The significant role which England played in Kodály's international career is so well-known that it virtually borders on a commonplace. His works found outstanding performers, a comprehending public, receptive critics and also publishers in these islands. It is also well known that the Hungarian master drew upon English musical practice. In his music pedagogy he applied John Curwen's Tonic Sol-Fa method. In choral culture he regarded the practice in England as a direct example.

The history of 20th-century music can be seen as a series of more or less unsuccessful answers to—or evasions of—insoluble problems (due, in part, to the relative poverty of living musical traditions outside the concert hall and the felt inadequacy inside). From this point of view, it would be instructive for composers who are looking for new answers to build on the work of a figure like Matyas Seiber, who sought to master all the forms of music around him, to balance one with another and thus to open the way to new forms.

To say that Antal Doráti is unquestionably one of the most distinguished conductor-composers active today is maybe in itself no great accolade: there is not sufficient competition to make it so. I wish here, therefore, to concentrate exclusively on the ‘composer’ side of the equation—on that substantial body of works whose very existence is unsuspected by the vast majority of concert-goers, and whose surprising extent is at least indicated by the following catalogue.