Music: Buried Culture

Last week, to the sober tolling of a deep-toned bell, officials of the New York World’s Fair and of Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co. stuffed 50 ft.

down into the Fair grounds an 800-lb.

Time Capsule, not to be opened for 5,000 years. Into the capsule they had crammed a cross-section of 20th-century culture— films, clothing, articles “pertaining to the grooming and vanity of women,” poker chips, slips of paper, dimes and dictionaries, reproductions of art, letters, music, a copy of TIME’S 15th-anniversary issue (February 28) on microfilm. Three items chosen to show the “Futurian Man” typical prodigies of 20th-century music were: 1) Finlandia by Jean Sibelius; 2) The Stars & Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa; 3) Flat Foot Floogie by Bud Green, Slim Gaillard, Slam Stewart.