1921
The Immigration Act limits entry into the USA • US, c France, Japan and Britain sign Pacific Treaty • The League c of Nations settles a dispute between Poland and Germany • Rebellion in Ireland ends with a treaty dividing the country: 26 southern counties become Irish Free State with dominion status; six northern counties remain part of the UK • Greece declares war on Turkey • Germany suffers a financial crisis as the Mark falls in value • Film: The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino • Pablo Picasso (Sp) paints two versions of Three Musicians • Surrealist Max Ernst (Ger) paints The Elephant Celebes • D. H. Lawrence (Eng): Women in Love
1922
Egypt wins independence from British rule • Irish Free State proclaimed; Northern Ireland votes against inclusion • Fascist chief Benito Mussolini takes over Italian government • Independence leader Mohandas Gandhi is imprisoned by British authorities in India • Greece defeated in war with Turkey • Joseph Stalin becomes Secretary General of the Communist Party in Russia • Pharoah Tutankhamun’s tomb discovered at Luxor, Egypt • Pope Benedict XV dies; succeeded by Pius XI • Canadians Frederick Banting and Charles Best develop insulin treatment for diabetes • The British Broadcasting Company Ltd is established • James Joyce (Ire): Ulysses • T. S. Eliot (US/Eng): poem The Waste Land
1923
US President Warren G. Harding dies; is succeeded c by Vice-President Calvin Coolidge (Rep) as 30th President • c Russia becomes the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics • ii Gustav Stresemann becomes Chancellor of Germany • Nazi t leader Adolf Hitler fails in an attempted coup d’etat in Munich; c in prison he begins Mein Kampf (My Struggle) • Independent Transjordan (later Jordan) is proclaimed • Miguel Primo de Rivera becomes dictator in Spain • George II of Greece is deposed • Mustafa Kemal Ataturk becomes president of the new Turkish Republic • In Japan, around 140,000 people die in Kanto earthquake • Theo van Doesburg (Neth) paints Composition XXI
1924
Britain’s first Labour government, under J. Ramsey Macdonald, lasts only nine months; following an election victory, the Conservatives under Stanley Baldwin take over • The Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) in China admits Communists • Giacomo Matteotti, socialist opponent of Benito Mussolini, is murdered • Albania becomes a republic • The USA bans Japanese immigrants • First Winter Olympics (in Chamonix, France) • English Physicist Arthur Eddington interprets Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity in The Mathematical Theory of Relativity • E. M. Forster (Eng): A Passage to India • A. A. Milne (Eng) introduces Winnie-the-Pooh in When We were Very Young
1925
President Sun Yat-sen of China dies • Paul von Hinden-burg becomes German President on the death of Friedrich Ebert • The Locarno Treaties provide a system of guarantees for European frontiers • French occupation troops evacuate the Rhineland; British occupation troops leave Koln • The League of Nations settles a dispute between Greece and Bulgaria • Arabs revolt against the French in Syria; Damascus is bombarded • Reza Khan Pahlevi seizes Persian throne • Film: Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush • Paul Klee (Switz) paints Fish Magic • Jacob Epstein (US/UK) sculpts Rima for W. H. Hudson memorial • F. Scott Fitzgerald (US): The Great Gatsby • Franz Kafka (Czech): The Trial

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. Chaplin became a worldwide icon through his screen persona "the Tramp" and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.
1921
Darius Milhaud combines Brazilian rhythms and
polytonality in his vibrant piano suite Saudades do Brasil. The work has been inspired by the country ( where he served as French attache for wartime propaganda, 1917-18. Milhaud also creates an orchestral version of the suite.
Darius Milhaud - Saudades do Brasil
Pianist: Antonio Barbosa
00:01 Movement I - Sorocaba
01:32 Movement II - Botafogo
03:21 Movement III - Leme
05:30 Movement IV - Copacabana
07:53 Movement V - Ipanema
09:33 Movement VI - Gavea
10:56 Movement VII - Corcovado
12:55 Movement VIII - Tijuca
14:59 Movement IX - Sumare
16:36 Movement X - Paineras
17:46 Movement XI - Laranjeiras
19:01 Movement XII - Paysandu
Arnold Schoenberg works on his Serenade (Op. 24, begun the previous year) the fourth movement of which contains his first serial 12-note music. He tells his pupil, Josef Rufer, 'I have made a discovery which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next 100 years’.
Arnold Schoenberg - Serenade
per baritono e 7 strumenti , testo di Francesco Petrarca Sonetto 217, op.24 - John Carol Case, baritono - Melos Ensemble of London diretto da Bruno Maderna
I. Marsch
II. Menuett
III. Variationen
IV. Sonett
V. Tanzszene
VI. Lied (ohne worte)
VII. Finale
10 June
Sergey Koussevitzsky conducts the first performance of Igor Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments, in London. Dedicated to the memory of Debussy, the piece leaves the critic Ernest Newman unimpressed: 'I had no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this.’
STRAVINSKY - Symphonies of Wind Instruments
Portland Youth Philharmonic #HearPYP
David Hattner, Musical Director
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland Oregon, 2013
11 June
Arthur Honegger's incidental music to Rene Morax’s drama Le roi David (King David) is first heard in Mezieres, Switzerland. The success of the production launches Honegger's international career. A concert version, for enlarged forces, is completed the following year.
Arthur Honegger - Le Roi David
Codarts (Rotterdam conservatory) ensemble and choir
Conductor: Wiecher Mandemaker
Narrator: David Visser
Soloists: Elise van Es, Brigitte van Hagen, Marjolein Kolkert, Tessa Maalcke, Karolina Janu, Johanna Kruse, Sara Leemans, Victorina Eeckeloo, Adrian Fernandes, Leon van Liere.
27 September
Composer Engelbert Humperdinck dies in Xeustrelitz, aged 67.

