Michael Tippett

English Composer

About Michael Tippett

Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as one of the leading British composers of the 20th century. Among his best-known works are the oratorio A Child of Our Time, the orchestral Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli, and the opera The Midsummer Marriage.

Tippett’s talent developed slowly. He withdrew or destroyed his earliest compositions, and was 30 before any of his works were published. Until the mid-to-late 1950s his music was broadly lyrical in character, before changing to a more astringent and experimental style. New influences–including those of jazz and blues after his first visit to America in 1965–became increasingly evident in his compositions. While Tippett’s stature with the public continued to grow, not all critics approved of these changes in style, some believing that the quality of his work suffered as a consequence. From around 1976 his late works began to reflect the works of his youth through a return to lyricism. Although he was much honoured in his lifetime, critical judgement on Tippett’s legacy has been uneven, the greatest praise generally reserved for his earlier works. His centenary in 2005 was a muted affair; apart from the few best-known works, his music has not been performed frequently in the 21st century.

Having briefly embraced communism in the 1930s, Tippett avoided identifying with any political party. A pacifist after 1940, he was imprisoned in 1943 for refusing to carry out war-related duties required by his military exemption. His initial difficulties in accepting his homosexuality led him in 1939 to Jungian psychoanalysis; the Jungian dichotomy of “shadow” and “light” remained a recurring factor in his music. He was a strong advocate of music education, and was active for much of his life as a radio broadcaster and writer on music.

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Quotes by Michael Tippett

Beethoven suppressed everything, his personal life disappeared until he was locked inside. That is a figure quite extreme.

Michael Tippett

Characters are an extreme form in Shakespeare’s theater.

Michael Tippett

Conductors don’t suffer, they are part of the performance.

Michael Tippett

I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that modern music and modern art is not a conspiracy, but is a form of truth and integrity for those who practise it honestly, decently and with all their being.

Michael Tippett

I remain a humanist. We are a very curious race.

Michael Tippett

I think we’re all pretty odd.

Michael Tippett

I’m outside the music I’ve made. I have no interest in it.

Michael Tippett

I’ve seldom become nostalgic or settled.

Michael Tippett

Music is a performance and needs the audience.

Michael Tippett

Music is a performing art, as any Native American will tell you. It isn’t there in the score.

Michael Tippett

Music remains the most strange of the materials because we don’t understand what happens when music moves you.

Michael Tippett

My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.

Michael Tippett

Nature has different times.

Michael Tippett

Poetry is fascinating. As soon as it begins the poetry has changed the thing into something extra, and somehow prose can go over into poetry.

Michael Tippett

Public notice does not necessarily accord with internal fulfilment.

Michael Tippett

Shakespeare fascinated me. He hardly ever left the country. His imagination was worldwide though reading.

Michael Tippett

Shiva danced the world into existence… that’s a very nice thought.

Michael Tippett

The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It’s probably the music that belongs most to our time.

Michael Tippett

The Greek sculptor – I don’t think he was very different from any of us.

Michael Tippett

The nearest figure to myself would be Shakespeare.

Michael Tippett

This is something special. You can attempt to have a kind of non-living music.

Michael Tippett

When we use terms we get confused, yet we have no other way.

Michael Tippett