This is arguably the last great age of classical music.  In Europe, several brilliant composers were producing their most memorable works and were presenting them to audiences that were still passionate: the premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring set off a riot in Paris in 1913.  But there is already a trend toward more esoteric works, and in later decades the general public was to loose much of its interest in modern compositions.

On the other hand, modern popular music was just coming to life, especially in America.  The lively tin-pan alley tradition of mainstream pop was being developed by George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin, and many others.  At the same time, the amorphous black folk music of the South was shaping up into some of the great musical styles of the century; ragtime was already fading by 1914, but blues and jazz were just taking form in Memphis and New Orleans.  It was in these years that American popular music first began to spread abroad.

And in 1906, the first radio transmission of music was made.

Opera.Italy.
==Feb.17 > Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly premieres in Milan, failing in its original production

Jazz.United States.
==Mar.01 > Glenn Miller is born in Clarinda, Iowa

Pop.United States.
==May.02 > Bing Crosby is born in Tacoma, Washington

Jazz.United States.
==May.21 > Jazz pianist and party animal Fats Waller is born to a Baptist preacher in New York City, as Thomas Wright Waller

Classical.Britain.
==Jun.09 > The first performance of the London Symphony Orchestra

Jazz.United States.
==Aug.21 > Count Basie is born in Red Bank, New Jersey, as William Allen Basie

Jazz.United States.
==Nov.21 > Jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins is born in St. Joseph, Missouri

Pop.United States.
==1904 > George M. Cohan’s first major play debuts, featuring Yankee Doodle Dandy and Give My Regards to Broadway

Blues.United States.
==1904 > The honky-tonk ballad Frankie and Johnny is published

United States.
==1904 > Emile Berliner invents flat disk phonograph records

Country-Western.United States.
==Mar.06 > Western Swing star Bob Wills is born on a farm east of Kosse, Texas

Classical.Russia.
==Mar.29 > Rimsky-Korsakov is sacked from the St. Petersburg Conservatory for supporting protesting students (or Mar.28)
==Apr.09 > The presentation of a Rimsky-Korsakov opera in St. Petersburg erupts into a political demonstration

Classical.United States.
==Oct.01 > The Juilliard School of Music is established in New York City

Classical.France.
==Oct.15 > The first public performance of Debussy’s La Mer, in Paris, is greeted with mixed reviews

Opera.Germany.
==Dec.09 > Richard Strauss’ opera Salomé opens in Dresden, after being rejected in Berlin, Vienna, and London for sacrilege - it proves to be highly successful despite the Kaiser’s disapproval

Classical.Austria-Hungary.
==1905 > ~Arnold Schoenberg’s compositions begin moving away from traditional musical forms

Classical.Russia.
==Sep.25 > Dmitri Shostakovich is born in St. Petersburg

United States.
==Dec.24 > The first radio transmission of voice and music is achieved by Fessenden in Massachusetts - the transmission is heard by dumbfounded radio operators on ships at sea

Classical.Russia.
==1906 > The Moscow People’s Conservatory is established to provide mass musical education to the general public

Pop.United States.
==1906 > George M. Cohan composes It’s a Grand Old Flag

Pop.France.
==1906 > French singer Maurice Chevalier debuts

Pop.Italy.
==1906 > In Italy, the world’s first film scores are composed by Bacchioni

Jazz/Ragtime.United States.
==1906 > Pianist ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton is musically active in New Orleans, giving ragtime a heavy beat

United States.
==1906 > Gabel produces the prototype of the modern jukebox

Jazz.United States.
==Feb.-- > The very early New Orleans jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden goes permanently insane during a Mardi Gras parade

Country-Western.United States.
==Sep.29 > Gene Autry is born to a Baptist minister in Tioga Springs, Texas

United States.
==Dec.16 > Eugenia H. Farrar becomes the first singer to perform live on radio, in a broadcast by Lee De Forest from the Brooklyn Navy Yard

Jazz.United States.
==Dec.25 > Cab Calloway is born in Rochester, New York

Classical.Russia.
==1907 > Prokofiev composes his first piano sonata at age sixteen

Pop.United States.
==1907 > Israel Baline, renamed Irving Berlin by a printing error, publishes his first song (Marie of Sunny Italy), earning himself 37¢

Classical.Russia.
Jun.21 > Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov dies at age 64

Classical.United States.
Nov.16 > Arturo Toscanini begins conducting the New York Metropolitan Opera, where he will remain for many years

Classical.Austria-Hungary.
==1908 > Gustav Mahler composes The Song of the Earth

Pop.United States.
==1908 > Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Shine on Harvest Moon are written

Pop.Britain.
==1908 > Judge and Williams compose It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary

Jazz.United States.
==1908 > Bill Johnson visits Los Angeles, and introduces New Orleans style jazz to the West Coast

United States.
==1908 > Victor and Columbia market flat disc recordings, which soon overtake Edison’s wax cylinders in popularity

United States.
==Jan.01 > ~An engineering school in San Jose, California, begins sending radio transmissions to a wide audience on a regular basis - the origins of true radio broadcasting from what is arguably the world’s oldest radio station

Opera.Germany.
==Jan.25 > Richard Strauss’ grand, foreboding opera Elektra premieres in Dresden

Classical.Austria-Hungary.
==Feb.19 > Schoenberg completes Opus 11, No. 1, his first fully atonal piece

