The Great Depression put many Americans out of work, and in 1935 the Roosevelt administration created the Works Progress Administration, putting some of the unemployed to work on various public projects. A Federal Music Project was also created for unemployed musicians, and thirty-four new orchestras were created all over the country.

American composers weren’t neglected either. A program called the Composers Forum Laboratories showcased new chamber works and invited audiences to offer their feedback and comments directly to the composers involved. On today’s date in 1935, at the seventh Composers Forum Laboratory held in New York, Henry Cowell was the featured composer, and took questions and comments from the audience at the Midtown Community Center on Park Avenue following the premiere of his String Quartet No. 3.

Typical of a “laboratory” situation, this chamber piece was highly experimental. Cowell conceived it as a kind of musical kaleidoscope or crazy quilt, in which five predetermined musical patterns can be played in any order. Cowell called this work his “Mosaic” Quartet, and, theoretically, no two performances would ever be the same.

America’s entry into World War II eventually brought all the WPA’s musical projects to a close, but not before Federal Music Project orchestras had premiered a number of new symphonic works by American composers, and dozens of new chamber works, like Cowell’s Quartet, had been performed and discussed at Composers Forum Laboratories.