Tippett, Michael Kemp (1905 - 98)

[Beef Oven]

Good for the BBC - otherwise a miserable showing from London's orchestras. I hope that I've missed something but the only work by Tippett I could see was the LSO performing A Child of Our Time. Maybe Mark Elder will do something (I remember my excitement when living in Manchester at the Halle performing his 2nd Symphony with Sir Mark). Or maybe someone like Ed Gardner might champion his music in the way that Colin Davis dis. I live in hope.

And someone at EMI should ensure the re-release of Mask of Time. Why the hell has that been deleted for years?

[Petrushka]

And someone at EMI should ensure the re-release of Mask of Time. Why the hell has that been deleted for years?

It's here on the Amazon Marketplace. Bit pricey though. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mask-Time-Ti...9951420&sr=1-1

I went to a performance of this at the 1999 Proms.

[Beef Oven]

I was already aware of the Amazon market place offerings - £44.20 new & £31.21 for a second hand copy in 'good' condition. Are they having a tin-bath?

We need EMI to bring it out on a 'Modern Masters' series (or some other silly name that labels like) for under a tenner on cd, download £6.99.

[amateur51]

It doesn't really kick off till next year but the BBC SO haven't forgotten the old boy.

All four symphonies and both concertos at the Barbican from October on.

http://www.bachtrack.com/find-a-concert/where/composer=5606-tippett;venue=1-barbican-centre--hall

I heard the 4th and the Triple about 20 years ago but I think this might be the only live performance of the 3rd I've ever seen programmed since discovering his music in 1989.

Quite exciting! The 1st is a rare event, too, isn't it?

Nice to see you back hackneyvi! - hope all's well

[Ferretfancy]

Welcome back to the boards, Phil! I'm sure I can recollect a performance of the Tippett 3 from the LSO and Sir Colin Davis. Couldn't have been as long ago as 1989 surely?

I'm afraid it was, Petrushka, at the Barbican. It was the only time I've heard it live, which is a great pity

[hackneyvi]

Welcome back to the boards, Phil! I'm sure I can recollect a performance of the Tippett 3 from the LSO and Sir Colin Davis. Couldn't have been as long ago as 1989 surely?

Nice to see you back hackneyvi! - hope all's well

Thanks, both, for your kind welcome. All's well with me and I hope it is with you all, too.

We need EMI to bring it out on a 'Modern Masters' series (or some other silly name that labels like) for under a tenner on cd, download £6.99 ... Why the hell has that been deleted for years?

A download would be good enough but a new performance with the thornier parts really mastered would be wonderful.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bwbdq

Stephen Johnson gave a very enjoyable talk about Brahms German Requiem last week and closed it with the final words from The Mask of Time ("Oh, man, make peace with your mortality ..."). I'd forgotten the ending and the words have stuck in my head since then and that great surge of music, rolling and breaking like a wave, has come back to me. It seems - as I recollect it and hear it in my head; haven't recordings of either just now - to share something with the opening of Byzantium, too. Does anyone else hear the naturalness of that 'segue'?

It's here on the Amazon Marketplace. Bit pricey though. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mask-Time-Ti...9951420&sr=1-1

I went to a performance of this at the 1999 Proms.

I came to London with a friend in about 1992/3, I think, to hear MoT. I have an idea it would have been at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. There were always a couple of sections that I struggled to hear the merit of but the opening, the Shelley piece, the sequence of the lacewing, the Akhmatova and the ending are beautiful.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Good for the BBC - otherwise a miserable showing from London's orchestras. I hope that I've missed something but the only work by Tippett I could see was the LSO performing A Child of Our Time. Maybe Mark Elder will do something (I remember my excitement when living in Manchester at the Halle performing his 2nd Symphony with Sir Mark). Or maybe someone like Ed Gardner might champion his music in the way that Colin Davis dis. I live in hope.

You are indeed missing something. Apart from A Child of Our Time on 23rd March next (Soloists/BBCSO/BBCSC/Davis, with a Hugh Wood premiere), the symphonies and concertos are featured in the 2012/13 Barbican season: http://www.bbc.co.uk/orchestras/even...sobarbican2012

Maybe Sakari Oramo, who arrives in 2013, will take up the cudgels for Tippett too....

