Exploring Music

Contents: On writing my memoirs -- A puppet play -- A few words about Johann Strauss -- From Johnny to Orest -- Darius Milhaud -- Composing as a calling -- New humanity and old objectivity -- The freedom of the human spirit -- The prolonged funeral banquet -- What should music criticism do? -- Nationality and art -- Karl Kraus and Arnold Schoenberg -- On the status of western music -- Is opera still possible today? -- Alban Berg's Lulu -- Notes on Kafka's collected works -- Basic principles of a new theory of musical aesthetics -- Music for eternity -- The ivory tower -- The composer and the interpreter -- That noise called music -- Why "Pallas Athene weeps" -- The libretto problem -- What electronic music is and how it is made -- On the ageing and obsolescence of music -- Conversation past midnight.