Michael Tippett (1905 - 98)

[HighlandDougie]

This thread has reminded me that, COOT apart, I've never listened to Tippett.

I'd be interested in checking out his operas - received wisdom tells me that The Midsummer Marriage is the obvious place to start and that things like King Priam and The Ice Break are best left to last. Any truth in this?

This article (by the estimable Michael Oliver) might give you a few pointers. Tippett, for me, is beyond criticism. Discovered (the Colin Davis recording of the Second Symphony) when I was 17 years old - and loved ever since, irrespective of all the snooty comments about libretti et al. And I have to say that "love" is a word I would never apply to, for example, Britten. I've posted this before but, when flying up the back of the plane sometime in the 1980s from Zurich to London, who should come through the curtain to go to the loo but one of my cultural heroes - Michael Tippett. I was much too intimidated to do anything. But, at the Heathrow baggage carousel, I realised that he was standing next to me - but I was still too, well, Presbyterianly Scottish, to prostrate myself at his feet. Meirion Bowen appeared shortly thereafter to deal with the luggage; my bag arrived and I fled. I've regretted ever since not at least saying to him how important his music had been to me, emotionally as well as aesthetically. Article:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/reputations-michael-tippett

[Pulcinella]

Not quite - although I haven't heard the whole thing, I'm rather fond of the orchestral suite recorded by Hickox and combined on CD with the Second Symphony. If I were me I would think Priam would be a good place to begin with MT's operas.

So who are you, really?

[vinteuil]

... Tippett, for me, is beyond criticism. Discovered (the Colin Davis recording of the Second Symphony) when I was 17 years old - and loved ever since, irrespective of all the snooty comments about libretti et al. And I have to say that "love" is a word I would never apply to, for example, Britten. I've posted this before but, when flying up the back of the plane sometime in the 1980s from Zurich to London, who should come through the curtain to go to the loo but one of my cultural heroes - Michael Tippett. I was much too intimidated to do anything. But, at the Heathrow baggage carousel, I realised that he was standing next to me - but I was still too, well, Presbyterianly Scottish, to prostrate myself at his feet. Meirion Bowen appeared shortly thereafter to deal with the luggage; my bag arrived and I fled. I've regretted ever since not at least saying to him how important his music had been to me, emotionally as well as aesthetically...

.. o H'land Dougie - that is so sad to hear!

Me, who didn't appreciate his music while he was alive and yet by accident was on first-name terms - you, who really 'got' the music and revered the composer, yet too abashed to approach him! And yet he wd so have loved to hear your appreciation...

Moral of this story : always tell your creative heroes how much you love their works! (I have belatedly learned to do so.)



,

[ahinton]

This article (by the estimable Michael Oliver) might give you a few pointers. Tippett, for me, is beyond criticism. Discovered (the Colin Davis recording of the Second Symphony) when I was 17 years old - and loved ever since, irrespective of all the snooty comments about libretti et al. And I have to say that "love" is a word I would never apply to, for example, Britten. I've posted this before but, when flying up the back of the plane sometime in the 1980s from Zurich to London, who should come through the curtain to go to the loo but one of my cultural heroes - Michael Tippett. I was much too intimidated to do anything. But, at the Heathrow baggage carousel, I realised that he was standing next to me - but I was still too, well, Presbyterianly Scottish, to prostrate myself at his feet. Meirion Bowen appeared shortly thereafter to deal with the luggage; my bag arrived and I fled. I've regretted ever since not at least saying to him how important his music had been to me, emotionally as well as aesthetically. Article:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature...ichael-tippett

An interesting tale. I recall sitting in the gardens of Dyrham Park near Bath and hearing an unmistakeable voice approaching, whereupon Michael Tippett appeared with two young Oriental men (students, presumably), all in animated conversation. Much as I'd have liked to speak to him I didn't feel that I should interrupt this, so I did nothing. This was only a few years before he died.

[ardcarp]

What an amazing performance of Songs for Achilles today by Martyn Hill with Craig Ogden (guitar). There were maybe shades of Britten, Pears and Bream [it was written for the Aldeburgh Festival] but only shades. It's fiendishly difficult to perform, but this was Martyn Hill...IMO one of the UK's finest tenors....on top form.
Amazing idiomatic guitar writing too...a composer who studied his craft.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00028hf

...about 30 mins from start.

[Serial_Apologist]

What an amazing performance of Songs for Achilles today by Martyn Hill with Craig Ogden (guitar). There were maybe shades of Britten, Pears and Bream [it was written for the Aldeburgh Festival] but only shades. It's fiendishly difficult to perform, but this was Martyn Hill...IMO one of the UK's finest tenors....on top form.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00028hf

...about 30 mins from start.

Indeed, with Martyn Hill deploying what are referred to as "extended vocal techniques" in avant-garde, experimental and free improvisation contexts.