[Serial_Apologist]

My only hearing of the PC was back in '67 when the Ogdon performance was relayed, and sadly I've missed the oppo to listen again as the programme under discussion is now defunct. So like others critical of the work I've gone and deprived myself a chance to reassess - as indeed I really should Tippett's work as a whole, being among those who followed the line that in his bid to sound more "contemporary" this composer lost his way sometime around the time of its composition. As Richard Barrett has pointed out, a strong Hindemith influence* seemed to invade Tippett's music around the time of the "Midsummer Marriage", though I don't think it was that which bothered critics at the time, more the growing eclecticism being evidenced in the music of one who had once seemed so recognisably himself, as in the first two string quartets, "Boyhood's End", the Double Concerto and first symphony, in the process becoming over-abundantly detailed: the Piano Concerto being, for me, an instance in point. Gone seems to be the natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability of the "Trotskyist period", and in place of it an impenetrability of means and aesthetic aims. I wonder how easy it would be, given the weight of importance many advocates place on the later operas - a particular bugbear of mine (but there again I've never been an "opera buffer") - to offer a rarely representive exposition of Tippett's career as a whole by having him as Composer of the Week.

*As a maybe not very interesting aside, that Hindemith influence - never that prominent in the overall evolution of 20th century classical music: I immediately think of his pupils who adopted the Hindemithian harmonic method, like Arnold Cooke and Franz Reizenstein, and parts of the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra - has worked itself into the approach of a good number of, especially, British, or British-domiciled jazz musicians, probabily beginning with Kenny Wheeler (who openly acknowledged it in his compositions, and it is certainly apparent in his big band settings, starting from "Windmill Tilter"). I could go into greater speculative depths on why this might have been the case, maybe it deserves its own thread, but don't want to draw too much attention away from this one.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm a bit lost with some of your comments, S_A. The Hindemithian influences are most prominent in the works of the '30s to '50s, not "invaded" in Midsummer Marriage which is a part of that "early" couple of decades of works, which includes the Piano Concerto. The "break" in style is declared in King Priam, with a brittle, dry clarity (influenced as much by Brecht) replacing "natural clarity, freshness, and welcoming memorability" of those earlier works. "Second Period" Tippett contains many of his finest works - the Second and Third Piano Sonatas, the Concerto for Orchestra, and the Third Symphony (I have great problems with Tippett's vocal writing in this period and after - so the Finale doesn't yet convince me personally - the operas and choral works repel me, too; but "natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability" sums up my reaction to the instrumental works of this time perfectly). The synthesis of the two earlier "periods" in his last works (starting with that wonderful gate-opening chord that starts the Fourth Symphony) also produced much, much wonderful Music - though still hose horrible (to me) "yo-ti-ho-ti-hoyata-hoe" vocal melismas.

But, yes - Tippett as CotW would be wonderful. (Something else those Forumistas who bemoan the lack of broadcasts of his Music can not listen to.)

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm a bit lost with some of your comments, S_A. The Hindemithian influences are most prominent in the works of the '30s to '50s, not "invaded" in Midsummer Marriage which is a part of that "early" couple of decades of works, which includes the Piano Concerto. The "break" in style is declared in King Priam, with a brittle, dry clarity (influenced as much by Brecht) replacing "natural clarity, freshness, and welcoming memorability" of those earlier works. "Second Period" Tippett contains many of his finest works - the Second and Third Piano Sonatas, the Concerto for Orchestra, and the Third Symphony (I have great problems with Tippett's vocal writing in this period and after - so the Finale doesn't yet convince me personally - the operas and choral works repel me, too; but "natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability" sums up my reaction to the instrumental works of this time perfectly). The synthesis of the two earlier "periods" in his last works (starting with that wonderful gate-opening chord that starts the Fourth Symphony) also produced much, much wonderful Music - though still hose horrible (to me) "yo-ti-ho-ti-hoyata-hoe" vocal melismas.

But, yes - Tippett as CotW would be wonderful. (Something else those Forumistas who bemoan the lack of broadcasts of his Music can not listen to.)

