Sir Lennox Berkeley needs little introduction as one of the most important British composers of the mid-twentieth century. Thanks to the advocacy of the late Richard Hickox, much of his orchestral music is now recorded; so are two of his operas. Hardly a week goes by without his liturgical music gracing the cathedral lists all over the country, and his chamber music has recently found an international public through many performances and recordings.

Lennox Randall Francis Berkeley was born into an aristocratic family at Sunningwell Plain, near Oxford, on 12 May 1903. His father was a naval officer and there were many family connections with France, where Berkeley's parents were living at the time when he was based in Paris.

Berkeley went to school in Oxford and then to Gresham's School, Holt, where he was followed by W. H. Auden and – ten years later – Benjamin Britten. In 1922 he went up to Merton College, Oxford, to read French, Old French and Philology. Whilst there he rowed, took organ lessons and had a few compositions performed. Auden was a contemporary, and Berkeley must have been the earliest composer to set his poetry to music, but these songs are lost. At Oxford Berkeley shared rooms with Vere Pilkington, an outstanding amateur keyboard player who owned a harpsichord and introduced Berkeley to early music.