Lionel Salter was an active force in British musical life for seven decades, for most of them at its centre as an unobtrusive power for good. He was an all-round musician of the old school, his profound musicality complemented by a rapier-sharp intelligence and an industry so prodigious that it almost beggars belief. Salter was a child-prodigy pianist, born into a musical family: through his teachers hecould map his pianistic roots back to Liszt.