The purpose of this survey is to evaluate the contribution that the Westminster Choir movement has made to choral music in the United States today. It is hoped after the contributions have been stated by the investigator that the important position Westminster Choir College is occupying will be better understood.

An unusual opportunity to hear and perform this work has been afforded at North Texas State Teachers College by the presentation of the German Requiem in the summer of 1941. Furthermore, a Brahms Festival, including another presentation of the Requiem along with outstanding compositions of Brahms in other media, is to be given during commencement week of June, 1942. Not only does this type of emphasis promote interest among students and faculty, but it also serves as a stimulus to detailed study of the German Requiem, thus intensifying the immediate importance and personal significance of the subject.

Bela Bartok's art is a perfect microcosm of the art of the twentieth century. It is interwoven with the musical conceptions and techniques of the great Western European masters, without in any way obscuring the individuality, the national consciousness, and the personal style and originality of the composer's own musical language -- a language rooted in the glorious tradition of his people. In the six volumes of the Mikrokosmos, or "little world," Bartok has presented a series of progressively difficult pieces designed -- if not intentionally, at least effectively -- to introduce to the piano student a technical approach to piano playing in the modern idiom. Admittedly, the etude does not cover every pianistic technical problem. It clearly shows that Bartok fully appreciates the worth of the great wealth of piano literature, and does not prescribe his method as a "cure-all" for the technical problems of piano playing.