Tippett, Michael Kemp (1905 - 98)

[Pulcinella]

Actually I think that should help... I've always thought the last movement (apart from being an "answer" to Schiller/Beethoven) is such an original and affecting way to solve the problem of how a symphony might end, in both structural and expressive terms. Somehow for me when the voice enters it's always as if I'm hearing it for the first time. And the first three movements are fantastic of course.

That's an interesting and plausible suggestion, Richard.

In the CD player (not just in it; being played and listened to!) as I type:

Tippett: Symphony 3
Harper/LSO/Davis

[ahinton]

I live in the (admittedly not very high) hopes that he might persuade me that Tippett 3 is better than I think it is.
I didn't hear the broadcast.

I suspect that it's not too much to say that, if anyone could, he could - although frankly I despair of that work; its ambition and aims are undoubtedly huge but their effortful realisation just doesn't work for me and indeed never have done - and I have much admiration for a good deal of Tippett's work. That's only a personal opinion and not intended to be taken as any kind of value judgement, but it's one that repeated hearings over some 35 years have sadly done nothing to dislodge. Whilst I therefore cannot share Richard's enthusiasm for the work, I do share his high estimation of the conductor!

[Richard Barrett]

That's an interesting and plausible suggestion, Richard.

Good! I realise my opinion of this work isn't shared even by many of Tippett's admirers, and I've often wondered why that is - perhaps it has to do with it being not just a response to Beethoven, but also one to the more modern music of the 1960s (and specifically Boulez, as Tippett mentions in his writings), to which he would presumably been receiving a more thorough introduction at the time of the Symphony's conception and composition as a result of the (maybe somewhat Craft-like) influence of Meirion Bowen, with whom he had become close around then. While his music of the earlier 1960s like the Concerto for Orchestra is also formally disjunct and more abrasive in sound than his earlier work, the harmonies and timbres of the 3rd Symphony go considerably further in the direction of dissonance, further than many subsequent works like the 4th I would say. I'm not exactly sure but I think the 3rd was the first piece by Tippett I ever heard, and those features were never an issue as far as I was concerned, along with the idea of a work that explicitly questions the precepts of the "tradition" it appears to grow out of (that is to say the symphonic tradition).

[ahinton]

Good! I realise my opinion of this work isn't shared even by many of Tippett's admirers, and I've often wondered why that is - perhaps it has to do with it being not just a response to Beethoven, but also one to the more modern music of the 1960s (and specifically Boulez, as Tippett mentions in his writings), to which he would presumably been receiving a more thorough introduction at the time of the Symphony's conception and composition as a result of the (maybe somewhat Craft-like) influence of Meirion Bowen, with whom he had become close around then. While his music of the earlier 1960s like the Concerto for Orchestra is also formally disjunct and more abrasive in sound than his earlier work, the harmonies and timbres of the 3rd Symphony go considerably further in the direction of dissonance, further than many subsequent works like the 4th I would say. I'm not exactly sure but I think the 3rd was the first piece by Tippett I ever heard, and those features were never an issue as far as I was concerned, along with the idea of a work that explicitly questions the precepts of the "tradition" it appears to grow out of (that is to say the symphonic tradition).

That's an interesting prospect. I find the Concerto for Orchestra a wonderful and exciting piece, incidentally but, as for the Third Symphony going in the direction of dissonance more than the Fourth (which is true) I would suggest that much the same could be said of later works such as the Triple Concerto, The Mask of Time and so on which likewise seem to a point to inhabit - or at least espouse - earlier developments in Tippett's output and give them another new lease of life.

[Bryn]

Another outing for Tippett's early Symphony in B flat major this afternoon.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000114s

The 3rd and 4th (i.e fourth and fifth composed) to follow tomorrow and Friday. Brabbins will be in charge.

[Pulcinella]

Another outing for Tippett's early Symphony in B flat major this afternoon.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000114s

The 3rd and 4th (i.e fourth and fifth composed) to follow tomorrow and Friday. Brabbins will be in charge.

Thanks for the 'heads up', Bryn.
I wonder when the Hyperion releases will be; any idea?

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for the 'heads up', Bryn.
I wonder when the Hyperion releases will be; any idea?

Damn - missed it! Shall have to listen again, so thanks to Bryn for conveniently providing the link. This is the after-stress from going through the complexities of purchasing a new watch at Argus this morning!

