Possibly because of his prevarication over the previous three years, by the time Dent came back to Cambridge as its new Professor of Music, it was on his own clearly defined terms. He needed the financial stability and had negotiated a decent stipend, but his own independence was always Dent's primary personal concern, the freedom to do things in his own way, his public life facilitating the private side. The short university terms marked some useful boundaries, and Dent was determined to devote term-times to his professorial duties. The actual election that October was a foregone conclusion, the result of long, careful negotiations. Vaughan Williams, the only other serious candidate, flatly refused to stand, and Dent had made it clear to Hugh Allen as the unofficial chairman of Electors that he would only accept a unanimous decision. They knew what they were getting.

‘The period between Wood's death and my election was very trying’, he wrote to Lawrence from Berlin:

He had no illusions: ‘I am distinctly amused to note what a lot of my congratulations seem to be moved principally by a sense of relief at the deliverance from horror’, he wrote to JB.