Hans Gál Born in 1890 near Vienna, Hans Gál achieved early recognition as a composer with the award of the Austrian State Prize for Composition in 1915. During the period after the First World War, he rapidly established his pre-eminence as a composer, particularly following the success of his second opera, Die Heilige Ente (The Sacred Duck): this was premiered in 1923 in Düsseldorf, under Georg Szell, and was subsequently performed in some 20 theatres, including Berlin, Prague and Breslau. It was still in the repertoire in 1933. As a result of Gál’s international successes, he was appointed director of the Mainz Conservatoire in 1929, where he remained until 1933, when Hitler’s accession to power resulted in his dismissal from office and the banning of all publication or performance of his work in Germany. He returned to Vienna, but, being of Jewish descent, had to flee when the Nazis annexed Austria to the Third Reich in March 1938. He and his immediate family were able to escape to Britain, but it was not until after the Second World War, during which he suffered a period of internment as an ‘enemy alien’, that he finally obtained a permanent position as lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Edinburgh and acquired British nationality. As a ‘continental Briton’, he brought to his adoptive country a very direct personal link with the Austro-German tradition in which he remained so deeply rooted. He remained creatively active for most of his long life, and, in addition to his extensive output as a composer, which spans all the major genres, he was the author of books on Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner and Verdi. As a teacher, performer, scholar and founder member of the Edinburgh International Festival, he touched countless lives, but his music remained largely unknown. It is hoped that through the work of The Hans Gál Society, his rich musical legacy will be rediscovered and will be preserved for future generations.