[ardcarp]

An interesting tale. I recall sitting in the gardens of Dyrham Park near Bath and hearing an unmistakeable voice approaching, whereupon Michael Tippett appeared with two young Oriental men (students, presumably), all in animated conversation. Much as I'd have liked to speak to him I didn't feel that I should interrupt this, so I did nothing. This was only a few years before he died.

OK you guys I can do one better. I met him and talked to him. He was president of our University Music Society. We sang Dance Clarion Air and Plebs Angelica to him on one visit. Not sure what he thought about our efforts, but he was too polite to say anything derogatory.

[Bryn]

The nearest I can get is that while at the then Middlesex Polytechnic, for a couple of years I lived in a cottage in Trent Park. Our next door but one neighbours had lived there for many decades. They were there when Trent Park was the residence of the Sassoon family and Michael Tippett was a fairly frequent vistor. They got to know him quite well.

[Joseph K]

What an amazing performance of Songs for Achilles today by Martyn Hill with Craig Ogden (guitar). There were maybe shades of Britten, Pears and Bream [it was written for the Aldeburgh Festival] but only shades. It's fiendishly difficult to perform, but this was Martyn Hill...IMO one of the UK's finest tenors....on top form.
Amazing idiomatic guitar writing too...a composer who studied his craft.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00028hf

...about 30 mins from start.

Thanks for bringing these to our attention.

[Maclintick]

I met him a couple of times in his last decade. Someone (can't remember who) opined that "Michael was a man of exceptional qualities who could have excelled in any area to which he applied his considerable talent and intellect". This may account for that element of struggle in his early attempts to establish himself as a composer in which he was, unhelpfully, compared to the younger, & more technically accomplished Britten. I'll have to catch up later with COTW, but he's a composer whose works have meant a great deal over many years, and one whose unfailing humanity always inspires...works I reach for regularly:
Concerto for Orchestra
Piano Concerto
Piano Sonatas
Symphonies 2 & 4
Midsummer Marriage (despite daft libretto)

[Richard Barrett]

the ... more technically accomplished Britten

This frequently made comparison is something I can never really fathom, being an admirer of Tippett's work for whom Britten's music has never held the slightest interest. What does "technical accomplishment" actually mean in this context? If it's something Britten had more of than Tippett, heaven save us from it!

[Maclintick]

This frequently made comparison is something I can never really fathom, being an admirer of Tippett's work for whom Britten's music has never held the slightest interest. What does "technical accomplishment" actually mean in this context? If it's something Britten had more of than Tippett, heaven save us from it!

I suppose "technical accomplishment" means in this context, to an informed music-lover (dread term), clarity, or expression of intent, an inspired means to an end, which I find in even the earliest Britten works, Sinfonietta, "A Boy Was Born", & which I don't find in "A Child of Our Time"or MT's First Symphony. Far from admiring Tippett's output, as you say you do, I positively love those works I've mentioned, but I have to confess I'm not surprised that his reputation has, though not exactly fallen into desuetude, been far eclipsed by Britten's, on the international front.

[Bella Kemp]

It's been a wonderful week so far. Some of you may enjoy this enthusiastic response to the second symphony:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b01rw2kr

[Richard Barrett]

I suppose "technical accomplishment" means in this context, to an informed music-lover (dread term), clarity, or expression of intent, an inspired means to an end, which I find in even the earliest Britten works, Sinfonietta, "A Boy Was Born", & which I don't find in "A Child of Our Time"or MT's First Symphony. Far from admiring Tippett's output, as you say you do, I positively love those works I've mentioned, but I have to confess I'm not surprised that his reputation has, though not exactly fallen into desuetude, been far eclipsed by Britten's, on the international front.

I used "admiration" as an understatement - Tippett's music is centrally important to me in many ways, as I've said on this forum many times - so please don't interpret that as anything less than "positively loving" it as you say you do! Yes, it's clear that Britten even in his early work shows a facility for writing stuff that many people would probably find pleasant, effective, unchallenging and so on, and that this is what is usually meant by "technical accomplishment", but the thing with Tippett's work, once he got into his stride in the 1950s, is that there's so much more at stake; it's a music that exists in order to express an entire view of the world and of humanity (and of music) which is challenging, which implicitly questions the idea of easy effectiveness and formal coherence, and for reasons like that has a value which any amount of facile and conventional notespinning by the Brittens of this world (especially of this country) and their musical descendants comes nowhere near, even if the result is that Tippett's vision remains misunderstood and unpopular.

[ardcarp]

writing stuff that many people would probably find pleasant, effective, unchallenging and so on,

Richard. Forgive me for finding it hard to suppress a chuckle when I read that...in relation to much that informs late 20th/early21st century composition.