Alun Hoddinott has written music steadily for 50 years and, as a constantly prolific composer, has amassed an impressively wide-ranging body of work: six operas, ten symphonies, 20 concertos, a dozen piano sonatas, five violin sonatas, with vocal, choral, orchestral and instrumental works of equal abundance – in all, an output of about 300 works with which even his most ardent admirer will have found it difficult to keep up.