Until Britten returned from America in 1942 it would have seemed reasonable, despite the sensitivity he had revealed in setting texts as unexpected and heterogeneous as those of Auden, Rimbaud and Michelangelo, to assume that instrumental composition was to form the core of his work. He had first made his mark in the chamber media, though his Opus 1 perhaps also represented as close an approach to the orchestra as was judicious at a time when opportunities of performance did not easily come the way of an unknown young composer. Structurally these first two works, the Sinfonietta and the Phantasy for oboe quartet, demonstrated notably original modifications of the sonata thesis. The first of his own orchestral textures the composer heard were those of the symphonic cycle, Our Hunting Fathers, but the ‘symphonic’ qualities were those which should control, not determine the nature of, material conceived in response to potent verbal stimuli. The Frank Bridge Variations were individually brilliant character pieces and together a virtuoso display of thematic derivation, and Britten's command of such techniques was to prove no less apt in the Diversions for piano (left hand) and orchestra. But meanwhile the Piano Concerto had also drawn characters more effectively than consequences, and the Violin Concerto, though more creatively at odds with traditional sonata procedure in its first movement, had pointedly thrust the greatest expressive burden on to a final variation structure. Only with the Sinfonia da Requiem and the First Quartet did Britten fully recapture the convincing individuality of sonata practice he had shown in his first two scores.

Any survey of what Britten has contributed to English music is naturally dominated by his outstanding achievement in opera, on account both of its sheer magnitude and of the ‘pioneering’ element in it. This has slightly drawn attention away from the hardly less remarkable character, importance (and volume) of his output in the field of choral music, where the originality of his contribution, instead of standing out starkly against an almost blank background, is more subtly thrown into relief against, and merged into, a securely established and respectable tradition of composition. Although still apparently ‘flourishing’ when Britten grew up, this tradition was no longer very vital, and part of his achievement is to have renewed and revitalized it so naturally and uniconoclastically that we tend to take its continuance for granted without quite realising how large a part he has played in bringing this about.

Benjamin Lees's Concerto for string quartet and orchestra was written on commission for the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra, and was first performed by them under the conductor Hans Schwieger, with the Paganini Quartet as soloists, in January 1965. The unusual nature of the work arose out of the desire of Mrs. Louis Sosland who commissioned it, to help the Kansas orchestra while also continuing to foster the art of the string quartet, which was her own special interest. Lees, whose output includes highly successful works in both concerto and string quartet media, responded with a work which solves the difficult problem of combining the two with characteristic artistic mastery and inventiveness.

• Xenakis's Terretektorh and Eonta (Brian Dennis)

• Maw's Sonata for two horns and strings (Robert Henderson)

A tedious title, this, but a thought which will remain with us for a long time, and which I am therefore adopting as a permanent title for my regular feature. We have to cope with the problem so long as it exists. The two usual, alternative ways of escaping it are (1) to deny its existence, or (2) to regard it as unsolvable. The first route is usually taken by composers, the second by resigned music lovers. We shall see in the course of these quarterly notes whether there is, perhaps, a third.

In the seven years since the first performance at Aldeburgh of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream it has already seen three British productions and several abroad, and at a time when our early enthusiasm for the work has ripened into a certainty of its profound qualities, Decca have issued a superb recording of it under the composer's direction (SET 338–40). Most of the roles have by now been taken by more than one interpreter, and the Lysander on this issue, Peter Pears, has previously been Flute, while Josephine Veasey, who took the part of Oberon at Covent Garden, is here an excellent Hermia.