While Jeno Takács has accompanied generations of beginners on their first foray into contemporary music, works such as his Concerto for Piano, Strings, and Percussion place him alongside the great paragons of Hungarian music, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Getting to know Bártok further increased the Hungarian elements of topicality, rhythm and bitonality in his compositions. The impressionist colouring and Hungarian folk music influences in Takács’ works went on to adopt a strict contrapuntal element following his studies with Joseph Marx. Jeno Takács was a humanist, a musical cosmopolitan and an eyewitness to almost the entire 20th century.