Herbert Howells said that the one experience which stood out as a vitally determining factor in his life was his first encounter with Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. ‘It was after then that I felt I really knew myself, both as a man and artist. It all seemed so incredibly new at the time, but I soon came to realize how very, very old it actually was, how I'd been living the music since long before I could ever begin to remember’. This paradoxical combination of the new and the old in Vaughan Williams is worth investigation, and its effect on Howells's own music awaits full exploration. The present article can do little more than introduce the topic, but it will have served its purpose if it points the way to further investigation.

Davies's own note on Hill Runes is short enough to be quoted in full, and gives some indication of the character and provenance of the work. In view of the style of the earlier Lullaby for Ilian Rainbow (1972), Davies's only other composition for solo guitar, he cannot have been too concerned that pernicious ‘overtones of Spain’ might have crept in: the opening of Lullaby is given in Ex. I, its angular serialism contrasting with the more traditional textures of Hill Runes. The later piece does have its ‘Spanish’ moments, though, resulting from this use of the instrument and its idioms, notable in the first movement's tremolando (b. 33–38) and the rasaguedo strumming near the close of the work.

As both lyricist and composer, Stephen Sondheim has proved to be the most original and innovative force on Broadway since the late 1950's, when he first attracted attention as the lyricist for some of the songs in Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story (1957), including ‘Maria’ and ‘Tonight’. Few composers for the musical stage have such a record of success as Sondheim. In addition to these lyrics for Bernstein, he also wrote all the lyrics for Jule Styne's Gypsy (1959); then, as composer as well as lyricist, he wrote a number of musicals over the next two decades: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), Sweeney Todd (1979), and Merrily We Roll Along (1981).