Selbstbescheidung Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin Kirill Petrenko, conductor
30 January
Alexander von Zemlinsky – Eine florentinische Tragödie.
Eine florentinische Tragödie, Op. 16, is an opera in one act by Alexander von Zemlinsky to a libretto adapted by the composer from a German translation by Max Meyerfeld (de) of Oscar Wilde's unfinished play A Florentine Tragedy.
Alexander Zemlinsky: Eine florentinische Tragödie
op. 16
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France diretta da Armin Jordan
Bianca: Iris Vermillion
Guido: Viktor Lutsiuk
Simone: Albert Dohmen
11 March
Ottorino Respighi, aged 37, has his orchestral Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome) introduced in Rome. His pupil and future wife, Elsa Sangiacomo, records: 'Rather cold reception with some hissing at the end of the work.’ The tone poem triumphs the following year under Toscanini in Milan.
Ottorino Respighi - Fontane di Roma
Boston Symphony Orchestra - Seiji Ozawa
27 March
The neutral ground of Monte Carlo plays host to the premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Rondine (The Swallow). Not among the composer’s masterworks, it manages only modest success.