Anthony Milner, who has died aged 77, was the foremost British Catholic composer of his generation. His faith marked every inch of his career.
His brilliant Opus One, Salutatio Angelica (1948), was a cantata for voices and chamber orchestra in praise of the Virgin Mary. His Variations for Orchestra, first performed in 1959 by the Halle Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli, is a rosary in sound, a musical meditation along the stations of the cross.
Ironically, a significant proportion of his output was commissioned by the church for performance in situations where the quality of what Milner produced might well have been the last thing in the minds of those hearing it. But quality was what he gave, even when minded to dismiss it himself, such as the music he wrote for the mass celebrated at Wembley stadium by Pope John Paul II in 1982.
Milner's faith was part of the London-based family into which he was born, though his actual place of birth was Bristol. But, unlike his brother and sister -- who joined the church as a Dominican monk and a nun - his life took a different path when, after Douai school, in Berkshire, he won a piano scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1945.
Although Milner was a gifted pianist, the crucial influences on him at this time were his private composition lessons with the Hungarian émigré Matyas Seiber and, at the RCM, his study of music theory with R.O. Morris; the discipline of Morris's teaching stayed with Milner throughout his life. The rigorous execution of disciplined contrapuntal technique gave him a model to apply in his own work, and insist upon with his students in an outstanding teaching career.
That career began in 1947, when Milner was appointed tutor in music theory and history at Morley College, London. He had already come into contact with Morley's charismatic music director, Michael Tippett, who had invited Milner to his home, where they sat and talked even as Tippett was completing the scoring of his First Symphony.
Tippett was unquestionably one of the most profound influences on Milner's early development. As well as sharing the teacher R.O. Morris, they shared all kinds of musical interests, from Wagner to Hindemith. Milner's early work even sounds like Tippett's, with its sideways glances at the neo-baroque, the richness of a harmonic language that derives, in part, from 16th-century English models and its concentration on intricate contrapuntal method.
But Milner was to develop with care and caution, preferring a gradual and systematic evolution rather than the flower-powered revolution increasingly, and in Milner's view embarrassingly, embraced by Tippett. In spite of this, however, the two kept in contact for a number of years, and it was to Milner's expertise in Latin that Tippett turned when he needed advice on the detail of the text for his oratorio, The Vision of Saint Augustine.
In 1954, Milner joined what became the extra-mural department of the University of London, where he established a part-time diploma in the history of music.
From adult education, he moved quickly into the university sector, with appointments to King's College, London (1965) and to Goldsmith's (1971), following his part-time appointment to the Royal College of Music in 1961, where he eventually became a full-time lecturer, retiring in 1990.
None the less, Milner remained a practical and involved musician. For a brief period in the 1960s, he was director and harpsichordist with the London Cantata Ensemble, a group dedicated to the performance of baroque chamber music. He also wrote about music, and published widely. Perhaps the most characteristic and brilliant of his writings was an article on Britten's War Requiem in Christopher Palmer's Britten Companion (1984). Milner maintained a considerable admiration of Britten's music, which, inevitably, found a number of echoes in his own.
One of the most striking was in the work that Milner thought his best, the oratorio The Water And The Fire, commissioned by the 1964 Three Choirs Festival, at Hereford. At one point, a boy's choir processes singing on to the stage from the body of the auditorium. As they reach their place behind the orchestra, Milner springs a joyful coup-de-théâtre; each boy reveals a hand-bell, and rings it energetically as the music reaches its climax.
Milner was an exceptional and gifted teacher. His instinct was for detail, and, in lessons, he would keenly probe even the slightest lapse from musical, technical or intellectual rigour. A rare few found this almost jesuitical quest for order and precision close to inhuman. His manner and appearance could certainly be off-putting to those unprepared for the experience. He suffered from deafness, and a slight speech impediment left him unable to pronounce the letter "s".
But in spite of this, Milner was a passionate man who cared deeply about his students, and who formed close and lasting friendships with a number of them. His generosity would also see them invited on holiday. This, in turn, fed his music. Roman Spring (1969), a lyrical and ravishing setting of love poems by Catullus for soloists, chorus and orchestra, was both inspired by, and lovingly dedicated to, one such group of students.
Roman Spring also marked a significant change in direction for Milner's music, which became increasingly concerned with gesture and dramatic statement.
In 1972, he completed one of his most impressive achievements, a powerful and emotive Symphony No 1, which was given its first performance that year by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir John Pritchard.
It was the first of a cycle of three symphonies that dominated his work over the next 14 years.
By the first performance of his Third Symphony, given by the RCM Symphony Orchestra in 1987, Milner was increasingly incapacitated by the multiple sclerosis diagnosed in his 40s. He fought it with an almost stubborn determination, refusing to use a wheelchair and insisting on remaining as independent as possible.
In 1985, the Pope made him a knight of Saint Gregory in recognition of his services to church music. It was an honour that meant a very great deal to him, though, with typical humility, he sought to make almost nothing of it.
Anthony Francis Dominic Milner: born May 13th, 1925; died September 22nd, 2002.