Lajos Bardos was a composer, conductor, and professor of music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Together with Zoltan Kodaly, he laid the foundations of 20th-century Hungarian choral music. From 1928 to 1967 he was a professor at the Academy, where he reformed the syllabus, emphasizing the training of choral conductors, the teaching of church music history, and instruction in music theory and prosody. In 1931 he co-founded the publishing company Magyar Korus, and served as editor of the musical periodical of that name from then until 1950, when it was banned. From 1934 he organized the "singing youth" movement, encouraging young people across Hungary to join choral groups and learn the basics of music.

Through his work as a conductor Bardos raised the standards of Hungarian choral singing to an international level within decades. He directed several choirs and encouraged the development of choral activity in remote areas of the country. His repertory was pioneering: he included choral music from before Palestrina, especially those of Josquin, and promoted new music (he introduced, for example, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms into Hungary). His own compositions also draw on Renaissance polyphony and Hungarian folk music, following in the tradition of Bartok and Kodaly.

Bardos' work as a musicologist included major studies of Gregorian melody, modal and Romantic harmony, and the analysis of works by Liszt, Bartok and Kodaly. His lectures at the Academy were attended by a wide range of students, including Gyorgy Ligeti, who took the unusual step of regularly attending Bardos' lectures while they were both teaching at the Academy. Ligeti later credited Bardos' lectures with having an influence on his own compositions.

Together with other students of Kodaly, Bardos also helped to develop what later came to be known as the Kodaly Method of musical training. "Lajos Bardos Music Week" has been an annual festival in Hungary since 1977.