IN WRITING a book for which there is no precedent (the tistic achievements. But, alas, there has not been such last textbooks about accompanying were written during a genius in the realm of music during the twentieth the age of thorough bass or shortly thereafter - the century. The creative musical genius of our space age eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - and dealt has yet to be discovered, if he has been born. exclusively with the problems timely then) one must Our time has perfected technique to such a degree make one's own rules and set one's own standards. This that it could not help but create perfect technician­ freedom makes the task somewhat easier, if, on the one artists. Our leading creative artists master technique hand, one looks to the past: there is no generally ap­ to the point of being able to shift from one style to proved model to be followed and to be compared with another without difficulty. Take Stravinsky and Picasso, one's work; but, on the other hand, the task is hard be­ for instance: they have gone back and forth through as cause one's responsibility to present and future genera­ many periods of style as they wished. Only with a stu­ tions of accompanists and coaches is great.