Dyson composed steadily throughout his years at the RCM. He set aside time each morning to compose and, together with the vacation periods, managed to maintain a steady output throughout his busy years as Director. Even through the war years he wrote some of his largest-scale works. Having concentrated on the story of his RCM years in the last four chapters, we shall now survey the varied works written during this time marking the high point of his maturity. These are the Concerto da Camera for string orchestra (1948), Part II of Quo Vadis? (1948), Four Songs for Sailors (1948), Concerto da Chiesa for string orchestra (1949) and the Concerto Leggiero for piano and string orchestra (1951). But first, Dyson was again in word-writing mode, commissioned by Oxford University Press to add a chapter to Sir Henry Hadow's volume in their Home University Library of Modern Knowledge series first published in 1924. For its third edition published in 1949 Dyson was asked to revise this highly successful book by adding a chapter on ‘The first half of the twentieth century’, bringing it up to date.

He begins by addressing the scene: ‘Our age has witnessed changes and upheavals as violent as any in recorded history. … Music is not a picture of the world. But it is an expression of the world's spiritual and emotional temper.’ He continues: ‘The story of our time is therefore the story of what appeals to our time.