The last number of Tempo appeared in July 1939. By September, when the next issue was due, the war was already in progress and it was decided, in view of the uncertain conditions, to suspend publication. The ensuing twenty-two months have seen many changes in the English musical world, and those connected with it have been compelled radically to alter their plans to meet the new conditions. It is generally agreed that amateur music-making has thrived with renewed zest, while orchestral concerts and what opera there is are much in demand.

The temptation to divide the work of great composers into three periods has assailed many critics, Lenz having done it so plausibly with Beethoven's music. Lenz, of course, should have been a warning rather than a model, and would have been if his mere plausibility had been a little more obvious. As it was, his system commended itself in Beethoven's case because in a rough and ready way it worked well enough; and it has done so in the case of many a later composer, if only because it saved many a later critic a deal of trouble.

For a considerable time before the outbreak of war, Boosey & Hawkes, Ltd., had been in negotiation with Universal Edition of Vienna with the object of acquiring the works of several internationally known composers published by the latter firm. Agreement was eventually reached and under the terms of a contract dated August 17th, 1939, we became the owners of all works by Béla Bartók, Frederick Delius, Zoltán Kodály, Gustav Mahler and Jaromir Weinberger, the copyrights of which had hitherto been held by Universal Edition. The works by Mahler and Weinberger were acquired by us for the entire world, while those of Bartók, Delius and Kodály became our property for the British Empire, the North, Central and Latin Americas, and mandated territories.

It will be recalled that Bartók visited London in 1938 to participate in the performance of his Sonata for two pianos and percussion at the festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music. Since that time he has been extremely active in the fields of composition and folk music research, and has fulfilled many public engagements as pianist and lecturer.

We are glad to announce that our New York branch has entered a fresh field of musical activity—that of the concert agency. The Boosey & Hawkes Artists' Bureau, Inc. has now been in existence for just over a year, and has already achieved results such that there can be no doubt as to its future success and usefulness. Both Boosey and Hawkes—separate firms until their amalgamation in 1930—have had considerable experience in the past of the concert world, and we shall hope to bring to this new department of our business original ideas and a fresh outlook which will prove beneficial to everybody concerned.

Although Benjamin Britten is incontestably the best known English composer of his generation he is young enough for a few lines of biographical introduction to be not yet superfluous. He was born at Lowestoft, November 22nd, 1913. He began composing at an early age, and has rescued some of the material of these youthful efforts in a “Simple Symphony” for strings. While attending Gresham's School at Holt, Norfolk, he had lessons at holiday time from Frank Bridge for composition and Harold Samuel for the piano. From 1930 to 1933 he studied at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers were John Ireland for composition and Arthur Benjamin for the piano. The first of his works to attract general attention were the choral variations, A Boy was Born (1932), and a Phantasy Quartet for oboe and strings which was performed at the Florence (1934) Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music.