It is hardly sufficient to discuss the newest developments in music exclusively in terms of their manifestation in the music world at large. Much of what is happening today reaches the public concert circuit only occasionally, if at all. Naturally, the same applies to the media and the music press in so far as they, in turn, form a reflection of events in the concert world. I have therefore drawn on a second source in order to obtain a wider view of the contemporary scene. Every year since 1960 I have enjoyed the privilege of seeing tens and sometimes hundreds of new scores and, as a composition teacher, jury member and workshop director, coming into contact with similar numbers of young composers from all over the world. And although this again forms a limited and subjective picture, the combination of information from both sources has at any rate given rise to a different interpretation, to a hierarchy of values which does not always correspond with generally accepted opinion.

A first consequence of my view is that I prefer not to take the customary year 1968 as starting point for a discussion of the most recent period of contemporary music. If there is a turning point at all, I would place it somewhat earlier, in the course of the 1960s. For the innovations of the preceding period took place largely in the fifties, and the first signs of change became visible quickly afterwards. The newest period in music therefore spans some thirty years and reveals an exceptionally complex and multicoloured picture. I have attempted to distill five characteristics which I believe to be of importance to both the present situation and its further development.

The geographical distribution of musical activity

An increasing amount of contemporary music is written in other parts of the world. What began in Japan now extends to Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines and other Asiatic lands, as well as hitherto almost unknown African and South American countries. Any future musicologist making a study of the second half of the twentieth century will therefore have to take into account a broad and diffuse distribution of creative activity across the entire world, rather than the mere transfer of musical centres (previously mainly limited to Europe and the USA).