Berthold Goldschmidt is 80 this year. It would be pleasant to record that his birthday was being celebrated with widespread performances of his music, but sadly this is not the case. His adopted country—Goldschmidt has lived in England since 1935 and took British nationality in 1947—has remained largely indifferent to him as a composer. None of the works he has written in this country has yet been published, and the most ambitious of them, the opera Beatrice Cenci, has not been performed. This article, together with forthcoming articles on Goldschmidt's music to be published in a future issue of TEMPO, will, it is hoped, do a little towards the rehabilitation of a scandalously neglected composer.