This CD presents a complete recital given by the master violinist Joseph Szigeti in the Hancock Auditorium at the University of Southern California on 13 January 1957. This concert originally formed the last of a series of three concerts featuring works by 20th-century composers entitled ‘Eleven Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century’, which Szigeti performed at numerous college campuses throughout the United States in the late 1950s. He described this three-part series was ‘an incentive to break with the “one-programme-each-season” type of concertizing that the organized audience movement demands.’

Acclaimed for his playing of the great classical masterworks, Szigeti was also an ardent champion of contemporary music. He made the first recordings of major violin pieces by Bartók, Stravinsky, Busoni, Hindemith, Cowell, Ives, Warlock, Webern and Bloch, and presents works by Honegger, Prokofiev, Ives and Ravel on this recital. Furthermore, this CD includes Szigeti’s spoken introductions to each of the four works. Recorded after the violinist had retired, they provide an invaluable insight from one of the most eloquent and patrician musicians of the 20th century.