Michael Tippett

Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was one of the foremost English composers of the 20th century.

Biography

Born in London of English and Cornish stock, he was educated at Fettes, Stamford School and the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with Vaughan Williams and conducting with Adrian Boult. In the 1920s, living simply in Surrey, he plunged himself into musical life, conducting amateur choirs and local operas. Unlike his contemporaries Walton and Britten, Tippett was a late developer as a composer and was severely critical of his early compositions. At the age of 30, he studied counterpoint and fugue with Reginald Owen Morris. His first mature compositions show a fascination with these aspects.

From the mid-1960s until the early 1970s, Sir Michael had a close relationship with the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra, conducting them regularly in the UK and on tour in Europe and generally supporting the state-funded musical education programme that had produced an orchestra of such high standards. He conducted the LSSO almost exclusively in twentieth-century music, including Holst's The Planets, Charles Ives's Three Places in New England, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphoses and many new works by English composers. Under Tippett, the LSSO, an orchestra of ordinary secondary school children aged 14 to 18, regularly performed on BBC radio and TV, made commercial gramophone records and established new standards for music-making in an educational context. Many leading British performers had their first experience of orchestral music in the LSSO under Tippett.

He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1983.

Music

Tippett was regarded by many as an outsider in British music, a view that may have been related to his early conscientious objection and his homosexuality. His pacifist beliefs led to a prison sentence in World War II, and for many years his music was considered ungratefully written for voices and instruments, and therefore difficult to perform. An intense intellectual, he maintained a much wider knowledge and interest in the literature and philosophy of other countries (Africa, Europe) than was common among British musicians. His (sometimes quirky) libretti for his operas and other works reflect his passionate interest in the dilemmas of human society and the enduring strength of the human spirit.

Tippett was never a prolific composer, and his works, completed slowly over the following six years, comprised five string quartets, four concerti, four symphonies, five operas and a number of vocal and choral works. His music is typically seen as falling into four distinct periods. The first period (1935–1947) includes the first three quartets, the Concerto for Double String Orchestra, the oratorio A Child of Our Time (written to his own libretto at the encouragement of T. S. Eliot and first performed by Morley College Choir) and the First Symphony. This period is characterised by strenuous contrapuntal energy and deeply lyrical slow movements. The second period, from then until the late 1950s, includes the opera The Midsummer Marriage, the Corelli Fantasia, the Piano Concerto, and the Second Symphony; this period features rich textures and effervescent melody. The third period, the 1960s and '70s, is in stark contrast, and is characterised by abrupt statements and simplicity of texture, as in the opera King Priam, the Concerto for Orchestra and the Second Piano Sonata. The fourth period is a rich mixture of all these styles, using many devices, such as quotation (from Ludwig van Beethoven and Modest Mussorgsky, among others). The main works of this period were the Third Symphony, the operas The Ice Break and New Year, and the large-scale choral work The Mask of Time.

Selected works

String Quartet No. 1 (1934-35, revised 1943)
Piano Sonata No. 1 (1936-37, revised 1942 and 1954), originally entitled Fantasy Sonata
Concerto for Double String Orchestra (1938-39)
Fantasia on a Theme of Handel (piano and orchestra, 1939-41)
A Child of Our Time (oratorio, 1939-41)
String Quartet No. 2 in F sharp (1941-42)
Symphony No. 1 (1944-45)
String Quartet No. 3 (1945-46)
The Midsummer Marriage (opera, 1946-52)
Suite in D (orchestra, "Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles", 1948)
Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli (string orchestra, 1953)
Divertimento on Sellinger's Round (chamber orchestra, 1953-54)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1953-55)
Sonata for Four Horns (1955)
Symphony No. 2 (1956-57)
Crown of the Year (cantata, 1958)
King Priam (opera, 1958-61)
Piano Sonata No. 2 (1962)
Songs for Ariel (1962)
Praeludium (brass, bells and percussion, 1962)
Concerto for Orchestra (1962-63)
The Vision of St Augustine (baritone, chorus and orchestra, 1963-65)
The Shires Suite (orchestra and chorus, 1965-70, written for the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra)
The Knot Garden (opera, 1965-70)
Songs for Dov (1970, related to The Knot Garden)
Symphony No. 3 (1970-72)
Piano Sonata No. 3 (1972-73)
The Ice Break (opera, 1975-76)
Symphony No. 4 (1976-77)
String Quartet No. 4 (1977-78)
Triple Concerto (violin, viola, cello and orchestra, 1978-79)
The Mask of Time (oratorio, 1980-82)
The Blue Guitar (solo guitar, 1982-83)
Piano Sonata No. 4 (1983-84)
New Year (opera, 1985-88)
Byzantium (1988-90)
String Quartet No. 5 (1990-91)
The Rose Lake (1991-93)

External links

"Official website" of Michael Tippett
Excerpt from audio interviews with Tippett from the BBC
Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra website contains a few photographs of Tippett, who was their patron and conducted them regularly in the UK and Europe.

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Biography

Music

Selected works

External links