Hans Gál OBE (5 August 1890 – 3 October 1987) was an Austrian composer, pedagogue, musicologist, and author, who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1938.

[3] His second opera, Die heilige Ente (The Sacred Duck), received its première in Düsseldorf in April 1923 under Szell and was performed with continued success in 20 theatres.

The next year, with the support of such important musicians as Wilhelm Furtwängler, Fritz Busch and Richard Strauss, he was appointed to the directorship of the Mainz Conservatory.

[4][5][6] The rise of the Nazis in Germany brought Gál's career in Mainz to an abrupt end on account of his Jewish ancestry.

When the Nazis took over Mainz in March 1933, he was instantly dismissed from his post and performance and publication of his works in Germany were prohibited.

[18] Though his style cannot be derived from any single influence, one can nevertheless identify particular affinities, especially with the 18th century Viennese composers whose clarity, plasticity and playful humour are basic constituents.

[20] Gál's music continued to appear regularly in concert in the years immediately following World War II thanks the advocacy of colleagues like Rudolf Schwarz and Otto Schmidtgen.

This process was accelerated by a shift in the BBC's programming policy: from the 1960s onward, the national broadcaster explicitly favoured music from the avant-garde or twelve-tone schools.

The Gál discography now includes the four symphonies (Kenneth Woods and the Orchestra of the Swan), the complete piano music (Leon McCawley), the complete string trios (Ensemble Epomeo), concertos and concertinos for violin, cello and piano (soloists Annette-Barbara Vogel, Matthew Sharp and Sarah Beth Briggs with conductor Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra and Royal Northern Sinfonia), the Cello Concerto (Antônio Meneses) and the complete string quartets (Edinburgh Quartet), as well as a number of chamber works.