Jazz.United States.
==May.30 > Benny Goodman is born to a poor family in Chicago

Classical.Austria-Hungary.
==1909 > Bela Bartók completes the First String Quartet and begins to develop his vigorous personal style

Jazz.United States.
==1909 > The word ‘jazz’ is in use in New Orleans, perhaps derived from a Creole word meaning ‘to fuck’

Blues.United States.
==1909 > ~Blues pioneer W. C. Handy moves to Memphis and composes Mr. Crump as a mayoral campaign song (“Mr. Crump won’t ‘low no easy riders here…”) - the song morphs into Memphis Blues in 1912

Opera.United States.
==Jan.13 > Lee DeForest broadcasts a performance of Caruso from the New York Metropolitan Opera

Blues.United States.
==May.28 > T-Bone Walker is born in Linden, Texas
==Jun.10 > Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Burnett) is born near West Point, Mississippi

Classical.France.Russia.
==Jun.25 > Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird premieres in Paris, beginning his association with the Ballets Russes

Blues.United States.
==Jul.04 > Champion Jack Dupree is born in New Orleans

Jazz.Rock.United States.
==Dec.10 > Musical producer John Hammond is born in New York City to a wealthy family - in his long career, he produces and promotes Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Pete Seeger, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen, among many others

Classical.Austria-Hungary.
==1910 > Mahler completes his anguished Symphony No. 9

Pop.United States.
==1910 > Brass concert bandleader John Philip Sousa makes a world tour to 1911
==1910 > Bert Williams becomes the only black musician to headline the Ziegfield Follies (to 1919) and the first to be featured in a film
==1910 > Down by the Old Mill Stream becomes a major hit

Ragtime.United States.
==1910 > Ragtime master Scott Joplin is becoming ill with syphilis

Blues.United States.
==1910 > The word ‘blues’ is in fairly common use in America, as the musical form begins to crystallize

Opera.Germany.
==Jan.26 > The comic opera Der Rosenkavalier premieres in Dresden - the height of Richard Strauss’ career

Classical.Austria-Hungary.
==Feb.21 > Mahler conducts his last concerto
==May.18 > Gustav Mahler dies at age 50 in Vienna

Blues.United States.
==May.08 > Blues giant Robert Johnson is born out of wedlock in Hazelhurst, Mississippi

Opera.Britain.
==May.29 > Sir William Gilbert dies

Country-Western.United States.
==Sep.13 > Bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe is born in Rosine, Kentucky

Blues.United States.
==Oct.26 > Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson is born in New Orleans, to a lay preacher

Country-Western.United States.
==Nov.05 > Roy Rogers is born in Cincinnati, to a guitar maker

Pop.United States.
==Dec.14 > Musical beserker Spike Jones is born in Long Beach, California

Pop.United States.
==Dec.22 > Al Jolson makes his first recording

Classical.France.Russia.
==1911 > Stravinsky’s Petrushka premieres in Paris

Ragtime.United States.
==1911 > Scott Joplin composes the ragtime opera Treemonisha, which is performed only once (in 1915) until 1975

Blues.United States.
==Mar.15 > Lighting Hopkins is born in Centerville, Texas

Britain.
==Jul.01 > The first Royal Command performance is held in London

Country-Western.United States.
==Jul.14 > Woodrow Wilson Guthrie is born in Okemah, Oklahoma, to an unsuccessful local politician/real estate agent

Blues.United States.
==Sep.27 > W. C. Handy’s releases Memphis Blues, the first composition published as a blues song - his disreputable publishers rip off the royalties

Ragtime.Britain.
==Dec.23 > Hello, Ragtime revue opens at London Hippodrome - a ragtime craze sweeps Britain - ~American popular music begins to penetrate Europe

Jazz.United States.
==Dec.31/Jan.01.1913 > Eleven-year-old street urchin Louis Armstrong is arrested in New Orleans for shooting blanks on New Year’s Eve - he is sent to the Colored Waif’s Home for two years, where he gets his first musical instruction

Classical.United States.
==1912 > Leopold Stokowski conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra, to 1938

Pop.United States.
==1912 > Irving Berlin’s When I Lost You and Ernie Burnett’s My Melancholy Baby establish the form for Twentieth Century love ballads

Blues.United States.
==1912 > The white violinist Hart Wand publishes the very early blues song Dallas Blues

Classical.France.Russia.
==May.29 > The Ballets Russes premieres Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in Paris, provoking a major audience riot

Pop.United States.
==Jul.19 > Billboard publishes the first list of the top ten songs

Classical.Spain.
==1913 > Andres Segovia makes his debut performance in Madrid

Classical.Italy.
==1913 > Professor Moreschi, the last castrato, retires from his musical career

Pop.Britain.
==1913 > Irving Berlin tours Britain
==1913 > Alford composes Colonel Bogey March (or 1914)

Pop.United States.
==1913 > You Made Me Love You and Ballin’ the Jack are written

Blues.United States.
==1913 > ~The first recordings of instrumental blues

Classical.Britain.
==1914 > Gustav Holst composes The Planets to 1916 - first performed in 1918

Pop.Britain.
==1914 > In Britain, Keep the Home Fires Burning and There’s a Long, Long Trail are written

Ragtime.United States.
==1914 > Magnetic Rag is released, Scott Joplin’s last published work

Blues.United States.
==1914 > W. C. Handy publishes the immensely popular St. Louis Blues

United States.
==1914 > ~The waltz and the two-step are replacing the cotillion as the favorite American social dances