Michael Tippett (1905 - 98)

[Richard Barrett]

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.

I'm not sure what you're chuckling at there, but never mind...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't think that any commentator questioning Tippett's "technical accomplishment" today would be taken very seriously; the comparison with Britten (whose work I value more highly than Richard does) used to be made by critics who responded to the latter's seemingly effortless range of novel effects within an idiom that they could quickly comprehend and relate to previous traditions - and not always favourably: the "too clever by half" types of patronising comments that were a regular feature of early criticisms of Britten's works. With Tippett - whose Music was grounded as much in Elizabethan Music (which many critics of the time just didn't know as well as he did) as in Beethoven, and who constantly sought to expand the expressive resources (harmony, texture, rhythm, phrasing) to enable his Music to reflect and question the world in which he lived, and to which he reacted - new "technical" ideas, were needed for these new means of expression.

On single hearings, most critics couldn't hear what Tippett was doing; only that what they were expecting from what they understood as "technical accomplishment" wasn't (always) there in the Music - so, of course, they blamed the Music. Only gradually did it become clear that Tippett's "technique" was as exactly formed (as "accomplished") as was necessary to communicate what the Music had to "say" - and to empower the composer's lifelong need to explore further what his Music could be, and what it could do.

It's not unlike comparing the reputations of Mendelssohn and Berlioz - the latter similarly plagued with negative comments based on what critics were expecting from the Music, based on their experience with other Music, rather than attending to what the composer was actually achieving in his work, and how that could only be achieved through the different technical means that they created. A neat coincidence, then, that at least two of Tippett's principal supporters from the '60s on - Ian Kemp amd Colin Davis - were both also appreciative and enthusiastic proponents of Berlioz.

[Richard Barrett]

Tippett's "technique" was as exactly formed (as "accomplished") as was necessary to communicate what the Music had to "say"

Exactly.

[edashtav]

Your post #48 is splendid, ferney, and sets the scene for a proper reappraisal of Tippett's music 21 years after his death. We need fresh advocates and new recordings.

[Flay]

By coincidence (I assume?) the incidental music of this week's R4 Extra Sci-Fi re-broadcast of the 1961 Orbit One Zero is taken from the Prelude of the Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage. It was well chosen.

Why do producers never acknowledge the pieces they purloin?

[visualnickmos]

Your post #48 is splendid, ferney, and sets the scene for a proper reappraisal of Tippett's music 21 years after his death. We need fresh advocates and new recordings.

Exactly.

His symphonic oeuvre ranks in the top of its genre of any produced in the 20th century.

[Pulcinella]

Exactly.

His symphonic oeuvre ranks in the top of its genre of any produced in the 20th century.

A reminder that the BBCSSO/Brabbins Hyperion recordings of S3, S4, and the early symphony (2CD set) are scheduled for release on 1 March.

[Maclintick]

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

Thanks, Bella. Don't quite know how I missed the perennially illuminating SJ on one of my favourite pieces, but that has now been rectified, & furthermore stiffened my resolve to have another go at MT's 3rd, which has so far ranked low on my appreciation index...

[edashtav]

A reminder that the BBCSSO/Brabbins Hyperion recordings of S3, S4, and the early symphony (2CD set) are scheduled for release on 1 March.

Thanks!

[Serial_Apologist]

Well I have to say I've certainly had my negative views about the "later" Tippett changed after this week's COTW, going admittedly by what we have heard. The performance of the first movement of the PC was a revelation, only having heard a live broadcast version in the mid-1960s which to me came across as an orchestral mush. In a way it's a shame that the COTW format didn't apparently facilitate comment on two of the later operas that totally confounded me when I heard them broadcast, "The Ice Break" and "New Year" - but others can doubtless vouch as to their importance in Tippett's oeuvre; and in any case, there are always going to be works within even a favourite composer that one is not going to get on with.

[ahinton]

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.