In the US Edgard Varese co-founds the International Composers’ Guild to promote progressive contemporary music. This year sees the completion of his orchestral piece Ameriques (Americas).
Edgard Varèse - Amériques
Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris
Ensemble intercontemporain
Matthias Pintscher, direction
2 May
Il piccolo Marat is a dramma lirico or opera in three acts by the Italian composer Pietro Mascagni from a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano.
Pietro Mascagni - IL PICCOLO MARAT
Presidente del Comitato: Nicola Rossi Lemeni, Mariella: Virginia Zeani,
Il piccolo Marat: Umberto Borso,
La mamma: Clara Betner
Il soldato: Rinaldo Rola,
Il carpentiere: Afro Poli,
La tigre: Mario Frosini,
La spia: Renato Spagli,
Il ladro: Augusto Frati
Il capitano dei Marats: Ernesto Vezzosi,
Il portatore di ordini: Cesare Masini Sperti
Orchestra e coro del Teatro La Gran Guardia di Livorno, 1961 - Direttore Oliviero de Fabritiis
21 October
English composer Malcolm Arnold is born in Northampton.
23 November
Leos Janacek’s opera Kat’a Kabanova opens in Brno. The music has been inspired by Janacek's muse, the (married) 25-year-old Kamila Stosslova. His love for her is unrequited.
Leoš Janáček - Katia Kabanova
Glyndebourne, 1988
Conductor: Sir Andrew Davis
Director: Nikolaus Lehnhoff
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Designer: Tobias Hoheisel
Nancy Gustafson (Katya), Felicity Palmer (Kabanicha), Barry McCauley (Boris).
16 December
Camille Saint-Saens dies in Algiers, aged 86. His body is transported to Paris for a state funeral at La Madeleine.

17 May
In Franee for the summer, Sergei Prokofiev conducts the premiere of his Diaghilev-commissioned ballet Chout (also known as The Tale of the Buffoon), in Paris.
Sergei Prokofiev - Chout, Op 21
Symphony Orchestra - Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, 1985
16 December
Sergei Prokofiev, back in the US, premieres his resourceful Third Piano Concerto, in Chicago.
Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No. 3
Cleveland Orchestra - Conductor: George Szell
Soloist: Gary Graffman - 1966
4 June
Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women) is an opera in one act by Paul Hindemith, written in 1919 on a German libretto by Oskar Kokoschka which he based on his play of 1907. The opera was the first in a triptych of expressionist one-act operas, the others being Das Nusch-Nuschi, and Sancta Susanna. They were the first operas written by Hindemith. The first two were premiered together in Stuttgart on 4 June 1921.
Paul Hindemith - Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen
RIAS-Kammerchor diretto da Uwe Gronostay -- Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin diretta da Gerd Albrecht -
L'Uomo: Franz Grundheber, baritono
La Donna: Gabriele Schnaut, soprano
1° Guerriero: Wilfried Gahmlich, tenore
2° Guerriero: Victor von Halem, basso
3° Guerriero: Bengt-Ola Magnusson, tenore
1a Ragazza: Lucy Peacock, soprano
2a Ragazza: Gabriele Schrekenbach, contralto
3a Ragazza: Beatrice Haldas, soprano
appendix
Murderer, the Hope of Women is a short Expressionist play written by the painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). It focuses more on the actions and appearances of its characters than on their dialogue. Its performance was received with much criticism, as it was a break from classical drama and part of the modernist avant-garde movement in German culture.
Kokoschka’s Murder Hope of Women: Film production, directed and co-edited, in collaboration with Academy of Applied Arts, Vienna. Presented at Kokoschka Center, Pöchlarn, Austria, 28 April 2016
23 December
Die Bajadere is an operetta in 3 acts composed by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman. The libretto was written by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grünwald. The work premiered in Vienna at the Carltheater on 23 December 1921.