This volume surveys the vast changes in British music during the twentieth century. Focusing on the period from 1914, it picks up many of the strands from Nicholas Temperley's study of the nineteenth-century, and looks at the musical context of Britain in the modern world.

Intellectual movements are surveyed by Arnold Whittall, the growth of popular culture and popular music is examined by Richard Middleton, while Cyril Ehrlich covers the educational and institutional background.
The book is divided into sections, covering popular and commercial music, art music and the century's writings, scholarship and performance traditions.

Stephen Banfield also considers the traditions of many ethnic minorities in British culture who also demand to be recognized, alongside the technological developments of electro-acoustic music.