[Lat-Literal]

Damn - missed it! Shall have to listen again, so thanks to Bryn for conveniently providing the link. This is the after-stress from going through the complexities of purchasing a new watch at Argus this morning!

Or perhaps Argos to be precise. I don't wear one but would comply if a Mickey Mouse one was shipped in from Disney. Always one willing to backtrack with a degree of magnanimity, I was always instinctively indifferent to MT. But I was listening to the wireless a few weeks ago to something that I only half recognised and thought "well, at least in this moment, this is good but what on earth is it?." It turned out to be "A Child of Our Time". Damn. Stances smashed up again. All I can deduce is that it was a significant variant on what I thought I knew.

[Serial_Apologist]

Or perhaps Argos to be precise. I don't wear one but would comply if a Mickey Mouse one was shipped in from Disney. Always one willing to backtrack with a degree of magnanimity, I was always instinctively indifferent to MT. But I was listening to the wireless a few weeks ago to something that I only half recognised and thought "well, at least in this moment, this is good but what on earth is it?." It turned out to be "A Child of Our Time". Damn. Stances smashed up again. All I can deduce is that it was a significant variant on what I thought I knew.

I'm afraid that, to me, for all its conscience and good intentions, "A Child of Our Time" could almost be anyone's music; that maybe explains it, Lat.

[Bryn]

Damn - missed it! Shall have to listen again, so thanks to Bryn for conveniently providing the link. This is the after-stress from going through the complexities of purchasing a new watch at Argus this morning!

I did not listen this afternoon. As I have mentioned before, I prefer to 'listen again' via the iPlayer. However, my guess would be that this was a repeat broadcast of the performance transmitted February 1st, this year.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I did not listen this afternoon. As I have mentioned before, I prefer to 'listen again' via the iPlayer. However, my guess would be that this was a repeat broadcast of the performance transmitted February 1st, this year.

I think they said it wasn't, but could be wrong. Was (again) impressed with the symphony though!

[jayne lee wilson]

I'm afraid that, to me, for all its conscience and good intentions, "A Child of Our Time" could almost be anyone's music; that maybe explains it, Lat.

I find Child of our Time very recognisably in Tippett's own distinctive voice, distinctively a part of Tippett's earlier mature works including the Double Concerto, Symphony No.1, Midsummer Marriage and Corelli Fantasia. It is a very direct, post-Romantic idiom which works wonderfully well with the Negro Spirituals used as classical-oratorio-model chorales in Child of Our Time. It is profoundly inspired melodically, and rhythmically very inventive and alive.

But then the work is for me one of the masterpieces of 20th Century Choral music, with a self-evident universal appeal, one which I almost always find emotionally devastating to listen to, almost unbearably so as we reach the Deep River chorale of its closing pages....
Those Spirituals are often in my head somewhere, as I go through my day; very moving, very memorable indeed; and always seem as fresh as the day I first heard them...

[Richard Barrett]

I'm afraid that, to me, for all its conscience and good intentions, "A Child of Our Time" could almost be anyone's music; that maybe explains it, Lat.

Indeed. For me Tippett's music comes into its own with his Second Symphony; I find some of the earlier pieces attractive but not really compelling. I'd rather have more recordings of the operas and later works than revisit the early ones.

[BBMmk2]

His last Orchestral work, for is a great summation of Tippet’s entire output, The Rose Lake.

[silvestrione]

I find Child of our Time very recognisably in Tippett's own distinctive voice, distinctively a part of Tippett's earlier mature works including the Double Concerto, Symphony No.1, Midsummer Marriage and Corelli Fantasia. It is a very direct, post-Romantic idiom which works wonderfully well with the Negro Spirituals used as classical-oratorio-model chorales in Child of Our Time. It is profoundly inspired melodically, and rhythmically very inventive and alive.

But then the work is for me one of the masterpieces of 20th Century Choral music, with a self-evident universal appeal, one which I almost always find emotionally devastating to listen to, almost unbearably so as we reach the Deep River chorale of its closing pages....
Those Spirituals are often in my head somewhere, as I go through my day; very moving, very memorable indeed; and always seem as fresh as the day I first heard them...

Nicely put, Jane. I, for one, agree with you all the way (except the choruses are a little four-square, but then it is an early work (though not in terms of his age)).

(P S would have it before The Rose Lake any day, where the inspiration seems to me a little thin)