whose private home recordings number 53 LPs. A critic in the BBC Music Magazine declared: "Howard is, by general consensus, the finest living exponent of Liszt. (He has) a formidable intellectual grasp of the music, (and) his vastly superior performances continue to carry the day". As further indication of the status he enjoys among Liszt scholars, Howard was invited to perform at the inauguration of the Istituto Liszt in Bologna, Italy, of which he is an honorary member. He has been invited by the music publishers Edition Peters to edit the republication of some of their Liszt scores, correcting previous inaccuracies by a return to manuscript sources. He has also edited several volumes of Liszt Society Publications for Hardie Press and Editio Musica Budapest. With Michael Short he has published Ferenc Liszt – A List of his Musical Works (Rugginenti, 2004) and Ferenc Liszt – A Thematic Catalogue (Pendragon, 2005). He has a book in progress, The Music of Liszt (Yale University Press). Honours related to his Liszt work Leslie Howard has been the President of the British Liszt Society since the death of the previous president Louis Kentner in 1987, and has also been awarded the American Liszt Society's Medal of Honor. In 2000 he was awarded the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal and Citation by the Hungarian Government, a rare honour for a non-Hungarian. He had previously received from the Hungarian government the Ferenc Liszt Medal of Honour, and he has also been awarded France's Grand Prix du Disque six times for his Liszt recordings—all presented to him by the President of Hungary. In 2004 he was decorated by the President of Hungary with the Medal of St. Stephen. Composer Howard is also active as a composer, and has written an opera (based on the Norse tale "Hreidar the Fool", with lyrics by Phillip Carrington and John Gough), a marimba concerto, chamber music, and many piano pieces. Howard's best known work is his "24 Classical Preludes for Piano, Op. 25", cycling through the major and minor keys, each written in the style of a different composer. Howard has recorded this work for Cavendish Music (Boosey & Hawkes). In 1997 Howard was commissioned by Gramophone magazine to compose and record a short piano piece ("Yuletide Pastorale") for its Christmas Competition: a CD was given away with the magazine, and readers were asked to state in which composer's style the piece