Otto Klemperer starts a seven-year spell as music director of Cologne opera, and begins to acquire an international reputation

Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle is finally staged in Budapest, nine years after its composition

Composer and pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes prime minister of the newly independent Poland

Edward Elgar completes his last great work, the Cello Concerto in E minor

Music-hall artist Harry Lauder is knighted for his wartime performances entertaining troops at the front

Léonide Massine, Ottorino Respighi and André Derain collaborate on the ballet La Boutique Fantasque

Darius Milhaud provides the score for Jean Cocteau's pantomime ballet Le Boeuf sur le toit

The prime minister of Poland, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, resigns his post so as to concentrate on his concert career

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart work together as Columbia University students, creating the musical Fly With Me

Charles Ives publishes his Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840-60, usually known as the Concord Sonata

A group of composers in Paris - Auric, Durey, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc and Tailleferre - become known as 'les Six'

Gustav Holst's Hymn of Jesus has its premiere in London, conducted by the composer

Taras Bulba, a rhapsody for orchestra by Leos Janacek, is first performed in Brno

Janacek's opera Kátya Kabanová, based on Ostrovsky's play The Storm, has its premiere in Brno

William Walton and Edith Sitwell give a private performance of their entertainment Façade, setting poems by Sitwell

The German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler is appointed to the Berlin Philharmonic, and spends most of the rest of his life with the orchestra

Bessie Smith has a big hit with her first record, Downhearted Blues, selling two million copies within a year

Albert Roussel's opera-ballet Padmâvâti is premiered in Paris

Arnold Schoenberg's Suite for piano is his first piece entirely in the 12-note serial method

Zoltan Kod´ly's work for tenor, chorus and orchestra, Psalmus Hungaricus, has its first performance in Budapest

Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231, inspired by the sounds of a steam train, has its first performance in Paris

Paul Hindemith sets Rainer Maria Rilke's song-cycle Das Marienleben

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue has its first performance, at the Aeolian Hall in New York

Gracie Fields makes her name when she appears in London as Sally Perkins in the musical Mr Tower of London

Le Train Bleu brings together Bronislava Nijinska (choreography), Darius Milhaud (music), and Coco Chanel (costumes)