IN this book Mr. Thomson has written concerning "the state of music" today. He tells here of its place in modern life, giving first-hand, authoritative information not only about the musical scene but about the motion picture, the theater, the ballet — in diverse countries. He discusses also the musician's relation to his neighbors: poets, painters, sculptors, photographers, architects. . . . The Saturday Review of Literature hailed the book as "wise, witty, thoroughly informed, and pleasantly hard-boiled . . . an almost unalloyed pleasure to read." It is the author's first. His second, The Musical Scene, was published in the spring of 1945.

Mr. Thomson has good qualifications for writing these books about music of the present. He has covered a wide field of musical interests, having taught, lectured, performed, conducted, criticized. composed; and is now music critic for the New York Herald Tribune. His compositions include operas, symphonies, string-quartets, film and theatrical music, ballets. songs, Protestant anthems, and Catholic Masses — he is best known perhaps for his score to Four Saints in Three Acts.

This special edition of THE STATE OF MUSIC by Virgil Thomson has been made available to the Armed Forces of the United States through an arrangement with the original publisher, William Morrow and Company. Inc., New York.

Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., a non-profit organization established by the Council on Books in Wartime