Well, yes, of course: Schoenberg's famous remark was made in America about Charles Ives, not in Britain about Malcolm Lipkin. I actually believe that Lipkin (a genuinely modest man) would be shocked to be called a great composer, and that he is too gentle in outlook to be capable of contempt towards anyone. But Schoenberg's second sentence fits him will, for here is an individual musical personality that has developed over the years into a strong voice. Those years may now be counted in some number, and indeed when Schoenberg wrote those lines on Ives some 45 years ago Lipkin was already studying music with that fine piano teacher Gordon Green (1905–81), and in 1949 he entered the Royal College of Music where he studied counterpoint and harmony with Bernard Stevens and piano with Kendall Taylor.