Yes you are right about the Hindemith influence coming in earlier, ferney - I guess in my head my listening back was being "thrown" by the madrigalist sprung rhythms' predominance, whereas Hindemith, or at any rate the later Hindemith, can often seem rhythmically stolid. One very late work which I really love and can listen to over and over again is "The Rose Lake". Time to give the guy some attention, after having missed out on so much for so long.

[ahinton]

I'm a bit lost with some of your comments, S_A. The Hindemithian influences are most prominent in the works of the '30s to '50s, not "invaded" in Midsummer Marriage which is a part of that "early" couple of decades of works, which includes the Piano Concerto. The "break" in style is declared in King Priam, with a brittle, dry clarity (influenced as much by Brecht) replacing "natural clarity, freshness, and welcoming memorability" of those earlier works. "Second Period" Tippett contains many of his finest works - the Second and Third Piano Sonatas, the Concerto for Orchestra, and the Third Symphony (I have great problems with Tippett's vocal writing in this period and after - so the Finale doesn't yet convince me personally - the operas and choral works repel me, too; but "natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability" sums up my reaction to the instrumental works of this time perfectly). The synthesis of the two earlier "periods" in his last works (starting with that wonderful gate-opening chord that starts the Fourth Symphony) also produced much, much wonderful Music - though still hose horrible (to me) "yo-ti-ho-ti-hoyata-hoe" vocal melismas.

But, yes - Tippett as CotW would be wonderful. (Something else those Forumistas who bemoan the lack of broadcasts of his Music can not listen to.)

Yes, that break is indeed marked by King Priam.

"Gone seems to be the natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability of the "Trotskyist period"", writes S_A. I don't understand that - and what in ay case is this "Trotskyist period" in musical terms and how is it defined as such? To me, the "natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability" of which S_A writes is present in all the works mentioned as well as the Third Quartet and Second Symphony; the Piano Concerto seems to me very much a part of that.

You write of "the Second and Third Piano Sonatas, the Concerto for Orchestra, and the Third Symphony" from that next period in Tippett's creative life; I find the Second Piano Sonata a very mixed bag of confusion and delight, the Third Piano Sonata the best work he ever wrote for piano solo, the Concerto for Orchestra as a brilliant showpieve but with so much more depth than such a description alone would convey and my feelings about the Third Symphony are, I fear, unprintable - so a far more inconsistent period, for me. Vision of St. Augustine comes from this time, too and that's a very sadly underappreciated work.

Tippett knew that he didn't possess Britten's "professionalism" and ease at his craft and almost admitted as much; for all his inconsistencies, however, I have no doubt as to which of the two was the greater composer...

[Serial_Apologist]

"Gone seems to be the natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability of the "Trotskyist period"", writes S_A. I don't understand that - and what in ay case is this "Trotskyist period" in musical terms and how is it defined as such? To me, the "natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability" of which S_A writes is present in all the works mentioned as well as the Third Quartet and Second Symphony; the Piano Concerto seems to me very much a part of that.

There's an awful lot more I'd need to find out about before trying to answer that question, ahinton. Long before he became a "Sir", Tippett would have been one of the earliest advocates of Trotsky, this being at a time when the show trials were little publicised in the West, and the few intrepid socialists, such as the Webbs, prepared to visit the Soviet Union and discover for themselves what it was all really about (and not about) largely kept schtum on the repressions and exterminations, of which Trotsky's was on the agenda. Such was the fraternality between radical thinkers in the late 1930s, especially in artistic circles, that Tippett maintained his friendship with Alan Bush, or so one hears, though my betting is that they would have had a few arguments over Tippett's choice of alignment! My own view fwiw is that Tippett's choice of a relatively uncomplicated musical idiom was one of temperamental affinity, rather than advocacy of Socialist Realist "music for the masses" aesthetics - which, to be fair, didn't really interest Bush until after the Zhdanov edicts in 1948, though from the latter's Piano Concerto he was audibly beginning to move in that direction.

