This essay traces the development of Justin Connolly's music from the orchestral Antiphonies of 1966 through to the Piano Concerto of 2001–3, showing how within a remarkably consistent idiom there has been a slow process of focal change from a predominantly vertical structuring to a graciously complex, vertically rich, energetic linearity, embracing a wide variety of works on its unhurried journey, and by no means excluding drama and expressivity from its uncompromising idiom. Most of the analytical writing is on the Piano Concerto, which in its way summarizes all that precedes it, showing how a metaphorical labyrinth can be interestingly kaleidoscopic in its richness. The essay also demonstrates how, like several other British composers of his generation, Connolly has found his own individual, structurally significant way of bringing together techniques from the early Renaissance and the 20th century.