In the first period of his activity, composing on the basis of traditional principles attained as a pupil of Kodály and the first-hand experience of Hungarian folk music played a decisive role. Later some trends oozing in from the West as novelties in Hungary urged him and many of his contemporaries to revive his musical language. The last phase of his oeuvre is characterized by a synthesis of his dodecaphonic experiments and his traditional idiom. Though his best-known composition of lasting success is the Viola Concerto, his orchestral, vocal, and chamber music pieces still deserve the attention of the music-loving public. With his First Wind Quintet, he launched and laid the foundation in Hungary of the 20th-century history of a genre so-far predominated by foreign composers only. This booklet is an attempt to sketch a portrait of this many-sided composer of a lyrical frame of mind.