[ahinton]

There's an awful lot more I'd need to find out about before trying to answer that question, ahinton. Long before he became a "Sir", Tippett would have been one of the earliest advocates of Trotsky, this being at a time when the show trials were little publicised in the West, and the few intrepid socialists, such as the Webbs, prepared to visit the Soviet Union and discover for themselves what it was all really about (and not about) largely kept schtum on the repressions and exterminations, of which Trotsky's was on the agenda. Such was the fraternality between radical thinkers in the late 1930s, especially in artistic circles, that Tippett maintained his friendship with Alan Bush, or so one hears, though my betting is that they would have had a few arguments over Tippett's choice of alignment! My own view fwiw is that Tippett's choice of a relatively uncomplicated musical idiom was one of temperamental affinity, rather than advocacy of Socialist Realist "music for the people" aesthetics - which, to be fair, didn't really interest Bush until after the Zhdanov edicts in 1948, though from the latter's Piano Concerto he was beginning to move in that direction.

Tippett's political thinking, though never less than sincerely felt, went through a number of vacillations. At one point in the 30s, he seemed to be quite an apologist (sorry!) for Mussolini yet by the early 40s he had become a committed pacifist and was soon to write A Child of our Time. His fraternity with Bush went deep; I remember an interview with John Amis in which he mentioned Tippett having responded to someone's enthusiasm for something in his Second Quartet by exclaiming "oh, I got that from Alan!). Alan Bush, whose piano concerto is one of the finest English works for the medium (notwithstanding the Randall Swingler doggerel that he set in its finale - and the fact that the excellence of Bush as a composer was such as to enable him somehow to overcome what would otherwise have been a black spot on a fine work speaks volumes), attracted encomia from Tippett. Bush's Communist sympathies found favour to far better effect in his four operas, not least the final one, Joe Hill: the man who never died, which his longstanding friend Sorabji (hardly a man of like persuasions) though to be the peak of his achievement. What you write in your last sentence pretty much sums this up, I think. Tippett's music has fallen on rather hard times, for some unaccountable reason; Bush's has never really courted or (sadly) found the limelight.

Not wishing to jump to the wrong conclusions, what specifically did you mean by Tippett's "choice of alignment" in the context of Alan Bush and what he might have made of it?

By the way, the Hindemith connection, undeniable though it is, can easily be overplayed, I think, a reliance on quartal harmony and figurations being a not insubstantial part of it; Elliott Carter's fine Piano Sonata of 1945-46 evidences something not dissimilar and is perhaps the closest that he and Tippett at around the same time ever came to one another...

[Serial_Apologist]

Not wishing to jump to the wrong conclusions, what specifically did you mean by Tippett's "choice of alignment" in the context of Alan Bush and what he might have made of it?

Such was the quasi-religious fervour in which full signed up Communist Party members and sympathisers like Beatrice and Sydney Webb held Stalin and the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, believing (among other things) it to be the world's saviour against fascism, that anybody not rushing to the "socialist" state's defense while proclaiming themselves of the left was likely to be seen as a class traitor and spy at worst and an imperialist lackey at best - a situation only changing with the anti-fascist wartime alliance between America and the USSR leading to the CPSU announcing a relationship of "peaceful co-existence" between the Communist and non-Communist worlds that would in principle be maintained until the fall of the Berlin Wall - notwithstanding which the bad blood didn't end there, as I well remember from my days of political activism in the 1970s!

[ahinton]

Such was the quasi-religious fervour in which full signed up Communist Party members and sympathisers like Beatrice and Sydney Webb held Stalin and the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, believing (among other things) it to be the world's saviour against fascism, that anybody not rushing to the "socialist" state's defense while proclaiming themselves of the left was likely to be seen as a class traitor and spy at worst and an imperialist lackey at best - a situation only changing with the anti-fascist wartime alliance between America and the USSR leading to the CPSU announcing a relationship of "peaceful co-existence" between the Communist and non-Communist worlds that would in principle be maintained until the fall of the Berlin Wall - notwithstanding which the bad blood didn't end there, as I well remember from my days of political activism in the 1970s!

That's as clear and thorough an answer as anyone could hope for! Many thanks.

By the way, RB's mention of "accompanimental" figurations ion the solo part reminds me of Shura Cherkassky who told an interviewer that, although he had learnt Busoni's Piano Concerto, he wouldn't perform it because he couldn't come to terms with such hard work accompanying the orchestra for around an hour only to end up accompanying the choir as well (I'm unaware that anyone's ever made a similar obsrvation about Bush's Piano Conceto)...