He was one of England's greatest composers, whose name ranks alongside Vaughan Williams and Elgar. He received a CBE, was honoured at Oxford, feted at music festivals and respected by colleagues and pupils. He was shy and retiring, and never one to blow his own trumpet. And he lived just a few miles from High Wycombe, in a cottage nestling in a Chiltern valley.

The vagaries of fashion are strange. By his death in l986, the music world had almost forgotten Edmund Rubbra. But now people are waking up to the fact that this quiet, prolific Buckinghamshire composer, who spent many of his most productive years at Valley Cottage, near Speen, and who regularly attended church in High Wycombe, was one of the stars in England's musical pantheon.

In this, his centenary year, performances of his music are blossoming everywhere. His choral works are sung in cathedrals throughout England. A budget recording by the choir of St John's College, Cambridge has burst into the classical charts. New discs of Rubbra's piano and chamber music have emerged. His symphonies are on every shrewd collector's wish-list.

And next Friday his beautiful Fourth Symphony - a gripping wartime work, ranking alongside Vaughan Williams's Sixth and Elgar's Second - is being performed at the BBC Promenade Concerts - where Rubbra himself, dressed in battle dress (in accordance with army regulations), conducted its premiere in August, l942.

Rubbra arrived in the High Wycombe area from London in l935. Valley Cottage, which lies down a secluded lane at Highwood Bottom just outside Speen, is one of those idyllic places you light on just once in a lifetime. Half a century ago you might have stumbled across the bearded composer, hands behind his back, beret on head, strolling down the lanes towards Hughenden or Lacey Green, or sauntering across open fields to the hedgerowed Chiltern ridge opposite his garden workroom, musing on his latest symphony, piano trio or string quartet.

Rumour had it the valley was haunted by a highwayman; but it must have been haunted by melodies too, for Rubbra's music, sacred and secular, is nothing if not melodic and beautiful.

Born on May 23 l901, Edmund Rubbra left school at 14 and seemed destined for a life of drudgery as a railway clerk. But he received musical stimulus from the organist of St Matthew's Church in Northampton, and from his parents, both keen amateur musicians.

Encouraged by the composer Cyril Scott, Rubbra later studied with Holst, who quickly realised his pupil's worth. Later Rubbra himself became lecturer in music at Oxford, where his pupils revered him for his kindly demeanour and sound advice.

From l935, for 22 years, Rubbra (the name is of Italian or Portuguese origin) and his part-French wife, Antoinette, herself a distinguished violinist, made their home in a late l8th-century cottage, built by French emigres, at Highwood Bottom, just outside Speen (the painter Cecil Collins lived two doors away).

No sooner had they moved to Bucks than Edmund embarked on the first of his ll symphonies. Seven were completed during his time here. Often they were characterised by the most ravishing contrapuntal slow movements, whose long arched structures put one in mind of the noblest English music - not least, Elgar. The serene slow movement of the Sixth, dated l954, reputedly depicts in music the view across the valley, as seen from Rubbra's studio.

Rubbra adored Tudor music the era of Byrd and Tallis, and of the Elizabethan madrigal and often reflected that love in his composing. The war years and their aftermath produced some of his best music: the orchestral Improvisations on tunes by the Tudor composer, Giles Farnaby; the dark Fourth and beautifully 'pastoral' Fifth Symphonies; the lovely Soliloquy and flowing sonata for cello; Rubbra's brilliant orchestration of Brahms's Handel Variations; two Masses; the Evening Canticles and Cantata The Morning Watch; the first Piano Trio; and the Second Quartet (arguably his finest).

Like Bliss (another composer friend), Rubbra not only read English Literature avidly the l9th century and 20th century novel, Keats, Spenser, Hopkins, and the Metaphysicals were favourites but European as well. His boyhood interest in the mystic Orient later flowered in The Jade Mountain, five exotic Chinese songs for voice and harp, a combination Rubbra had used movingly in the early l930s. Several sets of madrigals date from the Speen years. Just before the war he composed a ballet, Prism, designed by the theatre designer Peter Goffin. In l942 he wrote a Tribute for Vaughan Williams's 70th birthday (the two corresponded often; Finzi and Howells were other close friends).

And in l948, something of a turning point, Rubbra was received into the Roman Catholic Church at St Augustine's, High Wycombe (the St Dominic Mass was his thanksgiving for his conversion). Several works to texts by St John of the Cross, as well as his shattering Ninth Symphony (an oratorio about Christ's resurrection) bear witness to the importance he attached to his conversion.

Concertos for Viola and Piano (Rubbra was a fine pianist and member of an acclaimed piano trio), the wonderful Tenebrae Motets (recorded by St John's) and a piano piece called The Donkey (the Rubbras kept a donkey at Valley Cottage) were among the works composed before, sadly, the marriage broke up (his wife and members of the family continued living in the valley till only this year). Rubbra himself moved to Jordans (where several of his works were performed in the famous Mayflower Barn) and then Gerrard's Cross, where he maintained links with the Great Missenden Festival.

Buckinghamshire's composer is now on the peak of a wave again. Not many areas in England can claim such intimate links with a composer who could stir the spirit and beguile the ear as richly as Edmund Rubbra did. Listen out for his Fourth Symphony, and see if you agree.

Rubbra's Fourth Symphony, conducted by Richard Hickox, can be heard on Friday, July 27 at 7.30pm in the Proms Concert on BBC Radio 3. His symphonies are recorded on the Chandos and Lyrita labels. The St John's recording is on Naxos.