Several nails being hit squarely on heads here. Tippett himself testified to Britten's greater facility and fluency, implying that he found what he did easier than did Tippett himself but, whilst I do believe that there's a good deal more to the best of Britten than mere "stuff that many people would probably find pleasant, effective, unchallenging and so on", I do agree that he rarely scales the heights and depths that Tippett did throughout much of his career and, if indeed there is any kind of creative complacency of which Britten could reasonably be accused, it might have srpung from a fear of going outside what he felt confident in doing. The first time I met Britten (I didn't know him well), he talked about Tippett (this was around 1969-70-ish) and I've never forgotten his observation that when he himself sets about writing something he knows just what he aims to achieve yet when Michael does so he often seems not to "but then just look at the results!", adding a fervent commendation that I get to know as much of Michael's music as I can. Even then, he was rather preaching to the converted...

[Maclintick]

the comparison with Britten (whose work I value more highly than Richard does) used to be made by critics who responded to the latter's seemingly effortless range of novel effects within an idiom that they could quickly comprehend and relate to previous traditions -

Which are these, BTW ? & in which Britten pieces may we perceive them ? ..It's just that "novel effects" seems too disturbingly redolent of "too clever by half'

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Frank Bridge Variations, where Britten uses every string playing technique there is - arco, pizz, sul pont, harmonics, con sord, col legno; the sort of technique he may have discovered in his studies of the work of the Second Viennese School. (Compared with which, Tippett's Concerto for Double String Orchestra, finished a couple of years after Britten's work, is IIRC, entirely bowed.) The whistling and ad libitum "too-wit-a-woos" in the Spring Symphony. The use of cymbal crash tap0ed and played backwards in his Post Office scores. The "slung mugs" raindrops in Noye's Fludde. The "banjo" pizzicatos in Saint Nicolas.

For example.

[Maclintick]

The Frank Bridge Variations, where Britten uses every string playing technique there is - arco, pizz, sul pont, harmonics, con sord, col legno; the sort of technique he may have discovered in his studies of the work of the Second Viennese School. (Compared with which, Tippett's Concerto for Double String Orchestra, finished a couple of years after Britten's work, is IIRC, entirely bowed.) The whistling and ad libitum "too-wit-a-woos" in the Spring Symphony. The use of cymbal crash tap0ed and played backwards in his Post Office scores. The "slung mugs" raindrops in Noye's Fludde. The "banjo" pizzicatos in Saint Nicolas.

For example.

Or indeed, presumably, the natural horn harmonics in BB's "Serenade for Tenor, Horn & Strings", or, equally,
the synthesised breathing in MT's 4th Symphony, or the adoption of a "kitchen sink" battery of avant-garde percussion in his late scores. "Novel effects", a term implying that the effect is not intrinsic to the music to which it is somehow (mistakenly ?) applied, strikes me as faintly derogatory, & may as easily be described as an extension of a composer's musical vocabulary or an expansion of his or her sound-world.

Back to Tippett. Having now listened to the entire week's COTW, in a sort of box-set marathon, I'm now looking forward to Oliver Soden's biography. One observation -- in most of the vocal works, Heart's Assurance, Songs for Achilles, Byzantium, I became aware that my ear was invariably drawn to the piano, guitar, or orchestral accompaniment, rather than the singer's line, which could seem strangely undifferentiated. Is this a valid criticism ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Novel effects", a term implying that the effect is not intrinsic to the music to which it is somehow (mistakenly ?) applied, strikes me as faintly derogatory, & may as easily be described as an extension of a composer's musical vocabulary or an expansion of his or her sound-world.

Does the term "imply" this, Maclintick? I haven't inferred this as necessarily the case when I have encountered the term, and I certainly did not intend to so imply in the context in which I used it.

One observation -- in most of the vocal works, Heart's Assurance, Songs for Achilles, Byzantium, I became aware that my ear was invariably drawn to the piano, guitar, or orchestral accompaniment, rather than the singer's line, which could seem strangely undifferentiated. Is this a valid criticism ?

But, as you say, it was an "observation" rather than a "criticism". All I can add is that this is frequently how I respond to Tippett's vocal writing - the instrumental writing always strikes me as far more interesting.