Hans Keller (1919-85), musician and writer - but also psychologist, sociologist and polemicist - dominated British musical life during the 40 years that followed the Second World War. His original and stimulating ideas made a deep impression on creative musicians and ordinary music-lovers alike: as one composer has put it, 'he taught a whole generation of us'. This influence was greatly magnified by the 30 years that he spent as an active broadcaster, 20 of them on the staff of the BBC.The BBC's Music Division, during the years in which Keller was a member, held a position of enormous importance in the musical life of the country - arguably greater than at any time before or since. Its extensive nationwide patronage of music, its determined engagement with contemporary composers, its educative mission and the large increase in the broadcasting hours that it devoted to music made the BBC of this period a musical giant. At the same time, however, doubts as to the viability of this vast musical enterprise were beginning to undermine it, fuelled by financial stringency and wider social change.This unique study of Keller's BBC work is a vivid portrait of the changing face of British broadcasting seen through the work of one of its most significant personalities. Starting with an examination of Keller's early psychological interests, and the evolution of his method of 'functional analysis' of music (with which the BBC was intimately concerned), the book charts the huge contribution Keller made to British music during his BBC years.

Also explored in detail are the successive crises of the Third Programme and its replacement by Radio 3, together with Keller's leading role in opposing the decline of the BBC's cultural idealism.Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, much of which has never been previously examined, this study paints a striking picture of Keller's personality in combination with the BBC's turbulent inner workings, showing the effect of one remarkable individual on the most powerful musical institution in 20th-century Britain.