Kodály, now in his 56th year, is an interesting example of a composer who has won international fame with a handful of works. Two operas, two choral works with orchestra, some shorter part-songs, six orchestral works (none longer than 21 minutes), and five for chamber music combinations comprise the corpus of his output, yet on the strength of these this quiet and unassuming musician, born and bred in a small Magyar town, has become one of the most popular and esteemed composers of his generation. Kodály is greatly occupied with the folk-music of his native land, and this, together with his position as principal teacher at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest—the chief musical institution in Hungary—probably account for the rarity with which a new work comes from his pen. He is one of the most sought-after teachers in his country, and there are few young Hungarian musicians of note who have not studied either composition or the national folk-music under his guidance.

As it stands at present Bliss's Colour Symphony is a revision made in 1932 of a work dating from 1922. The historical background of the work is the Three Choirs Festival, and especially Elgar, at whose suggestion Bliss produced a work for the Gloucester Meeting. This is Bliss's first symphony. In the chronological list of his works it comes after the Mêlée Fantasque for orchestra and the Incidental Music to The Tempest. It was followed by the string quartet of 1924, the manuscript of which was lost, and the next composition for full orchestra was the Hymn to Apollo, dated 1926. Between the time when the Colour Symphony was written and that when it was revised, Bliss had written a number of works not only musically important but significant because they showed a rather different manner of expression and way of thinking. Among these works was Morning Heroes, a large-scale choral and orchestral composition, in reality a choral symphony (1930). It was after Morning Heroes was finished that Bliss turned once more to the Colour Symphony. He took it in hand afresh and feeling that his grasp of orchestral manipulation had become stronger, he refashioned the whole work, leaving only the third movement in its original shape. In its actual state, therefore, the work is fundamentally different from the original.

Without doubt, the outlook for British music abroad has become distinctly brighter during recent years, and there are definite signs that our composers are beginning to win a place in the concert programmes of both Continental and American musical organisations. By that is meant not a first and last performance of any given work, but a permanent place in the repertoire such as is already held, for instance, by French or Italian or Russian composers. In this connection the work of the British Council, a government-sponsored body charged with the task of introducing British art and culture abroad, has been extremely valuable, and many performances of contemporary works have been arranged through their offices. In January, at their request, the Boyd Neel String Orchestra paid a visit to Portugal, playing at Lisbon, Oporto and the university town of Coimbra. The programmes included works by Elgar, Britten, Howells, Bliss and Delius, and the enthusiasm displayed for these works—not to mention the orchestra—was astonishingly high.