Erich Korngold, one of Austria's most admired composers, moves to Hollywood

Jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grapelli form the Quintet du Hot Club de France

Sergei Rachmaninov writes the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in his villa beside Lake Lucerne

Swedish tenor Jussi Björling makes his debut in Stockholm, in Puccini's Manon Lescaut

Paul Hindemith's opera Mathis der Maler is banned by the Nazis and is not performed until 1938 in Zurich

The German composer Kurt Weill moves to New York, where he writes Broadway musicals

Arthur Honegger's opera Joan of Arc at the Stake has its premiere in Basel

Alban Berg writes his Violin Concerto, commissioned by Louis Krasner, in memory of Manon Gropius

French cabaret singer Edith Gassion acquires the nickname la môme piaf ('the little sparrow'), and so becomes Edith Piaf

Leningrad's opera and ballet company is renamed the Kirov, in memory of the city's recently assassinated commissar

Italian baritone Tito Gobbi makes his operatic debut in Gubbio in Bellini's La Somnambula

George Gershwin's 'folk opera' Porgy and Bess, based on the novel by DuBose Heyward, opens on Broadway

US jazz pianist William ('count') Basie acquires his own orchestra

Alban Berg's opera Lulu is incomplete when the composer dies

The new sound of jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman's touring band brings him the title 'King of Swing'

US composer Aaron Copland writes El Salón México, using popular Mexican tunes

Paul Robeson sings 'Ol' Man River' in the film of Jerome Kern's Showboat

On Stalin's orders Dmitry Shostakovich is attacked in Pravda for providing 'chaos instead of music'

Carl Orff's cantata Carmina Burana has its premiere in Frankfurt

Rachmaninov completes his Third Symphony, and records it two years later with the Philadelphia Orchestra

US trombonist Glenn Miller forms his first band, the Glenn Miller Orchestra

William Walton writes Crown Imperial for the coronation of George VI

Russian film-maker Sergei Eisenstein directs Alexander Nevsky, with music by Prokofiev

The first of many ballets to Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet score is premiered in Czechoslovakia

Marian Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington effectively launches the US civil rights movement